Car Violently Rams Into Chop Shop on Colfax

On the wee hours of Saturday morning not much after 4 a.m., Chop Shop Casual Urban Eatery was the scene of a hit and run car wreck. A most likely intoxicated driver traveling on Colfax flew over the median, took out a traffic sign and a wooden telephone pole, then rammed into the patio of the small restaurant owned by chef Clint Wangsnes.

The impact "shredded the patio and busted to the side door" of the neighborhood spot, Wangsnes said. The driver got out and walked away mostly unscathed. The chef watched the incident on the his security cameras. "We have footage of him. He got out and was back into the alleyway where we park. He stayed there and looked at his hands," he explained.

The driver whose identity is still unknown left the scene. Later on police came and towed the car. Wangsnes estimates that the damage is around 10 k.

By 3 p.m. on Saturday, Chop Shop was open. "We had some tools and I just went to town. We cut off the middle pieces of our patio, put the tables in the trash, and dumped a lot of kitty litter over there to suck up the spilled engine oil then power-washed the area," Wangsnes says. "We are happy no one got hurt. We were able to recover and regroup right away, but this was definitely a conversation piece this weekend in the neighborhood."