OXFORD TWP. – Venison isn’t on the menu at Tami’s Grille, but there was a live deer inside the restaurant on Saturday, May 25 and it made quite a mess during its brief visit.

The breakfast crowd had left and there were just a few people in the eatery when a doe – a deer, a female deer – came bounding through one of the large front windows.

“I heard this big crash. It was horrible,” said owner Tami Wolff. “I thought it was two cars colliding in the parking lot.”

The next thing everyone knew there was a deer running around the establishment, which is located in the Oxford Mills shopping center.

“I jumped on the counter because they’re crazy when they’re like that – trapped,” Wolff said. “I wanted to get out of her way.”

Wolff described the deer as “sliding all over” the place, knocking things over, breaking things and damaging furniture.

“She was freaking out,” she said. “She just wanted to get out.”

One of Wolff’s neighbors came over to investigate after hearing all the commotion. As the neighbor opened the front door, Wolff yelled, “Look out!”

“I didn’t want her to get run over by the deer,” she said.

It’s a good thing Wolff did that because she said, “The deer jumped over my counter and out (the door) it went.”

After the incident, someone in the parking lot saw the deer run across M-24.

Wolff estimated the deer was inside her establishment for “maybe a minute.”

“It just happened so quickly,” she said. “It was crazy.”

The amount of damage it caused took about four hours to clean up, according to Wolff.

The broken window wasn’t replaced until June 3. “That was just under $1,000,” she said.

Fortunately, no one inside the restaurant was injured.

Wolff said the deer appeared to have sustained some cuts from crashing through the glass and was bleeding, “but it wasn’t serious.”

“I was glad she made it out safely and wasn’t hurt too bad,” she said.

Wolff described herself as “an animal lover” and noted she feeds wildlife with leftovers from her restaurant, which will celebrate its 12th anniversary next week.

“I like animals better than people,” she said with a chuckle.

Could it be this deer simply got tired of waiting for Wolff to deliver and decided to dine in for a change?

Guess we’ll have to wait for its Yelp review to find out.