Barrier Report — Alex Chen 8-12-2021
While talking to businesses, patrons, and individuals simply walking through downtown, | have gained
some insights into how everyone views the outdoor seating. The biggest proponents of the outdoor
seating were not the restaurants with this additional seating, but the people who were using it. After
talking to hundreds of people, the large majority of the downtown population and those who frequent it
love the outdoor seating. | have listened to people rant about how amazing it is to have endlessly, with
occasional comments about traffic being a little worse but not unbearable, the inside of the barriers
needing to be painted as beautifully as the outside of the barriers, and suggestions about which
restaurants need more space for it and which need less. Every day at 1pm, 3pm, 5pm, and 7pm, | have
kept track of how many people were sitting outside at each restaurant. The following are some key
points from that data, and the data collected from talking to the downtown merchants.
- The overall average number of people using the outdoor seating at any given time is 68 people, but
that fluctuates heavily depending on the time of day, and the day itself.
- At 7pm on July 10th there were 264 people sitting outside, then the following afternoon at 1pm there
were only 6.
- Martha's exchange alone averages at 21 customers using outdoor seating at any given time, and often
peaks late at night around 65.
- Surf, MT's, Stella Blu, Fratello's, and Oddfellows can see anywhere from 10 to 30 customers sitting
outside at one time during peak hours.
- San Francisco Kitchen claims 80% of all customers choose outdoor seating if the weather Is nice.
- Casa Vieja and Fratello's claim that almost if not all customers choose to sit outside if the weather is
nice.
-MT's, Oddfellows, and The Flight Center ail claim to have an outdoor seating pick rate of 75%.
The largest complaints from businesses have been a lack of parking, an unusually high frequency of
homeless individuals bothering customers, and a general decline in overall customers, especially during
the height of COVID-19. The biggest complaints from patrons have been slightly more traffic on Main
Street (although most follow that up by saying that if you know the side streets well enough you can
avoid the traffic), less parking, not enough outdoor seating at some of the restaurants, and the fact that
the cones to create bike lanes are often in the way of traffic, or knocked over and blocking a bike lane.
At the end of the month | will finalize ail spreadsheets and graphs, and make sure it is distributed to
anyone who would like a copy. This will include all data from counting how many people are sitting
outside each day, along with a graph for each restaurant with outdoor seating showing its trends,
average users, etc.
