Car collides with Taco Surf on PCH, months after similar accident completed renovations
Lightning doesn’t strike twice, but apparently night drivers do.
Such is the case of Taco Surf, a restaurant overlooking the Pacific Coast Highway in Surfside, which became the target of a high-speed collision early on Sunday that led to the arrest of a driver suspected of impaired driving. and the hospitalization of two passengers.
The event marks the second time in less than a year that Taco Surf has served as an unfortunate ground zero for dangerous driving. A hit-and-run collision last March caused extensive structural damage that forced the owners to close part of the restaurant for renovations, according to manager Olga Zimmerman, who also runs the bar.
“It really ruined the place — it kind of moved the whole building,” Zimmerman said Tuesday. “This side of the restaurant was closed for seven or eight months.”
A getaway driver collided with the Taco Surf on PCH on March 10, causing extensive structural damage that took months, an official said Tuesday.
(Courtesy of Seal Beach Police Department)
Sunday’s incident happened shortly after 1 a.m. when the driver of a 2005 Subaru Impreza traveling north on PCH lost control and crashed into a palm tree before rolling into the building, Seal Beach Police spokesman Lt. Nick Nicholas said Tuesday.
While the impact of the solo vehicle crash caused only minor damage to Taco Surf, two male passengers in the vehicle were injured and taken to a nearby hospital.
Nicholas confirmed that one of the men had been treated for non-life-threatening injuries and had been released. The other suffered a major head trauma and was still in critical condition a few days after the accident.
The driver, Ted Lorenzo Ramirez, 22, of Norwalk, was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, causing injury. An online inmate locator operated by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said Ramirez posted bond and was released at 11:30 p.m. Sunday.
Nicholas said police notified the owner of Taco Surf of the collision and summoned a Serious Traffic Accident Reconstruction Team (STAR) – a special interagency group of traffic investigators from Seal Beach, Los Alamitos, Cypress, Westminster and La Palma – to investigate.
Orange spray paint applied by traffic investigators marks the path of a vehicle that collided at the front of Taco Surf in Surfside on Sunday morning just after 1 a.m.
(Kevin Chang / personal photographer)
“It takes us some time to locate and collect evidence. We are mapping the whole scene and using drones to take aerial photos,” added Nicholas. “Because this happened in the middle of the night, we waited until there was at least some daylight, to make sure we didn’t miss any evidence.”
As STAR team members examine factors that may have contributed to Sunday’s collision, Zimmerman says she can think of a couple. For example, PCH curves just south of the restaurant, which can create a blind spot, while a freeway intersection with Anderson Street near Taco Surf further complicates the situation.
“There’s a light right there, about 50 feet from us,” Zimmerman said. “I think that’s where people seem to have trouble.”
Sheet metal repairs a hole caused by a vehicle that collided in the front of Taco Surf in Surfside on Sunday.
(Kevin Chang / personal photographer)
Last year’s collision happened at 1:45 a.m. on March 10, when a PCH-driven pickup truck hydroplaned towards Taco Surf and crashed into the building before fleeing the scene, CCTV footage shows shared by Seal Beach Police. The driver was never identified and the matter is still under investigation, Nicholas said.
Zimmerman, who saw footage of both incidents, said she believed Ramirez sped or possibly steered her Subaru in the moments leading up to Sunday’s crash.
‘The cops estimate these kids were going up to 110 mph – we can just see them slamming straight into the building,’ she said, indicating the point of impact is almost the same location as the March collision. .
The exterior of Taco Surf, after a getaway driver collided with the structure in March 2021.
(Courtesy of Seal Beach Police Department)
A Seal Beach Public Works official could not confirm on Wednesday whether this stretch of PCH, less than 1 mile north of Huntington Beach, is known for collisions, indicating that the highway falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Public Works. California transportation.
Caltrans District 12 spokesman Nathan Abler said the department was not immediately aware of an extraordinary number of incidents at the scene. But Zimmerman, who has worked at Taco Surf for six years, knows there’s no guarantee a similar situation won’t happen again.
“There is a curve,” she says. “And people are drunk.”
Anyone with information about Sunday’s collision is encouraged to contact SBPD Traffic Investigator Officer Hector Mercado at (562) 799-4100, ext. 1634 or [email protected].
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