Casa Del Sol Co-owner Jerry Michael surveys damage to the restaurant Friday after a car crashed into the building earlier that morning. (Enterprise photo — Lauren Yates)

SARANAC LAKE — A driver crashed into the Casa del Sol restaurant in Saranac Lake early Friday morning, breaking through part of a window and a wall on the south-facing side of the building. But as construction crews worked throughout the day Friday to haul away the wreckage and rebuild a temporary wall, restaurant manager Rick Bromley said he hoped to reopen the restaurant to patrons as soon as Friday night.

Saranac Lake Police Chief Darin Perrotte said officers reported to Casa del Sol at 3:55 a.m. for a motor vehicle accident. The driver was identified as Maria Cano, 24, of Tupper Lake. Police found that she’d been driving with a blood alcohol content level greater than .08%. No one was injured in the crash, according to Saranac Lake Volunteer Fire Department Chief Brendan Keough.

Perrotte said Cano had been driving home to Tupper Lake from Lake Placid — where she’d allegedly been drinking — when she veered out of the lane and struck Casa del Sol. Cano was taken into custody at 4:45 a.m. to complete a chemical instrument test at the Saranac Lake Police Department after completing a field sobriety test. Cano was charged with common-law driving while intoxicated and a per se DWI, both misdemeanors, as well as moving from a lane unsafely, a violation. She was processed and released on appearance tickets to the North Elba Town Court. Perrotte said she’s scheduled to appear in court on Jan. 24.

Perrotte said Cano was driving with Monique Lemieux, 23, of Tupper Lake in the passenger seat. Lemieux was not charged with anything. Cano was driving a 2017 Kia sedan registered in Florida, according to Perrotte.

–

Fire, owner response

–

SLVFD responded to the scene at 4:01 a.m. Friday with one truck and six firefighters. Jerry Michael, who co-owns the restaurant with Tug Duffy and Tim Reilly, said he opened the building for inspection by the fire department, which checked the building and the car for fire and other safety hazards. Finding none, the department was back in service at 5:42 a.m.

Late Friday morning, Michael pointed out tire marks in a snow bank next to the restaurant’s entrance that led to tire marks in a wooden beam separating the Casa del Sol parking lot from the building, showing where Cano hopped the curb while traveling northbound on Lake Flower Avenue before hitting the building. The window had been reduced to a border of glass shards, and the building’s cement wall had crumbled at the base.

Michael said the building owners’ insurance company told them to enclose the hole in the side of the building as quickly as possible — the company said that any further damage to the building, like rain damage, wouldn’t be covered by insurance. Weather forecasts are predicting both rain and snow in Saranac Lake this weekend.

“We want to get this all buttoned up,” Michael said.

Michael hoped that the temporary wall would go up by end of day Friday, and if it did, Bromley thought he could “definitely” open the restaurant on Friday night.

A construction crew with Duffy’s Builders was seen hauling away cement blocks — remnants of the restaurant’s wall — and glass shards from the window on Friday morning. Through the hole in the restaurant’s side window, a neon sign reading “Buenos Dias” was still intact. Michael said the sign is a piece of the restaurant’s history, and he instructed crews to be careful around it as they passed rubble from inside the building through the window and into a dumpster outside.

Casa del Sol is the second-oldest restaurant in Saranac Lake, according to Michael — the oldest is the Belvedere Restaurant, he said. Michael and his fellow owners bought the building, and the Casa del Sol name, around 10 years ago, and he said the restaurant has been named “Casa del Sol” since it opened in 1978.

This isn’t the first time that someone has driven into the side of Casa del Sol, according to Keough. He said that sometime in the last year, a driver who had been parked in the restaurant’s rear lot had “hit the gas instead of the break” and driven into the back side of the building.

—

This is a breaking news story. More details will be added to this story as they become available.