Coronavirus Eating On The Street

Good bye parking, hello dining.

In Manhattan Beach today, I saw how street parking was replaced with outdoor seating. Wooden stands were constructed ten feet into the street, covered with black cloth, and low plastic walls enclosed the dining space.

Between the spaced tables were plastic partitions. Servers wearing masks and face shields served customers. The local ice cream shop had their own street-level outdoor dining area with a pink picket fence separating traffic from their cute white chairs.

Manhattan Beach is serious about the coronavirus and helping its businesses while keeping consumers safe. Driving into Manhattan Beach, a large road construction sign said, "Face masks required, fine $350." I must say 99% of the people on the street and boardwalk wore masks. The exception was the people eating outside. You can't eat with a mask on.  So there is that small risks, something could go wrong.

But, I must say that eating on the patio of a restaurant in Oregon on our recent road trip was a great experience. To sit down and have someone bring us dinner and take care of our dishes for the first time in four months felt odd at first and then energizing.

My mother told me that the Glendale Galleria, an enormous indoor mall, has converted part of its parking structure into an outdoor eating area.

In South Pasadena, Mama's Brick Oven Pizza & Pasta put up an enormous white pop-up in it's parking lot, put out a statue of liberty, and laid out tables with red table cloths for to customer's outdoor dining experience.

Fiore Market Cafe also in South Pasadena had a small three-piece instrumental band play on its socially-distanced patio for lunch the other day.

I am glad to see more and more business adapting to the new "normal" and overcoming the challenges to stay in business.

I was speaking to my barber last week whose store placed a pop-up tent in their parking lot and moved three barber chairs outside and we agreed that the worst is past us - the unknown. Now, everyone knows about the virus; it will not wipe out the earth's population; people and business have dealt with and adapted to living in the  coronavirus environment for over 5 months; and life has entered a new state of normal.

It is still scary and I bid you to take care of yourselves and be safe, but determine how you can make the best of your situation rather than waiting for something to happen.

Posts Tuesday and Saturday