Dining in the Street

Dinner only cost $20,000 last night. That’s not what I paid; for me it was only $20. The restauranteur shelled out the 20 large tacos to pay for the outdoor seating.

Long Beach bike advocates held a celebratory dinner last night. The occasion? The City’s first parklet in Retro Row outside Lola’s Mexican Cuisine restaurant. Charlie Gandy, Women on Bikes SoCal and the Bikeable Communities crowd were all in attendance. I met Jennifer Klausner, Executive Director of the LA County Bicycle Coalition.

“You’re stealing from the public,” was one critique the architect shared with us. Granted, this dining-in-the-street arrangement did remove 1 and a half parking places from the street, but the City restriped the rest of the block and came up with an offset of 4 additional parking places — simply by removing loading zone space where no loading was happening and shrinking the red no-parking space between parking places — not a bad exchange. This revision to the street created outdoor dining for 18 and 3 more full-time positions at Lola’s.

The space is cozy. The flooring is flush with the curb, so it’s a smooth transition for the wait staff. Large ceramic and steel planters define the perimeter creating a nice buffer from traffic. I sat with my back to the restaurant so I could face the beautiful Art Theatre directly across the street, where The Artist is playing; the whole experience was indeed quite retro. I noticed that as the 7pm showing emptied onto the street there were many interested glances from the movie-goers. This parklet is an instant blockbuster!

I learned some of the parklet economics last night, too. The restauranteur must come up with $20,000 for the finished parklet; 17 is for the drop-in, pre-built parklet platform — it can be adjusted to the slope of the street and the height of the curb — then $3,000 goes to the City to pre-pay the eventual removal of the structure, say if the restaurant were to go belly up, there would be funds pre-paid to remove the parklet. Of course the space needs tables, chairs, planters and gas heaters for those cool January Long Beach nights — I was toasty all through dinner. One comment from the proprietress of the next parklet coming just down the street: the $20K is paid in full, up-front, which can be an obstacle for some. The City charges $800/year for an outside dining permit, too.

As I make my way home from Long Beach I can’t help but compare this parklet approach to the Corona del Mar Entryway Plans which are projected to cost over $1.3million. Long Beach is enjoying probably 80% of the benefits for 1.5% of the cost. A good deal for Long Beach and faster to implement by an equally outstanding ratio of time.

One other thought as the experience settles in — everything is working in Long Beach, or so it seems to this jealous observer.