As the weather warms up with social distancing shelter-at-home orders in effect until at least until May in the Bay Area, I have a feeling the next battle in social distancing is going to be the restaurant patio. Currently, restaurants can offer either take-out or delivery. Recently I noticed one city’s local email newsletter tout open restaurants. Some offered take-out while others offered both take-out and delivery. What surprised me were those that only indicated they were open. Surely this must be a mistake I thought. So I called a few of them up to see what the deal was.
I asked if I bought something could I eat it there. They said I could eat out by the patio if I wanted to. And there you go. They know they have patios, but instead of publicizing patio dining, they leave it as an unspoken feature.
My prediction: the first weekend with nice weather, restaurant patios are going to be semi-packed with diners eager to get out and enjoy the weather. The media will report about it, possibly with egregious video / photographic evidence. And patios will be forced to close. Just like parks, playgrounds and other outside public areas that people congregated to.
Have you noticed diners eating out at restaurant patios?