A comprehensive review of Philadelphia’s outdoor dining regulations is called for in a resolution introduced on Thursday by Councilmember Rue Landau. The aim is to restart the conversation through a public hearing on the policies– and the economic and cultural impact– of the city’s streeteries and sidewalk cafes.
“We want to look at the entire process of opening and maintaining a streetery or a sidewalk café, and actively engage stakeholders,” Landau told Billy Penn, to ascertain “what’s working, and what needs to be changed.”
Philly’s outdoor dining scene experienced a boom during the pandemic, with the city issuing temporary licenses allowing establishments to set up sidewalk cafes and streeteries. A return to normalcy, or at least indoor dining, brought the need to regulate the outdoor structures, many of which, the city argued, had been set up haphazardly.
Launched by the Streets Department in November 2022, the Outdoor Dining Program offered an online registration portal for business owners seeking a license for structures adhering to new regulations. In response to an anticipated crackdown, several restaurant owners dismantled their outdoor setups; others held out and received cease-and-desist notices and, in some cases, fines. Today, only 14 businesses have active licenses for streeteries, a drastic decrease from the estimated 800 operating during the peak of the pandemic.
“Even though there were hundreds of restaurants that took advantage of outdoor dining options during the pandemic,” Landau said, “very few have been able to keep them open under the new rules.”
The regulations include placement requirements, stipulating that streeteries must have a buffer of at least five feet from manhole covers, 15 ft. from fire hydrants, and 30 ft. from intersections with stop signs (and 20 ft. from intersections without); parameters that most corner restaurants aren’t situated to meet.
There are also location restrictions, limiting outdoor dining setups to specific areas in the city. They’re among the constraints to be discussed in the proposed hearing, explained Ben Fileccia, senior vice president of strategy and engagement at the Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association.
“The program is new, and we want it to be successful,” Fileccia said of the Outdoor Dining initiative. He has been in frequent communication with Landau during the drafting of the resolution. “We just think it can be cleaned up a little bit and [made] a lot more equitable, a lot more accessible. Both for the city side, and for the operators’ side.”
“Something is wrong with the process”
As co-owner of New Wave Café which stands a block beyond the city’s streetery-approved zone at 3rd and Catherine, Nate Ross would need to secure an ordinance from his district council member for an outdoor structure. The extra step, he said, is a minor obstacle compared to the lack of clarity from city officials.
“If 10 is good,” Ross said of communication with the city, “I’d give it a minus three.”
Ross said he and his partners were among the first wave of applicants to the Outdoor Dining Program, submitting their paperwork—including the required engineering and architectural studies, blueprints, photos, and survey (“and it wasn’t f—ing free”)—in early January 2023, before the deadline set for the year’s applications.
With over $20,000 invested in the streetery they’d set up during the pandemic and having attended an online meeting where city officials assured business owners a filed application meant they could keep their setups until the review process, outdoor service at New Wave ran uninterrupted. That April, Ross received a violation from the Department of Streets and, he said, notice of an unspecified fine. He was busy appealing it when another fine came in, for $62,300.
Ross successfully had the fine rescinded, but the back and forth provided no progress for his streetery.
“To my license application, there’s been absolutely no word whatsoever,” he said. “All I need is someone to meet me on the spot and tell me, this is good, and this isn’t.”
Earlier this month, the city updated its visual guide for outdoor dining, with new illustrations outlining spatial requirements.
“I was hoping that the approval process would be clearer, or a little more simplified,” William Reed, co-owner of long-running spots Johnny Brenda’s, Standard Tap, and The International, said of the update.
Reed said he took down Standard Tap’s pandemic-born streetery in late 2022, when it became obvious that modifying the a-frame booths to meet requirements would leave seating space too small to be cost-effective.
For Johnny Brenda’s in Fishtown, Reed and his partners submitted their application to the Outdoor Dining Program in January of 2023. They still haven’t received their approval. Like New Wave Cafe, they’ve also kept their streetery running, modifying it routinely according to their understanding of the city’s guidelines. He estimates close to $30,000 invested in the structure so far.
“Now we’re kind of on our third iteration of it, because they keep tweaking whatever the standard is going to be,” Reed said.
While citing safety as a valid concern, Reed believes the city’s approach is heavy-handed, and the requirements and costs associated with license applications are unnecessarily restrictive.
“The fact that so few people have actually managed to navigate it has to point out something is wrong with the actual process,” he said, “and not with every single restaurateur in Philly.”
One of the few to have successfully navigated the process and secured a currently active streetery license, Sara Proud, director of operations at Jerry’s Bar in Northern Liberties, described a “frustrating” ordeal.
“We started reading up before we were eligible to apply,” she said, even hiring an architect to draw up plans to modify the streetery set up during the pandemic. The bar’s application was submitted in early January 2023.
From rebuild to license approval, the process took nine months and $16,000, added to the $10,000 cost of their original streetery. The initial structure was moved 30 feet back from the corner, crash barriers were installed, and electronic equipment, like a built-in HVAC system, removed — guidelines stipulate battery-powered or portable energy sources, with overhead dome heaters strictly prohibited. The result, Proud said, is significantly less outdoor seating at the bar than previously offered.
At Fork in Old City, having to remove the electric heaters proved to be “the final straw” for the acclaimed restaurant’s streetery, said general manager Matt Mixon. Keeping their outdoor seating viable while meeting size restrictions had already been a challenge, he said.
“The permit filing process was the most confusing, what’s allowed and what’s not allowed,” said Mixon. “We tried to maintain something that looked nice, was welcoming, and wasn’t a blight in the neighborhood. And it just seemed like it still wasn’t enough in the long run. I think for a lot of restaurants, they kind of felt that way.”
No date has been set for the public hearing, but Landau is aiming to hold it soon enough for restaurant owners to make changes needed before spring. Business owners Ross, Reed, and general manager Mixon expressed their interest in attending. Sara Proud of Jerry’s Bar plans on sitting it out. “I did the hard work already,” she said. “And I never want to go back.”
For her part, Landau is hopeful the open dialogue she’s proposing will pave the way for legislation to grant business owners more flexibility.
“I think we overcorrected on a situation of the past, and we can find a middle ground that would be amenable all throughout the city,” she said. “So many other cities, dating back centuries, have figured this out.”
Billy Penn reached out to the Department of Streets, and will update the story accordingly.
