“Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?” An iconic line uttered by Harrison Ford in “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark” and (probably) a rattled Virginia Woman. Carletta Andrews was having a nice meal at Patron Mexican Restaurant and Cantina in Sandston, VA, when a snake fell from the ceiling into her drink.
On April 16th, Andrews was enjoying her evening with a refreshing margarita at the Mexican restaurant. Once she and her spouse finished their food, she felt something on her forehead.
“I leaned in to take a sip and I noticed something hit me in the forehead and I looked at my husband like what was that,” Andrews explains to 8News. “When I turned around, I saw the snake in my margarita.”
“It was moving. It started wrapping around my straw,” she says.
Between shock and panic, Andrews admits what happened next is a total blur. She claims that the staff tried to remove the baby snake with a stick. Eventually, another diner grabbed the snake and put it outside. Thankfully, no one was bitten, and the snake was seemingly unharmed.
“I kept saying please don’t let it go in my purse,” she said. “I left shaking, I was traumatized.” To be fair, the reptile was probably traumatized too.
Response to The Snake
Patron did offer to move Andrews to another table. But given what just happened and that they’d already eaten, she chose to leave instead. Soon after, she posted on social media about the incident, including a picture of the wayward reptile. [Writer’s note: the post/image has now been set to private.]
The restaurant has been contacted, and the owner is aware of the situation. When asked what preventive measures the establishment is taking, they said, “nothing.” Since the staff believes that the animal crawled in through the air conditioning unit, there isn’t much that can be done.
8News reached out to the Virginia Department of Health and was able to access inspection records. In 2024, the establishment had several violations, including mold, broken handles, a missing ceiling tile in the dish room, cracked floor tiles throughout the kitchen, and leaky ceiling tiles. All of these issues were corrected on the follow-up inspection six days later. Outside of the ceiling titles, none of these issues could have caused a snake to get in.
However, Andrews has deeper concerns for other diners. “If that was the baby — I fear…. is the mom there?” she says.
Luckily, most breeds of snakes leave their mothers after a few days to a few weeks. While this snake’s age is impossible to tell from the, understandably, hasty photo. Odds are, its mother is long gone, and Virginia residents should be able to eat safely.
