Alfresco dining boosts bottom line

TAKE A SEAT: Siena General Manager Chris Tarro, right, says that alfresco dining serves to both increase the capacity of the restaurant and provide advertising. Pictured at left is Siena President Anthony M. Tarro. / PBN PHOTO/NATALJA KENT
TAKE A SEAT: Siena General Manager Chris Tarro, right, says that alfresco dining serves to both increase the capacity of the restaurant and provide advertising. Pictured at left is Siena President Anthony M. Tarro. / PBN PHOTO/NATALJA KENT

Last year, the businesses on Washington Square in Newport found a way to boost foot traffic and sales that had been sitting on the sidewalks in front of their establishments all along.
Outdoor restaurant dining, long popular on Newport’s waterfront decks and patios, had never taken hold there in the European streetside-café style popular in other cities. But across Rhode Island, restaurants are becoming ever-more important to the economy and, in the warm months, outdoor dining is becoming increasingly important to eateries.
When Yesterday’s Ale House was allowed to start serving customers on the sidewalk last year, the presence of tables and umbrellas in front of the eatery drew the attention of tourists who might never normally stray from Thames Street.
“It has been a great boost and made a big difference in Washington Square foot traffic,” said Richard “Biggy” Korn, co-owner of Yesterday’s, which estimated a 25 percent jump in business last summer due to the alfresco tables.
“Plus, it is so important to have a feeling of community. That is what cities do – get people out of their cars and into the community.”
A few doors down, Jonathan’s coffee shop also got a permit for outdoor tables and to the northeast on Broadway, another commercial area the city is trying to revitalize, four more restaurants have gone alfresco.
The Washington Square Roots community group made it one of their tools for revitalizing the area and it’s backed by local business groups.
“We certainly support the effort and have championed the people downtown who have tried to do that,” said Newport County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Jody Sullivan about the effort to allow sidewalk dining where it hadn’t been before. “It’s welcoming and the umbrellas create energy, color and beauty.”
In Providence, 106 restaurants had licenses to put tables on the city-owned sidewalk in front of their doors in 2012, according to figures from Providence License Administrator Serena Conley.
Conley said she gets the sense more are doing it, but totals for past years that would confirm it were not available because of the city’s paper-based permitting and record-keeping system. This year’s applications are still coming in. Each license costs $150, runs from April through October, and allows sidewalk dining until 11 p.m each night. (Newport’s license is $300 per season.)
In addition to the fee, getting a permit also involves navigating three city departments – licensing, standards and inspections, and public works – to determine exactly how many tables can go outside.
Providence requires at least three feet of clearance between tables and the curb, or any streetside obstruction, like a fire hydrant, to guarantee pedestrians aren’t impeded.
It also allows restaurants with larger interior dining rooms to have more tables outside than smaller ones, provided space is available.
After applications come into the licensing department, public works takes measurements of the restaurant and sidewalk to determine how much frontage they have to work with, and then inspections-and-standards officials calculate how much outdoor expansion they will allow.
As with any permitting question involving competing businesses, there are occasionally grievances, but acting Providence Department of Public Works Director Bill Bombard said he isn’t aware of any formal attempts to change the rules.
One source of contention among restaurateurs with alfresco dining are the rules requiring all tables and chairs to be removed from the sidewalk each night.
Intended to prevent street-front furniture from attracting late-night mischief, vandalism and vagrancy, the rules have been enforced more strictly in Providence since the city began cracking down on nightclub disturbances a few years ago.
At Siena Restaurant on Atwells Avenue on Federal Hill, General Manager Chris Tarro said on really good summer nights he would like to be able to let diners linger outside until midnight, but understands the delicate balance the city is trying to achieve.
“I would love to have it a little bit later so when [Providence Performing Art Center] gets out we could have people get a pizza and a glass of wine, but what we want to avoid is having outside night clubs up and down the streets,” Tarro said. “I understand it is a fine line between what is a restaurant and what might be an outdoor bar.” Siena, which has four sidewalk tables on Atwells Avenue, also has an East Greenwich location with outdoor seating on private property that doesn’t have to deal with the rules of town sidewalks.
On the value of alfresco tables, Tarro said they function to both increase the capacity of the restaurant and provide advertising.
“During busy nights, the tables are additional seating – the more seats the more revenue – and they attract people,” Tarro said. “Outside tables later in the evening bring customers that wouldn’t normally come. It’s a more casual atmosphere and it shows the excitement: if your tables are full outside they’re a nice billboard.”
Back in Newport, the requirement to bring tables and chairs inside each night has dulled the excitement of sidewalk dining for Jonathan’s Café on Washington Square, a few doors down from Yesterday’s.
“My whole thought was to beautify the sidewalk and make it nice, but I can’t set up a European-style café if I can’t leave it out overnight because I don’t have the staff or space inside to store it,” said Jonathan’s Café owner Bill Lehourites. “Yesterday’s had five four-tops out last summer and were mobbed every single day. It brought enough foot traffic that I noticed the bump, but he has the space and people to store it each night and I don’t.”
If he were allowed to leave proper tables outside each night, Lehourites estimates he could serve an additional 100 customers each morning and increase receipts by $1,000.
“Instead of encouraging people to maximize bringing in as much as they can, they want to stifle it,” Lehourites said of the city.
Newport Mayor Henry Winthrop said the City Council in the last two years has done more to liberalize alfresco dining rules than predecessors.
“Only one has asked for [leaving tables out overnight] and we did not grant it because there is a concern about damage and broken furniture on the side of streets,” Winthrop said. “We don’t want these to become 2 a.m. gathering and hanging-out places.” •

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