CLEANING UP ROSIE'S

Elyria Township – Although Rosie’s Family Restaurant was closed today after last night’s ceiling collapse the joint was jumpin with people.

Rosie, together with employee’s, family and friends were busy working to restore order to the restaurant. One of those helping out today was waitress Vikkie Lamphear, Lamphear said that it was a normal evening in the restaurant Monday night. “Everything was going well, we were just working and nothing was out of the ordinary. Then I started hearing noises and at first I just thought it was the door but then all of a sudden down comes the ceiling. I was standing behind the counter and the ceiling hit the counter, so that is how close I was when it came down.”

Lamphear said that she quickly called 9-1-1 to report the crash then started checking on her customers. “I knew right where two of my customers were but I couldn’t get to them from where I was so I had to go out the back door and around to the front door to get to them. I help one guy out by getting him over a table and then another was in a spot where we had to move a table and some other stuff to get him out.”

Waitress Kay Chaffin was also working Monday night and was in the supply room when the ceiling collapsed. “I found out when Vikkie came in and was on the phone with 9-1-1 so I called Rosie right away to let her know what happened. Then we went to make sure everyone was ok and not trapped. We had to crawl on the floor to find some of the people and we first made sure they were ok then we helped them get out of the building.”

Chaffin said there was one customer that was trapped behind the pie case; “We felt it was best not to move him or anything around him – we didn’t want to cause anymore damage or have anything else fall so we waited for the Firefighters and they took care of getting him outside.”

The restaurant’s insurance agent and insurance adjusters were on the scene along with a construction firm sizing up the damage and investigating the cause. The adjuster and agent said that it is still too soon to say what caused the ceiling to come down the way it did.

If there was a silver lining to all of this it was what Rosie and her crew did today. All of the food that was in the restaurant has been donated to local charities. Lamphear said they delivered food to the Catholic Charities, Meals on Wheels and other organizations today.

To see more photos: CLICK HERE