Manchester police are investigating after someone smashed windows and spray-painted swastikas and a white supremacist message on the walls of The Moka Pot in downtown Manchester, New Hampshire, sometime overnight. The graffiti had been painted over by the next morning, but the incident continued to affect staff and regulars.
Police believe the vandalism happened sometime between midnight and 4 a.m. Wednesday, according to NBC Boston. Officers were notified around 6:45 a.m. about offensive language and hate symbols spray-painted outside the business. The graffiti reportedly included the phrase “white power” alongside swastikas, per the Boston Globe. Police are investigating the incident as a possible hate crime and have notified the New Hampshire Department of Justice's Civil Rights Unit.
Owners Say Shop Remains a Safe Space
The Moka Pot's owners said they were shocked and angry but emphasized that the shop remains a safe space for everyone, according to NBC Boston. The business stayed open Wednesday and held its regular chess night.
Manchester Police Chief Peter Marr said officers are treating the incident very seriously, per the station's report. Anyone with information that could help the investigation is asked to call Manchester police.
Community Reaction Runs From Tears to Defiance
Community members described the vandalism as painful and said it would not outweigh the neighborhood's support for the coffee shop, according to NBC Boston.
Manchester Mayor Jay Ruais said the vandalism does not represent his city and vowed that the person responsible will be caught, the station's report noted.
Part of a Wider Pattern Across New Hampshire
The attack on The Moka Pot echoes a 2023 vandalism spree in Portsmouth that hit a synagogue, a coffee shop and other downtown businesses with swastikas and hateful graffiti, as the Boston Globe reported. That February 2023 wave, detailed by Seacoastonline, targeted Temple Israel, a coffee shop owned by the city's assistant mayor, who is Black, and at least 13 other businesses, with Portsmouth police confirming at least 14 buildings had been hit with swastikas, crosses and the Star of David. More than a year later, in April 2024, several Star of David stained-glass windows at a Portsmouth synagogue were smashed with a hammer, according to the Anti-Defamation League's New England office.
Extremist activity has also surfaced more visibly in the state's capital. In August 2025, roughly 20 masked people carrying swastika flags marched across the New Hampshire State House plaza in Concord and later clashed with passersby downtown, New Hampshire Public Radio reported. Researchers who study extremism identified the group as Blood Tribe, which they describe as a neo-Nazi organization.
The Anti-Defamation League's New England office recorded 638 antisemitic incidents involving assault, harassment or vandalism across the region in 2024, a fifth consecutive annual record. Of those, 81 had a documented extremist nexus, including 73 involving white supremacist propaganda.
What the state data can — and cannot — show
The same Anti-Defamation League audit recorded 53 antisemitic incidents in New Hampshire in 2024 and reported a 51 percent increase in the state from 2023 to 2024. The audit counts incidents reported to the organization, including assault, harassment and vandalism, rather than only criminally proven hate crimes. Those figures are broader measures than this single vandalism case and should not be treated as a determination of the motive or legal status of the Moka Pot incident. The information cited here also does not provide a directly comparable Federal Bureau of Investigation count, so the datasets should not be merged or used to establish a statewide trend from this case alone.
No arrests have been announced in the Moka Pot case as of Wednesday. For now, the shop's response has been to keep its doors open, its chessboards out, and its message simple: everyone is welcome.
