Kathleen and Bill Haas outside of Sweet Willy's Pizzeria on Sand Creek Road in Colonie on Wednesday, Sept. 2. (Jim Franco/Spotlight News)
COLONIE — The owners of a popular pizzeria on Sand Creek Road are looking forward to reopening after a car drove through their front window and say things could have been a lot worse.
A note on the pizzeria’s Facebook page posted on Thursday, said it would re-open as of Friday, Sept. 4, at no later than 4 p.m.
“We are glad nobody got hurt,” said Bill Haas, who owns the building at the intersection of Sand Creek Road and Old Myers Drive that houses Sweet Willy’s Pizzeria with his wife Kathleen. “This could have been a lot worse than it is.”
The crushed remains of a booth run over by a car after it plowed through the front window of Sweet Willy’s Pizzeria (Jim Franco/Spotlight News)
On Sunday, Aug. 30, a newly permitted driver was pulling out of Old Myers Drive when she inexplicably swung what is essentially a U-turn and drove right through the pizzeria’s front window.
The family has contacted its insurance company and town inspe2ctors say the building is structurally sound. They were waiting on personnel from the Health Department to give it an OK to open and then they will re-build the front of the building.
The shop was closed on Sunday when the accident happened, and the restaurant portion has been closed since mid-March because of COVID-19. Business has been good, Kathleen Haas said, with deliveries and customers utilizing a pickup window around the side of the building.
Kathleen Haas was in her kitchen on Sand Creek Road across Old Myers Drive from the pizza shop at the time of the accident. She looked out her window and saw the couple with their two children standing into the parking lot looking at the front of the building.
“I thought the building was on fire and then someone banged on the door and told me someone drove into the building,” she said. “It’s a mess. But we are grateful nobody got hurt. A building we can fix. You can’t replace a life.”
The car smashed through the front window and completely ran over a booth where both Kathleen and Bill Haas often sit. As a preventative measure, the family plans on installing protective bollards along the front of the building.
The Haas family has been serving food and spirits along Sand Creek Road for more than 100 years. Across the street from Sweet Willy’s, in what is now a residential home, was the Polly Wog inn, which was owned by the father of Bill Haas, Jake. A sign hangs prominently in Sweet Willy’s advertising a Saturday night chicken supper and dance on Oct. 27, 1934. Tickets were going for 50 cents.
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