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.
13 comments:
Creative solution. We need a lot of those in these times!
Compared to the barriers that Nashua, NH, set up to allow local restaurants outside dining, these patios seem very limited. But then, the Main St here was formerly 2 lanes and now reduced to a single lane in each direction so there was space unlike the one you showed. Traffic backs up with the barriers here and they are supposedly only in place until Nov.
Several restaurants in our town have done something similar. It's a good solution to keep them going. Thanks for the information about your town's efforts. :-)
It is a creative solution....There is always take out but that does not give jobs to waiters and waitresses. Since this situation is probably going to be around for quite a time, we need more ideas like this.
Very thoughtful solution.
Creative, but limited time-wise. Who wants to eat a sandwich in mitten weather? And hot foods would definitely not be enjoyable once Jack Frost has a say. So a solution that works for a few more months, and hopefully people will enjoy the fares.
There are patios taking up the sidewalks and parking spaces on our Main street too, but I really don't fancy sitting just a few feet away from busy traffic and breathing in exhaust fumes with my food. So I am staying away for now. I prefer to order by phone and get take out.
Restaurant support a very large segment of our economy. It is serious. I wrote about my eating out today...but failed to take photos. Did not want to be too obvious.
That hasn't happened in Hawaii yet. Wonder if it is feasible with our traffic.
A wonderful and creative solution! Your town has the right idea. Once this pandemic is over, we'll want to eat out and if restaurants don't stay in business, that will be tough. I hate to think of those hard-working restaurant owners and workers losing their livelihood. We have a temperate climate here, but quite a bit of rain, so I'm hoping that some kind of option can be figured out for inclement weather.
And when winter comes the patios are not an option. We've gone out a few times. It's not a good situation.
It's a small relief. I don't know a bigger solution.
Perth has done the same thing. It involved permits, which the town happily permitted. Businesses need their tourist dollars.
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