HIT-AND-RUN SUSPECT ARRESTED IN CRASH INJURING CAFE OWNER
Man jailed more than a year after Rosie’s Cafe owner struck, badly hurt
A little more than a year after a hit-and-run crash nearly killed the owner of an Escondido cafe featured on the Food Network series “Restaurant: Impossible,” Vista sheriff ’s deputies have arrested the suspected driver.
Rene Solorio, 35, remained jailed in lieu of $200,000 bail Monday, a week after his arrest in connection with the December 2019 crash that left Kaitlyn Rose Pilsbury in a coma.
Pilsbury, 34, was the owner of Rosie’s Cafe, which has since closed after the crash and the COVID-19 restaurant shutdowns ordered the following year.
Sheriff ’s officials announced Solorio’s arrest Monday — he was taken into custody on a warrant Jan. 4 — but did not say what led them to suspect he was the driver.
Solorio was arraigned last week in Vista Superior Court on one count of hit and run with death or serious injury, and faces up to four years in prison if convicted.
The crash happened just after 8 p.m. Dec. 21, 2019. Pilsbury was riding her motorcycle north on North Melrose Drive near West Vista Way when a Ford Explorer
turned left in front of her.
After the crash, the driver ran off. The driver was not the SUV’s registered owner.
Pilsbury remained hospitalized for three months with broken bones and a serious head injury before she was released for outpatient physical therapy.
Pilsbury opened Rosie’s Cafe in late 2016 in the Grand Avenue site that had housed Champion’s restaurant for more than four decades. But two years later, facing closure, she applied for a makeover on “Restaurant: Impossible.” In
January 2019, host and chef Robert Irvine and his team overhauled the site and the menu.
The episode aired in April 2019. The crash happened eight months later. Irvine and the show returned in February 2020, this time for a carnival to raise money for Pilsbury’s recovery.
Pilsbury’s staff ran the restaurant as she tried to heal. But COVID-19 forced the restaurant to close in March. In June, the cafe announced it was closed for good.