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Boston to bring back outdoor dining options this spring
By adamg on Thu, 12/10/2020 - 12:29pm
The city announced today it will resume its outdoor-dining pilot - in which restaurants can use parking or sidewalk space outside their doors for tables - starting April 1, or maybe earlier depending on the weather.
Restaurants will have to apply for a permit, even if they had outdoor tables this year under the program, aimed at helping restaurants survive Covid-19 limits on their indoor dining spaces.
Some 550 Boston restaurants extended their dining space outdoors - 415 of them on public land - this year, the mayor's office reports.
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Comments
Great news that Boston is
Great news that Boston is forward-thinking on this issue. I can't wait to support local restaurants again when it warms up a bit. This lets restaurants know that there is light at the end of the tunnel....it's coming!
Please keeping buying takeout
Please keeping buying takeout and tipping generously throughout the winter! Pick it up yourself or use in-house delivery rather than using third party apps!
I think it's terrible they
I think it's terrible they ended it. There are plenty of winter days that aren't so terrible.
I just had lunch outside at a Cambridge restaurant today.
Why did Boston decide for its people what they will tolerate?
Forward-thinking would keep outdoor open now
All over Northern Europe there are Christmas markets and other venues where they serve booze and snacks outdoors deep in the winter. Quebec has a huge winter carnival that normally draws up to a million people for all sorts of outdoor festivities in early February when the average temperature is twenty degrees lower than here.
I'm not going to eat a 10-course tasting menu outdoors in a parka while the wind howls, but if a place wants to sell hot toddies and finger food, and people want to pay for it, why not let them?
I'd rather see people going to an outdoor beer garden for a few rounds instead of going to somebody's garage or apartment where they're basically guaranteed to spread Covid if they have it.
City Point.Clams.
City Point.
Clams.
Flounder. BASS
If i could replicate the Nazi
If i could replicate the Nazi-Antifa meeting on the Common. No one would believe me.
it was an Epic site....
serious question
is this code for something?
Great to see communities
Great to see communities planning forward instead of just waiting until the last minute hoping for the best... setting up outside, even in the cheapest formats, requires some expenses. It also requires staff to know the routine, food that works both inside and out and other planning. I believe as a state we have treated restaurants unfairly in all this. I understand why we have to limit indoor dining and I am avoiding it myself but the assumption that these restaurants could just go from 0-60 off and on over and over again is killing small business.
So yes, make outdoor dining easier and let them know sooner. Honestly I think we should always allow easier outdoor dining but at the very least communities should make a minimum commitment even going into 2022 that this will be something allowed and encouraged so businesses can properly invest in it. Even under best circumstances I think people may be skittish about going indoors for a while so restaurants should be given the tools to deal with that. I know I personally will be going with outdoor options rather than indoor ones for quite a while.
Restaurants may or may not....
.... have been treated unfairly by the state but what is certain is that restaurant staff have long been treated unfairly by the state.
Owners are allowed to pay some staff less than minimum wage with the presumption that tips will make it worthwhile but when they don’t, too bad for the employee.
And now staff is obliged to expose themselves to maskless people. It’s like the smoking issue some years ago. Employees is nearly every workplace were granted protections from secondhand with the exception of bar and restaurant staff who had to fight another 10 years to get the same protections.
Just want to point out...
“Owners are allowed to pay some staff less than minimum wage with the presumption that tips will make it worthwhile but when they don’t, too bad for the employee.”
This is incorrect. In Massachusetts if the employee’s hourly wage + tips don’t equal minimum wage the employer is required to make up the difference. And if you took a poll amongst tipped employees I guarantee you the overwhelming majority prefer the tipped system vs an hourly wage.
Min wage
Restaurants who pay the lower min wage are obligated to make up the difference should that wage plus tips not equal the normal state min wage. So by law a restaurant employee should never get paid less than the minimum wage one way or another. And the state is phasing out the alternative min wage anyway.
Do they deserve more and at least a living wage? Absolutely. Please tip well. Good restaurants take care of their people although it's a very slim margin industry.
What isn't well known is how many fixed costs restaurants face that other businesses do not. Fresh food spoils quickly. Equipment like dishwashers are often leased so money is owned even when the place is closed. Electric bills are high since you can't turn off refrigerators when the place is closed for a day or two. This is why it doesn't always make sense to only open on the weekends even though that's often the only time that breaks even.
I'm all about mandatory shut downs but only if the government compensates owners and employees. They did nothing wrong and are being destroyed.
Just like that JoJo song
Too Little Too Late
As if
As if Boston will have restaurants come April. That's cute.
Cool. But make the program
Cool. But make the program permanent. Then restaurants can really invest in nice outdoor set ups. Montreal has been doing this for years and it shows because their street patios are great. More money for restaurants, more tax revenue, more jobs and more options for customers. Surely all that is 100 times more important than a few parking spaces.
As long as it’s just parking spaces ...
... they take. Ok with me.
But they’ve been encroaching on sidewalk space for too long and taking too much of it.
Encroaching on sidewalk
Encroaching on sidewalk spaces? That is as bad as the sad no road diet people having a coronary b/c the road diet would have taken 16 parking spaces away.
Small restaurants should have sidewalk space in the good weather. As long as everyone can get by safely & they keep it clean there is no reason we can't share.
A FEW spaces?
Some neighborhoods have been completely taken over with zero input from neighbors. Some neighborhoods have even lost historic public spaces for restaurants to use in pandemic.
Exceptional circumstances may call for exceptions, but if we are rethinking the street scale on a permanent basis, weigh the options, don’t just turn it over to restaurants.
Waltham
I hope Waltham does the same. Have Moody St by a pedestrian walkway, lined with restaurants, was just delightful this summer.