Outdoor Dining Is Doomed

Wow someone really ought to let the rest of the world outside of America know.<p>Outdoor dining sucks in most North American cities because you get to eat right next to a bunch of loud, polluting car traffic zooming by a few feet away. Last time I ate outside in Chicago I could reach out and touch an idling minivan. No thank you. New York City keeps their garbage, most of the time, again, within touching or at the very least smelling distance of outdoor eateries. The city is loud because it&#x27;s overrun with automobile traffic. Who the hell would want to eat in that environment?<p>Perhaps we could work on making the rest of our cities look and feel like the parks that are usually popular places to bring lunch, since, you know, they&#x27;re quiet and feel safe.

Outdoor dining is fine and will continue to be fine.<p>Outdoor dining that was not properly planned for, and was shoved in at the last minute to accommodate covid restrictions will probably die out.<p>Outdoor dining that is:<p>- On a pedestrian only (or low traffic) street<p>- Covered (simple overhang is fine)<p>- Heated as needed (or just closed on particularly cold&#x2F;rainy days)<p>Will stick around for a long time (and mostly predates covid anyways). New York certainly has some areas that are great for this - but given that a lot of the city is... dirty, smelly, and car infested... I don&#x27;t see outdoor dining hanging around in those spots.

The article is very far from insightful, or even well written.<p>I apologize if this is mean, but who even are The Atlantic&#x27;s readers?<p>The prose is too dry to overlap with tabloids or, like, Time Magazine. It&#x27;s strictly worse at essays and cultural commentary than the New Yorker. It&#x27;s strictly worse at lit than the Paris Review.<p>Who reads this stuff, and why?

This article kinda sucks and sounds like it was written by a complete NIMBY. I don&#x27;t have the energy to do a proper full rebuttal, but I&#x27;ll just respond to one representative dumb line from the article:<p>&gt; For one thing, dining sheds tend to take up parking spaces needed to attract customers, Cutting-Jones said.<p>This is absolute bullshit. In the space it takes for one car to park, you can easily have a dozen or more patrons dining there. And these streeteries are located in dense cities (the article&#x27;s title image is clearly Manhattan), where, guess what, the VAST majority of people aren&#x27;t driving to go out for dinner.<p>Also, yes, it&#x27;s winter. Of course outdoor dining is less popular (though I&#x27;m still routinely drinking outdoors on sidewalk tables at my favorite bar). But you know what? Winter won&#x27;t last forever, and the outdoor dining will be bustling again soon enough.<p>I&#x27;m so tired of hearing these same lame car-centric takes over and over again. Let&#x27;s just leave everything as parking and never have anything nice on the streets. I bet this guy would get rid of sidewalks too if he had his way.

As an european I can&#x27;t stop laughing at that headline - and I am pretty sure lots of HN&#x27;ers from other parts of the world will too...

Wow someone really ought to let the rest of the world outside of car-oriented America know.<p>Outdoor dining sucks in most North American cities because you get to eat right next to a bunch of loud, polluting car traffic zooming by 5 ft away. Last time I ate outside in Chicago I could reach out and touch an idling minivan. No thank you.

Feels like a fluff piece. Of course fewer people sit outside to eat when it’s below freezing. That doesn’t mean outdoor dining is “doomed”.

I can see why media folks are afraid of ChatGPT taking their job.

Outdoor dining in the nice parts of America will continue being as amazing as it always has been. NYC is a cramped, overcrowded island that literally doesn&#x27;t have enough room for dumpsters; trash on the streets, rats, and all the obvious follow-on effects obviously degrade the experience there.

The last thing I wanna do with the restaurant is sit on the sidewalk and smell fumes and have to deal with people constantly walking by.

Who would have thought that people would come to the shocking conclusion that having your food rained on isn&#x27;t much fun?

American hipster moves into big loud dirty city and complains of eating outside…

Maybe it&#x27;s the cars that are doomed.