PORT ANGELES — A longtime North Olympic Peninsula restaurateur is being remembered by his family as a man of charisma and charm, a person well-suited for his chosen profession, following his stunning death last week while walking across U.S. Highway 101 west of Port Angeles.
Louis “Terry” Roszatycki, 70, was killed after being struck by an eastbound vehicle at Milepost 235 near South Shore Road at 4:56 p.m. Thursday while he was crossing U.S. Highway 101 near his family-run restaurant, Granny’s Cafe, according to the State Patrol.
Roszatycki was going to his mailbox at his nearby home on U.S. Highway 101 when he was hit by a 2009 Chevrolet Traverse SUV driven by Alyssa T. Greene, 26, of Neah Bay, State Patrol Trooper Mark Hodgson said late Friday afternoon.
The vehicle was carrying three passengers, Hodgson said.
None of the occupants was injured, he said.
Roszatycki died of blunt-force trauma at the collision site, Clallam County Fire District No. 2 Deputy Chief Jake Patterson said.
There were no citations issued at the crash site, but the fatality remained under investigation Friday, Hodgson said.
The State Patrol said drugs or alcohol do not appear to be factors in the fatality.
Roszatycki, a Bay City, Mich., native, is survived by his wife, Carol, and their four daughters, Rachel, Angela and twins Katie and Amy, Carol Roszatycki said Friday.
The Roszatyckis celebrated their 36th wedding anniversary on Valentine’s Day.
They were planning an RV trip around the U.S. with their dog, Rosie, this spring, Amy Roszatycki said Friday.
A busboy at age 18 who just a few years later became a restaurant manager, Terry Roszatycki was “very hardworking, just an amazing man,” his wife recalled.
She said the couple and their four daughters, ages 4 to 7 at the time, moved to Port Angeles in 1989 from Arroyo Grande, Calif., where he was a restaurant manager, to live near her parents in Sequim.
“He wanted to get out of the big city and raise his daughters,” Amy said.
It only took four months for the Roszatycki clan to begin making their mark on Port Angeles’ hospitality industry.
That’s when the couple bought Rosewood’s Family Buffet in The Plaza shopping center in east Port Angeles.
The enterprise quickly became a family affair, with Terry Roszatycki in the lead.
“We all grew up working beside him,” Amy said.
“It was a true family establishment.”
Granny’s was opened in 1956 as the Indian Valley Drive-In by Earl and Albert Tundall, who sold it to Marion Raef — Granny — in the late 1970s.
The restaurant west of Port Angeles was already an iconic stop for local residents and tourists on their way to and from the West End when the Roszatyckis sold Rosewood’s in 1999 and bought the eatery in 2000.
“It was a pit stop for coffee drinkers,” Amy said.
The coffee cups of regulars “would wear stains in the counter,” she said Friday in a telephone interview from the restaurant.
“We built a community out here.
“He would fill rooms with his presence.
“He just made this community happen.”
Roszatycki could play multiple instruments and “had an amazing voice,” Amy recalled.
“He could pick up any instrument and play a melody.
“He had a lot of charisma, joie de vivre.”
Roszatycki became ordained for his daughter Rachel’s wedding and also was the musician at the ceremony, “a one-man band,” she recalled Friday.
“He was the most amazing person I ever knew,” Rachel said.
“If he were here now, he would say, ‘Everyone dies, everyone has their own time.’
“He was never afraid to die.”
Not long ago, she asked her father what advice he had for her to remember, and Roszatycki started laughing, Rachel said.
“ ‘If you haven’t been paying attention, me telling you in two minutes isn’t going to do anything,’ ” she recalled.
The Roszatyckis own Indian Valley Motel next door to Granny’s and the property on which Indian Valley Motel and Granny’s are located.
The restaurant is owned by Angela (Roszatycki) Tamas and her husband, Troy.
The restaurant is closed for the season and will reopen in early spring, Carol Roszatycki said.
Services had not been set as of Friday.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
