Ray’s Smokehouse on Lindsey Street is commonly known as a restaurant where one either orders take out or dines in, but Tuesday afternoon, a customer gave a new meaning to the word drive-through.
Around 3 p.m., a dark red Toyota Camry drove into the east entrance of Ray’s, creating a large hole in the side of the building that went into the kitchen area and pushed the front customer service counter 3 feet from its original position against the east wall.
“No one was hurt,” said Darrol Ray, owner and manager of Ray’s. “After we saw that the only thing damaged was the building, we began to look at the situation and even tell some jokes.”
Ray said the damage to the building cut the kitchen off from the customer area, and the only way to serve customers was to walk around the building.
“I hope that we’ll be closed for just a day or two at the most, but we could be closed for a week,” he said. “It just depends on when the hole will be patched.”
After a few phone calls, Ray and his employees began to take the situation in stride and started closing procedures.
“We always thought of putting in a drive-thru, but I think if we do put one in now, we’ll call it a drive-around,” Ray said.
Ray said the elderly woman who drove the car into the building accidentally hit the gas pedal instead of the brakes. He said she is a faithful customer, and even after the accident, placed an order for a slab of ribs.
“She loves our ribs so much that she just drove on in to get herself a bite,” he said.
Darrol Ray played free safety for OU from 1976 to 1979, and then played five seasons for the New York Jets.
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TheJR 2 years, 10 months ago
Glad he had such a sense of humor about it - that's quite a bit of lost revenue!