The New Outdoor Dining
There's something special about sitting at a table on a sidewalk or terrace outside a restaurant on a nice, sunny late-spring or early summer day. For those of us in the northern states, it was often something to look forward to after the long, dreary months of winter.
In the season of COVID-19, outdoor dining has taken on a whole new meaning. The original restrictions on restaurants were being relaxed right about the time that outdoor dining typically becomes practical, so moving patrons outdoors was one way to allow many of these small businesses to open enough that they had a reasonable chance of surviving when drive-through and carryout purchases either weren't enough or simply weren't possible.
At the time, most people assumed that the various states' plans for reopening would proceed smoothly, and by September or October we'd be back to normal. Except it didn't happen. We can talk all day about how much of the problem was people going to the beaches and other recreational activities and how much was people going to demonstrations and political rallies. It's probably a mix of different gatherings, but however one wishes to apportion blame, the numbers are still higher than the authorities like, and the restrictions are tightening just as the weather gets less and less amenable to eating outdoors.
A number of restaurants have tried to ameliorate the cold by offering various kinds of windbreaks, from tents to individual geodesic domes or mini-greenhouses, often equipped with outdoor heaters. However, this has led city authorities to weigh in on the point at which these structures effectively turn an outdoor space into an indoor one.
In the season of COVID-19, outdoor dining has taken on a whole new meaning. The original restrictions on restaurants were being relaxed right about the time that outdoor dining typically becomes practical, so moving patrons outdoors was one way to allow many of these small businesses to open enough that they had a reasonable chance of surviving when drive-through and carryout purchases either weren't enough or simply weren't possible.
At the time, most people assumed that the various states' plans for reopening would proceed smoothly, and by September or October we'd be back to normal. Except it didn't happen. We can talk all day about how much of the problem was people going to the beaches and other recreational activities and how much was people going to demonstrations and political rallies. It's probably a mix of different gatherings, but however one wishes to apportion blame, the numbers are still higher than the authorities like, and the restrictions are tightening just as the weather gets less and less amenable to eating outdoors.
A number of restaurants have tried to ameliorate the cold by offering various kinds of windbreaks, from tents to individual geodesic domes or mini-greenhouses, often equipped with outdoor heaters. However, this has led city authorities to weigh in on the point at which these structures effectively turn an outdoor space into an indoor one.