REGIONAL- A popular Island Lake restaurant and bar celebrated Independence Day and a bit more on Monday, reopening for the holiday weekend after a vehicle driven by a Tower man crashed into the building last week.
Jens Hort, 36, of Tower, was driving to work in Duluth at about 7 a.m. Wednesday, June 29 when he reported falling asleep at the wheel, leaving Rice Lake Rd. and plowing into the Island Lake Inn, according to a St. Louis County Sherriff’s Office press release. Hort and a cleaning woman inside the building at the time escaped serious injury.
The cleaning woman called Island Lake Inn co-owner Sam Spears within minutes of the incident.
“Thank goodness she was not in that part of the building at the time,” Spears said. “She hit the alarm right away and then gave us a call. When I heard our bar got hit by a car, I’m like it can’t be actually that much. I did not expect to see a car in our building.”
Hort was wearing a seat belt and his airbags deployed, and he did not require any medical treatment, according to the sheriff’s office report.
“I was told he just had minor bruises,” Spears said.
The restaurant sits just off the road on a sharp curve just before it crosses Island Lake, and Hort’s vehicle failed to make the curve, driving straight into the building’s north side, leaving a gaping hole.
“It’s a pretty harsh turn and the barriers aren’t enough with what they’ve got,” Spears said. “The county came out that day and the told us they’re going to put up a larger, stronger barrier.”
“Most of the damage was to our bathrooms,” Spears continued, although debris was scattered throughout the bar. “The sink was sheared off and a bunch of piping was bent up. We’ve had to strip it down and completely redo it.”
The challenge was to get the restaurant up and running again before the Fourth of July weekend, what Spears said is “always our busiest weekend of the summer, no question about it.”
And for that, he had plenty of help.
“There were people here before I was able to get here,” Spears said. “We had employees who showed up early to help out and couple of contractors are regulars themselves and they were here right away.”
With all of the help, Island Lake Inn reopened for business that Friday afternoon, although there’s still plenty of work to do to finish repairs.
“This is the fourth time this building has been hit by a car, and this was the worst one,” Spears said. “I hope this is the fourth and final time.”
Spears said they’ll likely be talking about this for a long time, and there’s a piece of memorabilia that will likely spark many future conversations.
“We collected a side mirror from the car and that’s going to be mounted on the wall,” he said.
The sheriff’s report noted that Hort showed no signs of impairment and alcohol and drugs were not suspected to be contributing factors. The total cost of the damage has yet to be determined.