Hamburg, N.Y. (WBEN) - Over the years, residents in the Town of Hamburg have been accustomed to seeing an icy landscape along the Lake Erie shoreline during winter storms, especially along Route 5 by Hoak's Restaurant.
However, this storm may provide a first for many.
As the high winds and waves crashed into the shoreline on Monday, in the parking lot of Hoak's Restaurant stood a BMW car with its windows down or broken, taking on water damage to the interior and exterior of the vehicle.
Just a day later, as the conditions along Lake Erie were less extreme than the day before, the car now sits covered in ice, which includes the interior of the vehicle sitting significantly damaged.
While this is not the first time a vehicle has found itself stuck and covered in ice in the Hoak's parking lot as the result of a winter storm, this is the first such instance of a car seeing such destruction. So much so, residents flocked to the parking lot on Tuesday to catch a glimpse of the vehicle, and even snag a quick photo.
"I had seen a vehicle here a few years ago all iced over, but never with the windows open," said Peter Fisher, who lives just down the road from Hoak's. "Some people said it was stolen, some people said it was broke down and they called AAA. It's been sitting here since yesterday... was sitting there with the windows open. I've never seen nothing like that."
For fellow Hamburg resident Steve Mitchell, he feels this situation with the vehicle and its windows down is very "suspect". However, it's not the craziest thing he has seen in his years living in the town.
"The craziest thing was a couple of years ago, a poor young lady had her vehicle in a very similar - I'm talking latitudinal, longitudinal - position, and her car was covered under, I want to say, 5 inches of ice. So they had to get, I think it was potassium chloride, and just cut the ice and get her into the car. And then try to do the same to cut the car out so they can just pull back. It was pretty great," Mitchell said with WBEN.
For co-owner of Hoak's Restaurant, Kevin Hoak, he has definitely never seen a situation like this in his years running the business along Route 5.
"The car arrived here yesterday around 9 a.m. It looked like the windows were broken or whatnot, it's a beautiful car. But I think it was either stolen or somebody did someone dirty. That's what I think," Hoak said in an interview with WBEN.
Hoak is not entirely surprised with the amount of people that flocked to his parking lot to check out the car in-person.
"It's Buffalo. People just come in and want to take pictures in front of it and whatnot. It's kind of became a destination to come check it out," Hoak said. "Hopefully they come in for a fish fry as well."
He adds even with the crazy weather affecting the restaurant on Monday, he still had a full bar with people eating and drinking.
Hamburg Police confirms they are looking into the car as a stolen vehicle incident, but Hoak has not talked to any officials about the BMW to this point. He also hasn't been informed if, and when they vehicle will be removed from his parking lot.
"I don't think they can get it out right now, which is probably frozen to the parking lot. They'll have to do something to get get it going, salt rock probably," Hoak said.
When it comes to the weather, Hoak feels the winter weather that impacted the Lake Erie shoreline on Monday was actually worse to deal with than when the Christmas Weekend blizzard made things hectic in Hamburg back in 2022.
"It was a lot like 2022 where 75 mile an hour winds, 25-foot waves. Anytime that happens, it's tough. You have the open water. This one was worse, because the water wasn't as cold. In 2022, it was cold so it froze right on spot. That was better," he said.