Snake Falls From Restaurant Ceiling Into Woman's Margarita

HENRICO COUNTY, VA — A Virginia woman who went out to dinner with her husband this month was shocked when she found something a little bigger than a worm in her tequila.

Carletta Andrews was eating at Patron Mexican Restaurant and Cantina in Sandston on April 16 and enjoying a margarita when something fell from the ceiling and hit her forehead, she said in an exclusive interview with WRIC.

“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 told the station. “When I turned around, I saw the snake in my margarita.”

She also told WRIC she saw the snake move and wrap around her straw.

“I kept saying please don’t let it go in my purse,” she said. “I left shaking, I was traumatized.”

According to Andrews, a restaurant employee tried to remove the snake with a stick, but another customer grabbed it and released it outside.

"It was definitely a shock," she wrote on social media.

8News reached out to the restaurant's owner, who said he was aware of the incident, adding that the snake likely got into the restaurant through the air conditioning unit.

Virginia Department of Health records obtained by WRIC showed inspectors found several violations during a routine inspection in December 2024 including mold, broken handles, missing ceiling tile in the dish room, cracked floor tiles throughout the kitchen and leaky ceiling tiles. The violations were corrected during the follow-up inspection six days later.