While many among us have been cursing the recent volumes of snowfall across Michigan’s Great Southwest, you’ll have to forgive Timothy Sizer for being thankful for the sizable snow banks that have accumulated in recent weeks in front of his popular Harbor Country restaurant because that snow might well have saved his business from a major disruption instead of the single night impact resulting from an out of control car.
Sizer owns and operates Timothy’s Restaurant at 16409 Red Arrow Highway in Union Pier. His business had not yet opened for the day Sunday when an elderly couple northbound on Red Arrow apparently lost control when hitting a slush pile and careened off the roadway, narrowly missing the wine store next to Timothy’s, through ground shrubbery and smashed into the restaurant’s kitchen air handling system before coming to rest against the front of the building.
Sizer says police estimate the elderly couple was traveling at least 50 miles per hour when the vehicle left the road, and had it not been for the sheer volume of the snowbanks at the front of the building accumulated from several plowings, the car likely would have punched through the wall and into the kitchen. Fortunately, it did not, and most of the damage was cosmetic in nature.
The accident did, however, clip a key gas line that operates the kitchen’s air handling system forcing the restaurant to remain closed for the day, losing a full night of business. Timothy is working now to come up with parts for the system to get it back into operation soon.
The restaurant, which is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays during winter hours, will re-open for business as usual at 5pm on Wednesday, “without question,” says Sizer. Inasmuch as nobody was in the building yet at the time of the accident around 1pm Sunday, there were no injuries to restaurant personnel. The elderly couple was taken to the hospital and later released without any major injuries reported. Their car, however, was totaled in the wreck.
Timothy says, “It could have been a lot worse, and we’re thankful that it wasn’t.” Had the restaurant been open and operating, everybody would have been forced to evacuate, and the economic impact could have been far worse. Additionally, the protective snow banks kept the restaurant safe from considerably worse damage had the car entered the building’s kitchen, it likely cushioned the driver and passenger from more serious injury as well.
Ironically, the incident happened less than 24 hours after a similar incident a couple of hundred yards away on Red Arrow Highway in which a car was forced off the roadway by a drunken driver and that car ended up in the middle of a small service repair shop near the intersection of Red Arrow and Union Pier Road. The irony even extends to the fact that both businesses, Timothy’s and the service repair shop, are insured by Insurance Management Services of St. Joseph, so they’ve had a busy time in the neighborhood.
The photo accompanying this story on Moody on the Market.com is courtesy of Timothy’s General Manager John Gerbel. It shows first responders at the scene of Sunday’s accident at Timothy’s Restaurant in Union Pier.
Once again, the restaurant will return to its regular service on Wednesday evening at 5pm, as scheduled, and Tim hopes to see you there.
