Woman Crashes Car Through Restaurant Window; 11 Hurt

A woman who apparently stepped on the accelerator instead of the brake smashed her car through the front window of a popular Woodland Hills eatery, injuring 11 people--two seriously--and sending terrified diners diving for cover.

Sadie Gates, 71, of Sun Valley had just finished dinner at the Cheesecake Factory on Canoga Avenue about 6:45 p.m. Saturday. As she backed out of the restaurant’s parking lot, Gates said she hit the wrong pedal and sent her mint-green Honda Civic hurtling backward through the window.

Patrons said the wall of shattering glass obscured the car until it was entirely inside the crowded restaurant. The vehicle stopped when it hit a column next to the hostess stand in the waiting area.

“It was like out of weird dream,” said Mark Weinstein, 34, of Venice. “You saw the windows just explode, but couldn’t see the car at first. You had to think it was a bomb or a sniper.”

Others thought that it was an earthquake.

“The sound it made coming through was alarming to everyone in the restaurant,” said Diana Fair, general manager. “Our first inclination was that it was an earthquake, and some panic rippled through the restaurant.”

Several diners dived under tables or scurried out of the restaurant.

Most of the injured were standing at the front of the restaurant, waiting to be seated. Weinstein said he pushed his mother and girlfriend out of the way, but got pinned between the car and a bench.

He was freed by restaurant employees and customers, who also lifted the car so that another worker could crawl underneath to look for injured patrons.

Weinstein and six others were taken to hospitals, and paramedics treated the rest of the injured for minor injuries at the restaurant, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Bob Collis said.

Neither Gates nor her two passengers were injured.

“I was scared,” said Gates, who was not cited in the accident. “I don’t know if I just got excited and stepped on the gas instead of the brake. I think I just got excited.”

Restaurant managers cleared the eatery after the crash, and employees began serving food about two hours later after the car had been towed away and glass had been swept up.

“We were packed and people didn’t even know what had happened,” Fair said. “They were just saying, ‘It’s pretty breezy in here.’ ”

The front of the restaurant remained boarded up Sunday as managers assessed the damage.

“The drive-through comments are rampant today and the one-liners are flying,” Fair said. “When the lobby looks like a Honda showroom, it’s a bizarre scene.”

Times staff writer Henry Chu contributed to this article.