During the pandemic, many cities, including Lafayette, California, added outdoor dining to their downtown by extending sidewalks or allowing restaurants to build rough-and-ready parklets.
These often extended into parking lots, sidewalks, or even into roads.
That was a necessity during the pandemic—we all needed outdoor seating in order to dine safely. Now, though, many cities are pulling back and asking restaurants to remove the spaces they had created.
That seems to be the case here in downtown Lafayette, California. Along Mount Diablo Blvd., restaurants had created outdoor seating areas that extended into parking in front of restaurants like Pizza Antica, Batch & Brine, and Susie Cakes.
This morning, I drove by and observed that workers were removing that temporary outdoor seating. They had torn up much of the wooden planking that had extended into the road, and the big barrier blocking off that chunk of Mount Diablo is likely to go next.
Restaurants had already removed their tables and chairs from the outdoor area before this part of the work commenced.
The name of the game here is likely increasing parking in the downtown area. Now that people are dining indoors again—and restaurants are seeing more traffic—the priority is less on outdoor dining and more on having places for patrons to park.
Facing a major deficit that required raising sales taxes, it’s also possible that the city wants to put back in the parking meters along the section of Mount Diablo Blvd. and to reap the revenue benefits they provide.
Either way, we’re a bit sad to see this outdoor dining disappear. It was nice to have the chance to sit and dine “alfresco” on the restaurants’ outdoor tables.
Still, this does seem to follow an overall trend in the Bay Area. Walnut Creek reportedly did something similar, reducing the number of temporary outdoor seating areas at their restaurants, or having restaurants pay to maintain parklets.
Alongside this trend, though, we’ve seen some Bay Area cities add more permanent seating parks to their downtowns. We have a story on that coming up shortly.
In the meantime, the removal of these outdoor seating areas in Lafayette marks the end of an era. The positive we find is that it will be easier to park, and it also signals that restaurants are recovering and finally moving beyond pandemic lows—a very good thing for the local scene!
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Enough with the parking meters! Lafayette is losing lots of business because of it.