Bonita restaurant owner cleaning up after car crashes inside

BONITA SPRINGS, Fla.- Just as season begins, instead of bringing in a bigger paycheck, restaurant employees at Old 41 Restaurant are now cleaning up a huge mess. A car plowed right through the front window, injuring five and causing weeks of clean up.

“We’re just picking up in season, the tourists are starting to come back and we were starting to come back from the lulls of summer. It will definitely affect our business,” said owner Tony Backos.

Backs spent the day assessing the damage to tables, chairs, walls and the front window.

“I was in the kitchen getting ready to run food out and all I heard was what sounded like, I thought a plane crashed in the parking lot. A loud, loud explosion,” said Backos.

A manager suffered the most severe injury, his leg broken in multiple places.

“I looked out and then saw a Lincoln coming through the dining room and I followed it. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t open the door. There wasn’t much I could do other than try to get people out of the way,” said Backos.

Backos says the driver of that car was a customer who got his foot caught on the accelerator.

“He actually had a fender bender with somebody else first. He went into an SUV. After that he must have gotten rattled and at that point he put it in forward his foot got stuck on the pedals and he just kept accelerating and he couldn’t stop literally all the way to the back of the restaurant,” said Backos.

The driver was cited for careless driving. He tells WINK News it was an honest accident.