Staff returned to work on Monday morning to find one of the front windows had been smashed and their tip jar gone.

Owner Lauren Struczko said the thief would not have got more than $15, but the break-in had left her with a hefty repair bill for the window.

“They smashed the stained-glass one, which was original with the building,” she said. “I am not going to be able to replace it. 

“They have used a brick from right out the front.”

The barber shop is one of many businesses trying to operate with construction right outside as work continues on The Levee.

It appeared the thief had grabbed one of the loose pavers from the work site and used it to break in.

“This mess has been here for four weeks,” Ms Struczko said of the incomplete sidewalk at the front of her shop.

“I said, ‘you watch, it is only a matter of time before someone puts a brick through the window’.”

The robbery happened some time between close of business on Saturday and 8am Monday, April 20.

The thief would have had to pull himself up through the window, more than two metres off the ground, to get in and out of the shop, because the main door had been dead-bolted.

The barber shop is one of several businesses in central Maitland that has been broken into in recent months. 

Angry shopkeepers in the CBD want more police patrols after a spate of break-ins and thefts in The Levee and central Maitland.

CBD shops burgled include The Barber Shop, Hair at Sweethearts, Gracefull Beauty, the Maitland Presbyterian Opportunity Shop, MP Spa and Beauty, SEKT Hair and Body, and RNB Hair and Beauty.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.