Be our guest – out-door dinning to take off this summer
Published on 21 October 2020
The City of Maribyrnong, known for its foodie culture and love of celebrating, is creating more out-door dining opportunities for residents to safely enjoy the city’s restaurant and café scene in a COVID-19 environment.
While restrictions may be easing, it’s still not business as usual for traders with physical distancing continuing to restrict the number of patrons at restaurants and cafes. That’s why Council is working with businesses to increase their footprint outside, enabling an increased number of patrons to dine at a safe 1.5 metre distance from each other.
This includes the introduction of the innovative Parklet program which will be trialled for six months. Parklets are re-purposed parking bays which can accommodate out-door dining and seating. With many residents still working from home car spaces are not being used as frequently, so bays re-imagined for out-door dining makes better use of the spaces for our hospitality outlets.
Council is also working with businesses to increase footpath dining where streets/laneways adjacent to restaurants and cafes are opened to pedestrians to enable alfresco dining. Car parks and other vacant land near to restaurants and cafes may also be converted into outdoor dining venues.
Our local businesses are considered the life blood of our community, adding to the vibrancy and the city’s welcoming culture. These changes are expected to boost trade and bring new life into our city streets.
The new out-door dining opportunities will be introduced over the next few months with parklets beginning to be installed in October and opened in November. Other, initiatives will progressively rolled-out as businesses apply and conditions are met including road safety audits, providing COVID-19 Safe Plans and providing supporting documentation that makes this a positive and safe experience for everyone.
These initiatives support the State Government’s recent Outdoor Eating and Entertainment Package and direction to make widespread outdoor dining safe, practical and a reality this summer.
We’ll be looking for your feedback once the out-door dining program rolls out in November.
Find further information on our out-door dining page.