An elderly man drove his car into the dining room of Ariake, a Japanese restaurant in Fairfax, on Friday, April 4. The incident occurred around noon, just as the lunchtime rush was about to start.
About 15 customers were inside Ariake at the time of the accident, Shiho Norris, the restaurant’s manager says. An 86-year-old man who was attempting to park in a handicap space hit the gas pedal instead of the brake.
The Accident
The acceleration sent the car over a parking block and curb and into a brick wall with a large window. Broken bricks skidded across the floor and the window fell in. Debris fell on the back of a chair where someone had been sitting. That guest was taken to the hospital for an assessment and released, Norris says, but no one else was hurt.
The table against the impacted section of wall had been empty.
“Friday lunch can be busy, so good thing it was early enough [before the crowds came],” Norris says. “I heard a bang, and then I saw the window falling. It was kind of slowly falling, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh!’ It was just a big bang, and then got dusty [from the displaced bricks].”
“I was sitting inside Ariake drinking a green tea,” says Lori Pines, an Arlington resident. “I had just greeted [my friends] when we heard the crash. I saw the window on the ground and was very scared someone would be dead or badly injured. I was afraid to look, because it wasn’t clear if someone had been sitting at the table against the windows,” she says.
A quick look around revealed a surprisingly calm scene. “Everybody came to help — the other customers came to help,” Norris says.
Witnesses say the driver and his wife, who was in the passenger seat, were unharmed. After assessing the damage briefly, the man got back into his car and backed it out of the restaurant. Then he got out again and went inside the restaurant.
“I don’t know if he knew what was going on,” Norris says. “They didn’t say what happened, but … I don’t think they should be driving.”
Damage Assessment
Customers arriving to pick up orders still went in, but Norris says the restaurant closed for the remaining lunch service. Firefighters inspected the damage and found no structural faults, so the staff cleaned up the mess and covered the gaping hole in the restaurant’s front with plywood. Ariake was open again for dinner.
Norris didn’t have a cost estimate for the damage and repairs but says the wall should be rebuilt and the window replaced in three to four weeks.
That might be faster than it will take Pines to feel comfortable about sitting near a window when she heads out to eat. “Not sure how long I will feel this way, but I definitely don’t think a window table —particularly anywhere near cars — is the preferred table anymore,” she says.
Other Local Incidents
Vehicles crash into buildings more often than it might seem. About 100 such incidents happen every day, according to the Storefront Safety Council. In almost half — 41 percent — of the incidents, pedal or operator error is to blame.
“We do sometimes see cases like this, and it usually involves someone elderly where they maybe were forgetful and didn’t realize that the car was in drive or reverse, etc.,” says Katie Watts, an officer with the Fairfax County Police Department’s Public Affairs Bureau.
Our area has seen its share of such accidents in the past nine months. A tractor-trailer hit a Woodbridge condo building last December, Fairfax’s Bagel Joy had to delay its grand opening after a driver slammed into the storefront last summer, and a car crashed into a Bank of America in Stafford County on March 28.
“We were lucky enough to not experience that for seven years since we opened,” Norris says. “I guess it’s like a wakeup call; we have to be careful.”
Norris says Ariake’s owner plans to install poles at the top of the parking spots that abut the building.
Feature image courtesy Stephanie Kanowitz
