If you have been to the Village recently, you probably noticed O'Cafe has expanded their outside dining into the on-street parking. This new pandemic-inspired patio would have been fantastic a year ago, but given the Village's parking issues, is this new patio the best use of that space now?
What do you think?
The comment below (C Jacobs) really is on point. Additionally… We started coming back to the Village right when Christoph and his family created Cafe O and it’s a real difference maker in the lives of us and other folks who come here. After O we stroll the shops in the Village. In my mind the loss of a couple of spots is meaningless when compared with the enhancement to the experience at this special cafe. Also, having experienced all the outside dining in Europe, a positive unintended consequence of the pandemic is the ‘import’ of this style of dining to the US albeit in a limited fashion. Hopefully there is no winding back the clock, especially in this instance.
Yes! All in favor of the additional outdoor dining space for O Cafe.
Patio dining is indeed the best use of that space when viewed from the benefit to FO Village as a whole. Architects spend lots of time and money trying to help businesses create a sense of place. Street-side dining is a proven way to do that. Parking issues never really go away in destination districts, but the benefit of the tradeoff for street-side dining is pretty easy to see in other places that are farther along in their redevelopment history. The historical main streets of Los Gatos, Half Moon Bay, Auburn and Grass Valley offer great examples. The entire street will definitely be that cool, don't doubt it for a second. Some design pros purposely move parking away from the front door of destination businesses, in order to get people walking. O Cafe is proven and is already doing good things for the rest of the street. The sense of place they are creating will become even more important when construction begins on the new park project. Street-side dining will help everyone in the long run, much more than it will affect Village parking by displacing two or three spaces. Solid concept. Support.