When you sit down to eat at a restaurant, you don’t think about almost getting Final Destination’d, but it can happen. Over the weekend, an SUV crashed through a window while influencers were filming a food video and the camera captured the impact.
It all went down at CuVees Culinary Creations in Houston, Texas on Sunday, Aug. 17., when social media influencers Patrick Blackwood and Nina Unrated were tucking into a spread including a mac and cheese tasting flight and some great-looking chicken wings. With the camera set up facing the opposite side of the booth, everything seemed normal until the metal window frame starts to move.
An SUV had struck the restaurant right where the table was, shoving it out of the way and knocking plates off the wood as panes of glass shatter from the force of the crash. While the center-of-impact mercifully appears to be just far enough away from the bench the influencers are sitting on as to mitigate severity, the impact’s bend of the window frame moves the bench by several inches, all while covering the duo in glass.
Although both influencers were treated for lacerations, thankfully, neither was seriously injured. However, an experience like this still rattles the nerves. As Nina wrote in the description of the video clip:
This whole ordeal has us shook, but it’s a massive wake up call. Tomorrow is not promised, guys do what you wanna do today, live happy right now, let go of all that baggage, and forgive everybody. You don’t have time for that nonsense. Life has given us a second chance, and now we get to be great. We’re aiming to be beyond great, straight up amazing, and we’re constantly working on ourselves daily to become better people and crush our goals. We wish you all the best in life stay safe out there because life is so unexpected. That SUV came out of nowhere, and there was no way we could’ve seen it coming. All we were doing was enjoying a meal at a restaurant.
Indeed, worrying about being hit by a car while inside a restaurant enjoying a meal is something most people don’t do, so it’s entirely understandable that the crash was unexpected. Details on the outcome of the collision are unclear, but we’ve reached out to the Houston Police Department for more information on the collision and will update you should further information arise.
While shocking, a vehicle colliding with a commercial building isn’t an unusual story. In 2022, Lloyds of London crunched the data collected by the Storefront Safety Council and found that on average, storefront crashes in America happen 100 times per day, with the leading cause being operator error, followed closely by pedal misapplication.
As such, it shouldn’t be surprising that this isn’t the first time a vehicle has crashed through a restaurant window while people were filming content. In 2023, photographer November Romeo was filming a podcast in a cafe with photographer influencer Alexsey Reyes when the right rear quarter panel of a GMT900 Chevrolet SUV and the front of a Ford Escape make contact, sending the Chevrolet into a spin that ends with the full-size SUV going through a small set of bollards and into the window of the cafe. Mercifully, both photographers appear to walk away, but it’s still quite the sight.
Even though Patrick and Nina didn’t suffer serious injuries, they still didn’t walk away completely unharmed, and keeping people inside buildings safe from collisions is an area that generally needs improvement. Impact-resistant bollards and other obstacles to reduce vehicle intrusion can help, as can parking lot design for safety, such as removing perpendicular parking spots from storefronts. In any case, best wishes to Nina and Patrick on a speedy recovery.
Top graphic image: YouTube/Unrated EX Files
I wonder if this happens a lot at the Smash Burger chain restaurant!
Aren’t operator error and pedal misapplication the same thing?
To me, it sounds like the difference between the plaintiff’s and the defense’s counsel.
I think pedal misapplication is a subset of operator error. Like, hit accel instead of brake, pedal misapplication. Drive instead of reverse? Operator error.
I love ‘em, but cars are death machines!
Something something drive through.
A 2-year old died nearby a few weeks ago, when somebody drove their Lincoln through the door of a restaurant. Tomorrow is indeed not promised.
Although I am a proponent of fancy mac and cheese, I’m finding myself irrationally frustrated by the phrase “mac and cheese tasting flight”.
I enjoy the concept of things like this – who doesn’t want to pretend they’re Martha Stewart while scarfing down cheez with a z – but what always gets me is the price. Places that offer flights of anything always take themselves way too seriously. A mac & cheese tasting flight will probably set you back something like $30.
Exactly. One doesn’t “taste” mac and cheese. You eat it. It’s called carb loading for a reason.
Saw this in the locals news here and just assumed it was the next “influencer crashes plane” scenario. Then the video autoplayed and….oh bleep. Nope. That was definitely not staged for clicks….
Still in Monterey after car week, I had this text exchange with a friend:
Me: “I’m about to head out for a sundown walk now that there’s less risk of being mowed down by the nine portal axles of the Dubai contingent’s G-Wagen posse.”
Him: “ Or some dumbass in a mustang ????
Although that threat usually remains on some level…”
If somebody was revving something that sounded terrible it was about 65% Mustang / 25% Civic / 10% Lambo. Unless you were at the exotics show, where it was 100% Lambo. A couple years ago a flame-spewing Aventador in Carmel made my friends’ infant daughter fright-cry for like ten minutes straight. Babies can’t lie: Metallic screeching sounds bad.
Rolling around Sacramento, the father of that kid once pointed out a restaurant with a mostly brick storefront and said “That Mustang I had in high school with the gear-drive valvetrain?”
“Yeah. I remember you mentioning that.”
“I did a burnout through that intersection and went into that place. It was a pizza joint then. Way less brick though.”
“Guess they tried to future-proof it.”
The newer Lamborghinis sound pretty meh. I was at the Italian concours around here a few weeks back and it was infested with the ugly VWs, their douchebro owners wearing fashion from Andrew Tate’s closet. Every one of the hive-minded tools obnoxiously revved the engines as they pushed their way through attendees who were checking out the section for interesting cars. Even some little kid standing near me at one point wasn’t impressed, which I thought was pretty funny. I hadn’t been in about 20 years because it had become 90% then-current V8 Ferraris where it had been an assortment of all kinds of stuff when I was younger. It’s much bigger now, but still about 90% new Ferraris and Lamborghinis.
I sincerely hope this never happens to me or any of us.
…but if it does, I hope I have the presence of mind to stick my hand up immediately afterwards and say “Check, please!”
or… I didn’t order this.
They were eating at a restaurant named CUVees. Did they expect a vehicle free meal? 😉
I guess that’s one way for the “influencers” to get free food.