A Solution of Sorts

Restaurants have been hit hard in this pandemic, but given the traffic and space constraints on our main street, it is not easy to help them in this town.

Our town is divided by a river. While much of the settlement is on the south side, not all of it is, and many people have to cross regularly. In addition, much traffic also goes through town, and there are really only two main bridges. One of them is on Bridge Street, or Main Street, where six restaurants are located. There are only two other restaurants in this town, both on the highway, along with a few fast food outlets.

However, in this pandemic, even in phase three which so far is working well, people prefer to eat outside on patios. Unfortunately, Bridge Street is not wide enough to accommodate spacious patios. There are two busy lanes plus parking on only one side. Converting the street to a pedestrian mall with room for patios isn't an option.

How to help?

An imperfect compromise solution was found -- set up mini patios, each taking only one parking space in front of the restaurant if possible.

Below, is one of these mini patios. It has three small tables. If you sit carefully, you can just barely be a proper distance from people in the other tables, and you are outside if the distancing isn't absolutely perfect. Although empty at this point, two of the tables were occupied when I returned from my slow saunter down the street.

Here's another mini patio that was more occupied at the time. I didn't want to encroach too much, so I shot this from quite a distance. Note: space gets compressed when photographing via telephoto, so the patrons may not be as close top each other as perceived.

There are two more of these patios (below), both unoccupied when I went by. The second one belongs to the restaurant a door down, the one with the reddish awning. The parking space in front of that one is too small. Parking spaces are still needed on main street so each patio just takes up one parking spot and right in front of the restaurant if possible, thus not affecting other businesses, or not too much.. It's a compromise solution since they can't shut the street down due to traffic needs.

I assume the town helped the restaurants to set these up, probably both logistically and financially. I think it is a creative, compromise solution, and I hope the patios help in a small way to keep these businesses afloat in these difficult times.