Posted on 12/11/2020 10:15:03 AM PST by Vendome
“We have no servers. We have no bussers. People are voluntarily waiting for their food in the parklets,” John Duggan said.
After his family’s restaurant, Original Joe’s, caught some heat on Wednesday for allowing customers to eat their take-out orders in its parklet, John Duggan is now speaking out.
“We’re not encouraging people to dine outside. At the same time, we’re never going to stop being hospitable and gracious to the customers we desperately need at this time to keep our lights on to survive and to keep our people employed,” Duggan said.
“If they’re not gonna sit, they have to stand. You have to wait for your food in some capacity so it doesn’t make sense to me we have our customers waiting in the cold,” Duggan said.
Employees tell KRON4 no one is being served food or drinks outside, but they’re also not chasing away customers who decide to sit down.
I order my food and something to drink, then wait oustide.
When the food comes I'm just too lazy to drive home and eat something that got cold so, I eat it there and bus my own table.
Winning
And what are the Pandemic Puritans going to do about it?
{{{crickets}}}
Had to search the definition of parklet. Ah, so a decorative fake plant placed beside a bench outside a store is a parklet. Uh, ok, who knew.
They can argue over parklets. I’ll cook my own lunch, eat it in comfort at home and save a ton of money and worry.
God bless the Duggans. They are good people just trying the make a living and keep their restaurants afloat. Father, son & uncle were all notable basketball players in the S.F. prep/college scene.
I just did a search on OpenSecrets.org and this fool owner of Original Joe’s (John Duggan) donated to the “San Francisco Democratic Central Cmte” on September 30, 2020.
Your definition is not quite correct.
Parklets are created from taking one or more parking spaces and putting outdoor carpet, plants and other amenities to delineate as a people space as oppose to a car storage space. By using the parking spaces, it allows the sidewalk to remain unencumbered for pedestrian passage.
The pictures at this link show mostly public seating parklets as oppose to restaurant seating parklets, but give a good idea of what the a referring to.
Restaurants in Portland Maine have spent a lot of money creating some of these only to find as soon as it gets cold, people don’t want to eat outside.
It’s a valid legal loophole. Pre-COVID, the San Francisco parklets in front of restaurant were deemed to be public spaces. Thus, while restaurants built them and used them (and applied peer pressure to keep strangers out), legally, anyone can sit there without ordering any food.
Original Joe’s is simply letting its take-out customers use a public space that happens to be in front of its restaurant.
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