Demolished restaurant owner hopes to reopen soon

For Miro Sourour, the owner of the Mikes Restaurant on St. Charles Boulevard in Kirkland that was recently heavily damaged when an elderly customer accidentally drove through its front door, it remains nothing short of a miracle that nobody died. "Seven seconds later and he would have been dead," Sourour said, pointing to a man leaping out of the vehicle's way and a counter hurtling toward him that wound up bruising his arm, as he reviewed security footage capturing the shocking accident on his computer in a back store office.

The incident occurred July 19, when Sourour said he was meeting his brother-in-law and sister for brunch. He pointed out the two walking to a table at the restaurant. "We were supposed to sit at the table next to the door," explained Sourour. "Then they changed their minds," he added.

That table where they would have sat is just one of several pieces of furniture a 1989 Honda Accord tore through.

The driver, an 88-year-old Beaconsfield resident, according to Montreal Police media relations officer Olivier Lapointe, hurtled through the restaurant after accidentally hitting a sidewalk curb in front of its entrance when she hit her accelerator instead of her brake.

Sourour said the woman is a regular client of his, and she was coming to meet a group of friends who all attend Beaconsfield United Church. "It's a drive-through now," quipped Sourour of the restaurant.

After entering the restaurant, the car first hit a table and booth directly to the right of the front door, then struck the aforementioned counter in the centre which injured a man, and then stopped only after completely smashing another booth and halfway through a last one.

As the security footage played, Sourour indicated how he and his staff quickly managed to evacuate the surprised patrons and look for any wounded. "I'm so sorry for what I did to your restaurant," he said the elderly woman told him when she emerged from the car unhurt, but shaken.

He said they served her some fruits and sat her down.

Sourour is hoping to re-open the restaurant sometime in September, though he said a total renovation is necessary. "I don't have a dollar amount," he said about the damages. "You can't match the pattern of the tables," he added, explaining he would have to replace all of his tables and chairs because of the few that were destroyed.

Sourour is also planning on re-opening as a Trattoria Di Mikes, with a new logo and style that emphasizes the Italian aspect of the Mikes chain. "A lot of people think Mikes is fast-food, but it's not," he said. The transformation is one that all Mikes restaurants will eventually undergo.

His own restaurant was originally meant to remain under the current model for two more years, but will now be changed sooner due to the accident, he said. "Nobody was seriously hurt during the accident," said Lapointe.

In fact, the man who leapt out of the car's way and had his arm bruised could be seen back at the restaurant on some more security footage later, dressed in a blue hospital gown as he surveyed the damages.