STAMFORD — In only a few weeks, because of an ordinance handed final week, some downtown Stamford eating places once more will brighten up the cityscape with outside eating on sidewalks and streets.
One strip prone to see extra foot visitors is Primary Avenue close to Columbus Park, restaurateur Peter Valis stated. Valis owns Kouzina, a Greek taverna and bar, which opened at 223 Primary St. about 9 months earlier than the pandemic began. The summer season scene is a “totally different attraction” due to outside eating, Valis stated, with an prolonged patio throughout a number of eating places offering tons of of seats.
It is develop into important for producing income whereas working a restaurant in Stamford, he stated.
“Most individuals nonetheless need to eat outdoors and dine outdoors, with or with out COVID,” Valis stated. “Earlier than, it was a necessity due to COVID as a result of we had been simply afraid of getting sick. However now, it is simply develop into a part of the enterprise. If you do not have outside seating, it’s totally troublesome to outlive.”
Eating in parking areas and roadways — a byproduct of the pandemic’s toll on native eating places — is now a everlasting regulation in Stamford. Town earlier than solely allowed eating on non-public patios and sidewalks, however the Board of Representatives handed new guidelines March 6 that permit eateries to maintain extending seating additional throughout hotter months, as they’ve since June 2020.
“Streatery Season,” because the ordinance calls it, will run every year from April 1 to Nov. 1.
Eating places can pay yearly for a allow. Connecticut eating places haven’t paid outside eating charges since 2019, resulting from state-sanctioned expansions signed into regulation by Gov. Ned Lamont.
The annual payment is prorated primarily based on the variety of seats companies place within the “public right-of-way.” For companies with fewer than 20 seats, that is $250 owed this 12 months; 21 to 45 seats brings a $500 payment; and companies seating greater than 45 patrons should pay $1,500. The annual charges enhance by 20 p.c in 2025 and 16.67 p.c in 2027, adjusted for inflation.
Earlier than COVID, eating places paid primarily based on the quantity of sq. footage they took up on the sidewalk. The brand new guidelines forestall companies from needing to rent an architect or engineer to plot a plan, stated Luke Buttenwieser of Stamford’s Transportation, Site visitors and Parking Division.
“The opposite aspect is that seats are actually what’s tied to the income of a restaurant … you will have extra individuals at your restaurant, you are going to get cash within the public proper of manner,” Buttenwieser stated. “However actually the core purpose with the seating versus sq. footage is to remove the necessity to have an structure surveying plan.”
Perhaps the most well-liked strip on the town for outside eating has been Bedford Avenue. John Gazzola, who owns each Bedford Corridor and Parlor Pizza & Pints, would say so unconditionally.
“I might put Bedford Avenue because the premier avenue in Stamford, particularly relating to eating,” Gazzola stated. “I believe it is actually grown since COVID and lots of that has to do with the added outside eating.”
Carla Figueroa of Stamford and her boyfriend Jay Lusniak of Norwalk look over menus as they put together to dine at Bedford Corridor Craft Kitchen and Bar on Might 30, 2020 in Stamford, Connecticut. Stamford Downtown Particular Providers remodeled just a few downtown streets, like Bedford Avenue, into Streateries, permitting space eating places to increase their outside eating into parking areas on the road for space residents to get pleasure from native eating because the state begins to reopen following a two month closure in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Matthew Brown/Hearst Connecticut MediaFor different eating places, although, alternative is extra fraught.
Kotobuki — a Japanese restaurant at 457 Summer season St. — was one of many solely eating places that by no means closed in early 2020, stated Bin Li, who has operated the enterprise along with her husband, Masanori Sato, on the identical location since 1985. She recollects a surge in supply orders from apps like DoorDash and Grubhub.
The enterprise prospered way more throughout the next summer season, nonetheless, when Kotobuki was in a position to lengthen outside eating to eight extra tables throughout neighboring storefronts that weren’t taking part.
“The summer season months actually assist for gross sales. With eating places, takeout’s income are actually low,” Li stated. “Within the summertime, individuals drink sake and it actually helps. Particularly sitting outdoors, (you possibly can) have a pair bottles of sake in some good climate.”
However these neighboring storefronts have largely stuffed up lately, confining Kotobuki to a small strip of sidewalk for outside eating. That leaves them with a bit a couple of parking house to make the most of, which Li stated is just too harmful to be sensible.
“Folks actually pace up right here. To me, I do not really feel secure,” Li stated of the restaurant’s Summer season Avenue block.
Finally, the restaurant might comfortably match two tables on the sidewalk, which Li stated isn’t definitely worth the payment. As a substitute, they’re going to doubtless lean on takeout; the loss in revenue might imply that the household is unable to rent a second full-time waiter.
For now, house additionally is proscribed a block down on decrease Summer season Avenue, the place Brandon Cartagena manages Barcelona Wine Bar. Town is widening sidewalks, bettering lighting and bushes, and including a motorbike lane in addition to a raised crosswalk — all a part of an effort to make the favored avenue extra pedestrian pleasant.
Barcelona Wine Bar has a personal patio for outside seating, along with 11 streatery tables throughout latest years. However the patio is proscribed and the road is off-limits throughout building, Cartagena stated. Nonetheless, he stated metropolis officers have been communicative all through the method.
“It positively might have been higher, however I have not run into the identical points that it seems like a few of my colleagues have,” Cartagena stated.
Metropolis engineers uncovered intensive utilities — together with a fuel line, which Eversource needed to work on — within the street late within the design course of, stated Frank Petise, Stamford’s Transportation, Site visitors and Parking Division chief.
“Our hope is to complete this up as rapidly as potential. We acknowledge the impacts this makes on the eating places, however I believe on the finish of the day, they’re going to be actually nice enhancements to each town and decrease Summer season Avenue as properly,” Buttenwieser stated.
