A crash on Main St. in Ridgetown led to a rude awakening for at least one shop owner Tuesday morning.
A car smashed into the front of Bailey Saddlery just after 3am.
Chatham-Kent police say the driver wasn't in the vehicle by the time they showed up, adding that the investigation is ongoing.
Store owner Todd Bailey says his daughter woke him up shortly after the crash happened.
"I was expecting the worst, thinking that the car went directly into my store," says Bailey. "When I got here, I saw that it basically came up on the sidewalk by the CIBC and came down and smashed our front windows and took the decorative storefront barn boards off."
The damages are estimated at $50,000, but Bailey says the store will still be open on Tuesday.
He says the timing was both good and bad -- it was good because no one was inside at the time, so no one was hurt, but it was bad because the business had only recently relocated to the new location on Main St.
"I wasn't happy -- to put it lightly," says Bailey. "We just moved here to this store back in January... you just get everything up and running and the way you want it and now you have to do repairs."
Bailey says the majority of the damages are cosmetic, so while the repairs may cause some inconvenience, they will still be able to stay open.
The windows will need to be replaced and so will some barn boards that were covering the brickwork on the front. Bailey says, thankfully, all of that work should be covered by insurance.
The response and the cleanup along the street didn't take very long, either, and Bailey says he has a number of people to thank for that.
"The Ridgetown volunteer fire department was here on the scene right away, and CK police were here taking pictures and very good to work with, and Wright's Towing was here," says Bailey. "The town employees were also here bright and early at 5:30am to help clean up the mess in front -- I really appreciate all the things they do for the people who run stores along the front here."