TAMPA, Fla. — If you walked into New York, New York Pizza in Ybor City late Sunday afternoon, the site of busy workers and hungry customers may not have looked like it, but it was a tough day fate served up for Alicia Duffy and her staff.

Hours earlier, two people were killed, including a 14-year-old boy, and 16 others injured in a shooting near the pizzeria on 7th Avenue.

“We were kind of just running with a skeleton crew to get through the day,” Duffy said. “We had the front shut down. It was a crime scene until about 3:00 p.m.”

Her business was one of many forced to stay close much of the day because they were on the wrong side of the yellow tape, inside the shooting crime scene.

Duffy and her crew were there Sunday morning when the shots rang out, forcing them to go from serving food to survival mode.

“I pulled my whole staff to the back,” she said. “You don’t want anybody near windows. It’s unfortunate because people were screaming and trying to get in, but I can’t…and at our back door, people were trying to break in the back door. I know people were scared, but we’re also scared.”

Duffy has worked at NY, NY Pizza for 14 of the 17 years it’s been in business in Ybor City and she said she has never been so frightened. She said it wasn’t the first time she’s heard gunfire whizzing by her storefront.

“There’s no getting used to it,” Duffy said. “If anything, you just try to make sure you’re doing all the right things, making sure you’re protecting who you can protect.”

She said they plan to keep doing what they do best and for customers like Joey Caines, that’s more than enough reason to come back. 

“You’re not going to take my good time,” Caines said while enjoying a slice of pizza. “You got to keep living.”