FORT MILL, S.C. — A Fort Mill restaurant is back open after a car drove through the building on April 3, forcing it to close.
In a Facebook post, the restaurant said it was "back to normal hours," and asked if patrons could "please excuse our mess while we get the accident cleaned up."
Following the incident, Flipside Cafe management stated the driver had a medical emergency and drove into the restaurant. Employees and guests were injured.
“Looks like the driver had some injuries, our staff had a few bumps and bruises, we had one guest with a broken leg," chef and owner of The Flipside Cafe John Fortes said.
The following Monday, do not cross tape and left-over brick caused a complicated clean-up from a crazy crash.
From the pandemic to the labor shortage, and the fact that this is the second time a car has crashed into one of Fortes' businesses, he's still in shock.
"I’m not an emotional guy but I got very emotional about it yesterday, it was tough," Fortes said.
Tough, in part, because it could've been worse.
“The amount of people that were here, my son was in the building, our family was in the building, every guest that walks in -- we always call them a Flipsiders -- they were here, and someone was injured, and if we can control it, in the future we're going to get some guards up here to make sure this doesn't happen again,” Fortes said.
Now, it's the waiting game as they wait to see how much the damage costs.
"We're going to get through this somehow, it will be by the support of everyone coming out the restaurant when we get back open hopefully," Fortes said.
Fortes told WCNC Charlotte they hope to reopen on Thursday.
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