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Chefs are adapting their menus for chilly outdoor dining

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Re: Chefs are adapting their menus for chilly outdoor dining

#91

Post by knaq »

mjevans wrote: post #88
asdff wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish they'd close even a single street to car traffic in LA. A single one. Instead restaurants sprawl into the sidewalk and leave a little 2 food wide strip where you walk within spit fleck distance of dozens of maskless people eating and drinking and talking loud. I just look for a break in traffic to walk along the road or cross the street entirely.

Build a pedestrian traffic layer over the service road tunnels, turn the 3rd floor into the main level. Vehicles are still needed for delivery and long distance, apply the engineering solution.

That sounds almost like a typical airport or mall.

For some reason, people don't want to be in a mall anymore. It's like how people don't want to be in a minivan anymore. Malls and minivans are practical. They just don't have the right image.

Re: Chefs are adapting their menus for chilly outdoor dining

#92

Post by throwaway0a5e »

nprz wrote: post #37
stephenbez wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is outdoor dining and cold a new thing? Doesn't this happen every year at winter? It’s a new thing. You’d normally never eat outside in the winter in cities like Chicago, Boston, or New York, but because of Coronavirus people will.

I doubt they will. Especially once temps hit near freezing, plus with wind and precipitation... If I owned a restaurant I would just make ordering take out as quick and convenient as possible.

There's plenty of people who eat and drink (mostly drink, usually from cans) outside once every week or two in nearly zero (freedom degrees) temperatures. Often they also light a pile of pallets (and maybe even a fiberglass boat if the wind is right) on fire for warmth.

It just so happens that people inclined to do these things have mostly all been driven out of major urban areas where the restaurants are and if they weren't they would mostly still not go downtown for overpriced beer.

Re: Chefs are adapting their menus for chilly outdoor dining

#93

Post by jariel »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #45
jariel wrote: post #30

It's common in Europe but didn't quite catch on in the milder US states, maybe it will now. It's actually a nice concept, but NY state and North it won't work every day, and unlike 'breaking for rain'. there are long periods of at least several days, sometimes weeks, where it's 'too dam cold' which makes it really hard to operate, i.e. 'just on the nice days'. And FYI for the skiiers chiming in, it's not the same thi…

Manhattan has had outdoor winter dining on Stone St. for a few years. It benefits from being a sheltered narrow space easy to fill with tents and trap heat.

Yes, there are places here and there, but it's not common, or a cultural understanding - people don't know to go out and do it).

It needs to be something promoted widely in order for it to 'catch on' as a cultural touchstone.

Re: Chefs are adapting their menus for chilly outdoor dining

#94

Post by eatonphil »

baby wrote: post #42
eatonphil wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same in NYC. It's so great to see the almost competition by restaurants to outdo each other in designing outdoor spaces. I really hope these changes stay permanently. My only gripe is that we haven't figured out the European style where all the seats face the road. :)

That’s mostly in Paris. Don’t think I’ve seen that elsewhere.

Paris is the most dense I've seen personally but cafes in Vienna and Zurich at least still face the street at two person tables outside.

Re: Chefs are adapting their menus for chilly outdoor dining

#96

Post by somberi »

eatonphil wrote: post #40
paxys wrote: post #33

Closed streets and expanded outdoor dining is the best thing to come to SF during the pandemic, especially since the weather is mild enough that they can be utilized year-round. I really hope the city decides to extend them beyond December.

Same in NYC. It's so great to see the almost competition by restaurants to outdo each other in designing outdoor spaces. I really hope these changes stay permanently. My only gripe is that we haven't figured out the European style where all the seats face the road. :)

NYC here. One of the quaintest things I have seen in my life : A small pub had three tables, two chairs each, on the pavement. One of it was "cordoned" off with velvet-red ropes and for full bottle service, the pub staff open the ropes with great aplomb! Roadside-Royalty.

Re: Chefs are adapting their menus for chilly outdoor dining

#97

Post by selectodude »

samcheng wrote: post #46
every wrote: post #26

Somewhat along the same line, I expect a resurgence of outdoor beer gardens. Every super-spreader event to-date included a crowd, indoors, with poor ventilation and few if any masks in evidence. That is pretty much the definition of any standard bar, pub or tavern. And hey, outdoors in January your beer stays colder longer as a bonus...

Milwaukee has been reviving the beer garden concept for about a decade now. It works well - even in county parks! But not in January. https://county.milwaukee.gov/EN/Parks/Explore/Beer-Gardens Of course, it's a big part of the cultural heritage in Milwaukee, so municipal beer gardens may be a pipe dream in more puritanical cities.

There's enough tailgating going on outdoors up in the north, I'm not sure a little bit of a nippy wind is going to keep anybody indoors :)

Re: Chefs are adapting their menus for chilly outdoor dining

#98

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

dragonwriter wrote: post #64
chrisco255 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there's dozens of states where indoor dining is not restricted at all and they're getting no different results in Covid cases?

> Because there's dozens of states where indoor dining is not restricted at all and they're getting no different results in Covid cases? Is that after adjusting for things like population density/urbanization? Also, while I don't have an easy cross references of case rates and restrictions, it certainly looks like the places at the top of per-capita case rates are also disproportionately places that have not had stro…

We do have to be careful about that kind of adjusting. There just aren't all that many states in the country, so adjusting for even a handful of factors risks overfitting.

Re: Chefs are adapting their menus for chilly outdoor dining

#99

Post by CuriouslyC »

Now we just need to relax about street food, kitchen requirements and health codes a bit, and lower the bar to becoming a food entrepreneur. Making food is one of the most basic things people do, yet we've put a $50k+ barrier of entry on what constitutes an acceptable kitchen, along with massive regulatory hoops that have to be jumped through.

I think there's still a place for inspections, but unless you're absolutely terrible it should be informational for consumers rather than a hurdle that must be passed before doing business. Let people choose to eat at uninspected facilities if they want (with the knowledge of what they're doing), and have liability laws in place for when things go wrong.

While we're at it, we should make it easier to become a street vendor. We encourage children to be entrepreneurial with lemonade stands and bake sales, yet it's stupidly hard to actually do something like this as a real business.

Re: Chefs are adapting their menus for chilly outdoor dining

#100

Post by every »

samcheng wrote: post #46
every wrote: post #26

Somewhat along the same line, I expect a resurgence of outdoor beer gardens. Every super-spreader event to-date included a crowd, indoors, with poor ventilation and few if any masks in evidence. That is pretty much the definition of any standard bar, pub or tavern. And hey, outdoors in January your beer stays colder longer as a bonus...

Milwaukee has been reviving the beer garden concept for about a decade now. It works well - even in county parks! But not in January. https://county.milwaukee.gov/EN/Parks/Explore/Beer-Gardens Of course, it's a big part of the cultural heritage in Milwaukee, so municipal beer gardens may be a pipe dream in more puritanical cities.

I don't think we'll have any problems here in Texas:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholz_Garten

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