San Jose Seeks To Extend Outdoor Dining Through 2022

By Lloyd Alaban, San Jose Spotlight

December 7, 2021

For San Jose residents who love the outdoors, the city’s appetite for its outside dining program may match their palate.

With pre-pandemic indoor dining not expected to return anytime soon, the San Jose City Council will consider another extension to its popular Al Fresco outdoor dining and business program on Tuesday, as the region deals with another COVID variant.

The extension will allow businesses to operate outdoors on private property through December 2022, while outdoor operations on closed public streets will continue through June. Officials are exploring ways to make the program permanent, according to a city memo.

The city began its Al Fresco program in mid-2020, allowing hundreds of businesses to operate outdoors to bypass indoor dining restrictions. The program received an extension in November 2020 and another extension in March. The current extension is set to expire at the end of the year.

“It’s good for some businesses that are very small inside, they need that,” said Jennifer Echeverri, owner of Habana Cuba in downtown San Jose. “When we were closed 100% and everyone needed to stay six feet apart, the program helped us.”

However, Echeverri said it was difficult losing parking spots filled up by tables and chairs. Throughout the year, she also dealt with the restaurant’s outdoor tents being vandalized or stolen.

“It’s not like it didn’t come with problems, but the city meant well,” she told San José Spotlight.

Certain streets, such as San Pedro and Post streets downtown and Coronado Avenue near Edenvale in South San Jose, will remain closed to cars. Those streets are jammed with tables and chairs instead of vehicle traffic.

The outdoor dining program, first proposed by Councilmember Dev Davis and Mayor Sam Liccardo, was initially supposed to last just a few months. As its popularity grew, the number of extensions and businesses grew as well. The program went from allowing restaurants to occupy closed-down streets and parking lots, to other businesses such as barbershops, salons, gyms and casinos.

“Al Fresco dining was a great example of an innovative public-private partnership during the pandemic, and for many of our businesses, it was a critical lifeline,” Derrick Seaver, president and CEO of the San Jose Chamber of Commerce, told San José Spotlight. “The chamber is fully supportive of this program continuing and expanding now that the recovery is picking up steam.”

According to a city memo, officials are also working with the Knight Foundation to quickly build structures for customers to sit in while dining outdoors, known as parklets.

“The city has realized, through the streamlined temporary parklet program, how beneficial they are to our businesses and our community,” Davis told San José Spotlight.

According to Nancy Klein, the city’s director of economic development, 131 businesses are registered with the Al Fresco program. Of those, 35 have permission to operate in parking lots and 12 can operate on a closed street.

“Many customers remain hesitant to shop or dine indoors in the current COVID-19 environment, and the county continues to encourage outdoor activities to the extent possible,” reads a city memo. “Providing the ability for businesses to extend their retail or dining operations outdoors will hopefully assist these businesses on their road to economic recovery.”

The San Jose City Council meets Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. Learn how to watch and participate.

Contact Lloyd Alaban at lloyd@sanjosespotlight.com or follow @lloydalaban on Twitter.

This story will be updated.

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