Damian Giletto, and James Fisher

The News Journal

The owner of a Dewey Beach restaurant that burst into flames early Tuesday after being hit by a car said it's unlikely he'll rebuild. The driver was charged with drunken driving.

The crash was at about 2:05 a.m. when a vehicle apparently lost control on Del. 1 and crashed into Ed's Chicken & Crabs on Swedes Street, said Harry Miller, a spokesman with the State Fire Marshal's Office.

Footage from a nearby security camera owned by Dewey resident Rob Jones shows the moment a car, coming southbound fast, rides roughly over a median in the highway and barrels into the restaurant, raising sparks in its wake.

Dewey Beach police Sgt. Clifford Dempsey said the driver was Michelle Small, 36, of Wyoming, Delaware, driving a 2013 Mini Cooper "at a high rate of speed," headed south on Del. 1. at Clayton Street, Dempsey said.

Dempsey said a propane line was severed and officers had to break the driver's side window to get Small out moments before the building caught fire.

Firefighters from Rehoboth Beach, Lewes, Bethany Beach and Indian River found heavy flames coming from the business when they arrived, Miller said. Crews battled the fire for over two hours, according to reports. No injuries were reported, Miller said. Damage to the business is estimated at $75,000, Miller said.

Owner Ed Riggin, walking through the flooded parking lot of his restaurant Tuesday, pointed out where the car had lodged itself in the restaurant's kitchen area. In the fire, the car had been completely engulfed; its charred engine, frame and metal seatbacks were visible.

"I don't think I'll ever rebuild. That's it, I think," the 83-year-old Riggin said. "It's time to get out anyway. I didn't like doing it like this, though."

As Riggin surveyed the damage — his teal-green restaurant's walls charred, firefighter's hose water pooled in his parking lot — other business owners, including The Starboard's Steve "Monty" Montgomery, walked over to console him. Founded in the late 1970s, Chicken Ed's predates Dewey Beach itself, since the town wasn't incorporated until 1981.

"I remember coming down in '89 with the beach house crew, going around to Ed's for the first time," said Til Strudwick, 65, nursing a Coke in the nearby Sunrise Restaurant. He became a regular customer, he said — and his last order from Ed's Chicken was a platter of catfish sticks over the weekend.

"It had such a local feeling, non-commercial, not a franchise," Strudwick said. "That was the real Dewey."

The restaurant, with wood shingles and bright yellow picnic tables, is about a block from the Atlantic Ocean.

TALORICO: Is this the end of an era for Ed's Chicken?

Dempsey said Small has been charged with drunken driving and other motor vehicle offenses. She was first treated at the scene for minor injuries, but while she was in custody at the Dewey Beach Police Department, she became unresponsive and was taken by ambulance to Beebe Medical Center, he said.

Contact James Fisher at (302) 983-6772, on Twitter@JamesFisherTNJorjfisher@delawareonline.com.

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