UCD Data Digest: Tracking the Development and Impact of Streeteries

A graphic depicting the logo for the UCD Data Digest
Dec 16, 2021 2 years ago

When COVID-19 lockdowns shut down restaurants in early 2020, “outdoor dining” was a niche, not a norm. On March 1st, 2020, just 9 University City establishments held permits for a “sidewalk café,” the legal term for setting up chairs and tables on public property outside a restaurant. Some additional establishments had their own patios for use during the warmer months, and our own Parklets provided options for a handful of local businesses offering takeout options, but for the most part, eating meals happened indoors.

Once it became clear that the COVID-19 virus was far less transmissible outdoors, the city acted and expedited the permitting process for these “sidewalk cafes,” commonly referred to as streeteries, leaning on the approvals and processes we'd helped spearhead and develop during the ten years we've operated Parklets. Restaurants across the district took over a few parking spaces directly in front of their storefronts with tables, chairs, and temporary structures, bringing new life to the street and providing a safer outdoor option for diners.

Restaurants were also able to apply for permitting to shut streets down and move tables into the road, an experiment we helped develop on the 3400 block of Sansom Street. Nearly 18 months later, the appeal of streeteries has held, so much so that they remain vibrant and busy even as indoor dining capacity was again permitted at 100%.

And the data reflects this. Over the past year, the number of active permits for outdoor dining in the district has shot up to 47, a 522% increase. The increase is sustained by a demand from customers -  a report from early in 2021 from OpenTable and the James Beard Foundation found that 82% of patrons surveyed wanted to see outdoor seating options continue, with 74% feeling that eating outdoors represented a low health risk as the pandemic continue. More recently, Morning Consult found that 73% of people surveyed felt comfortable eating outdoors, compared to 64% feeling comfortable indoors.

To address the “temporary” nature of the expedited permitting process, Philadelphia City Council recently passed legislation pending mayoral signature that would make many of those temporary licenses permanent, although only in some parts of the city. Fortunately for University City, the entire 3rd Council District has been included in the pending legislation, thanks to efforts by Councilmember Jamie Gauthier's office along with others. Despite accounting for just 2% of the city’s landmass, nearly 6% of all permitted Philadelphia's streeteries are found within University City.

The vast majority of adults (84%) support restaurants maintaining tables on the sidewalk or in parking spaces according to the National Restaurant Association. Most of the opposition to streeteries has been tied to concerns about losing parking spaces, but we at UCD have long maintained that losing a small area that can be used by a single parked car is a small sacrifice for instead using that space to give dozens of people a day a place to sit, relax, and patronize local businesses. You can read more about our findings on this topic in this 2015 report we published making the case for Parklets. 

Restaurants, one of the hardest-hit businesses in the early months of the pandemic, have bounced back in 2021 in large part to their ability to welcome patrons outdoors. According to a survey by the Washington DC Department of Transportation, 87% of streetery permit holders said it increased their business revenue, 78% were able to make up all their lost seating due to indoor dining restrictions, and 89% were in favor of continuing the program. A companion survey found that streeteries benefited consumers and workers as well. The Washington DC Office of Planning asked residents about their experiences and discovered that 40% of survey takers knew someone who was able to maintain employment in the hospitality thanks to the streetery program in the city, and that 73% of respondents ate out more than they would have if those options didn’t exist.

If all this data is making you as hungry as it makes us, check out the interactive map below to see what restaurants in University City have streeteries. 

Click on the map to see where what restaurants have streeteries in University City, both before expedited permitting and today.