Car swerves to avoid collision, crashes into Halifax coffee shop

A Halifax coffee shop had an unexpected visitor Sunday morning when a car crashed into their front stairwell.

The collision happened at the Uncommon Grounds on South Park street around 8:20 a.m., according to Halifax Regional Police.

"It was like this crazy, crazy, loud noise," said Jakob Conrad, a barista who was working at the time.

"And then I mean, I don't think anybody expected to see a car flying into our stairs."

Conrad said the red SUV crashed through railings and ended up perched on its front end inside the stairwell leading to the caf.

The two people in the car, a driver and passenger, were able to get out on their own and wait on the side of the road for police and paramedics, Conrad said.

Staff Sgt. Tanya Chambers-Spriggs confirmed a vehicle driving down South Park Street crashed into the business after swerving to avoid another car coming through from Victoria Road.

That car had stopped at the stop sign, but then drove into the intersection without yielding to the first car which had the right of way, said Chambers-Spriggs.

"So the people that actually hit the railing had to avoid the other car," she said.

The other driver was ticketed for failing to yield to a vehicle already in the intersection.

No one was injured, and Chambers-Spriggs said she doesn't believe there was "structural damage" done to the coffee shop.

Conrad said he's not sure how much it will cost to fix the damaged front patio, railingsand a window that was broken, but it will likely take a few weeks to make sure the front entrance is safe to use.

He added that the car "just barely" missed the front door itself.

"It could have been a lot worse, just given that our patio is normally pretty busy and we normally have quite a few people in the lineup," Conrad said.

"We're all just kind of very lucky for the fact that nobody was hurt."

The car was removed within an hour, and Uncommon Grounds was back open for business with a sign out front letting patrons know they should use the side entrance.

And there was a slight silver lining: the cafwas very busy for the rest of the day, Conrad said, with lines forming out the door.

"Because everybody's all safe we're just able to laugh about it now we have everybody in the south end coming to check on it," Conrad said.