A view out to the soon to be removed Barrio streatery
Some of the dining habits and street seating setups of the pandemic may never go away but times have changed enough for one Capitol Hill restaurant to move on from its COVID-era “streatery” and restore an increasingly rare feature along 12th Ave — street parking.
“We are selling our Streatery!,” Barrio Mexican Kitchen and Agave Bar announced this week. “Thank you to our guests, team, and neighbors for making covid a bit more bearable by enjoying this streatery with us, but the time has come to move on.”
Get your offers in now for the 60-foot long x 8-foot wide patio that the restaurant installed during the years of restrictions and precautions under a city program put in place to regulate the proliferation of street patios that sprung forward during the pandemic.
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CHS reported here in late 2022 as the city extended the program into the pandemic recovery era with new fee structures to make it cheaper for restaurants and cafes to set up street and patio seating and new rules that emphasized “the public nature of the street” while requiring cafes to “fit into and enhance” the streetscape. The rules also set guidelines for dining structures that are “visually permeable, attractive, durable, graffiti- resistant, and easy to clean and maintain.”
The listing: “We are selling our Streatery! Thank you to our guests, team, and neighbors for making covid a bit more bearable by enjoying this streatery with us, but the time has come to move on. If you are interested please email [email protected] for more information.”
The rules require any street cafe or patio be treated as “public space outside of business hours.”
For Barrio, while there have been a handful of complaints filed about the 12th Ave structure it is selling and its original pandemic umbrella setup that had to be reworked to comply with safety requirements, moving on from the streatery is about getting back to basics and putting the street space to use as, well, parking.
“We see this as an opportunity to reimagine our outdoor dining for Barrio, placing new emphasis on simplicity. We want to provide better flow in our steps of service for our guests dining outdoors,” a Barrio rep tells us. “We would also like to bring back more parking for our guests, neighbors, and vendors.”
The representative said the restaurant is also excited for another benefit of removing the streatery — You’ll soon be able to see Barrio from the street again.
Barrio is located at 1420 12th Ave. Learn more at barriorestaurant.com.
What a bummer, the streatery is beautiful and so fun to sit in. And right as summer begins! So sad that we prioritize space for our cars over space for ourselves.
I wish these ugly things would just go away. Such an eyesore. And I hate being seated in them. I get they were great during the pandemic, but now?
The ones on 15th and 18th are acting as sewer collection points, they are choking the sewer drains.
They’re a pain for servers too…
Agree completely! In addition to cluttering up the streetscape, and taking away parking, they are just plain ugly and tacky. Remove ’em all!
FYI it’s for sale at Earthwise for $12000
WOOHOO!! 🎉 It’s time to move on. What a bold and brave move. I hope other businesses follow suit before these Streateries start attracting rats like in New York. 🤮 https://youtu.be/uZfxzgxsemQ?si=v36-kfw5xFz0mNn7
I know these things have drawbacks, but as someone who has reluctantly sworn off all indoor dining I’m sorry to see them go. What will these restaurants do if covid re-surges as it did in 2022? (Or, God forbid, a more virulent pathogen emerges such as bird flu?) Many, perhaps most, will likely close for good next time rather than undertake this Herculean effort again. Streeteries were and are a smart long-term investment. Government should find ways to fix the problems they cause and encourage their continued operation.
Sworn off all indoor dining? What in the world? Why?
If another pandemic comes along, we’ll rebuild things like this. Until then hopefully people will patronize indoor restaurants again and we won’t have so many vacant storefronts.
Why? Because the pandemic isn’t truly over, and I’m in a high-risk group (more than one, actually). Thus: no sit-down restaurants, no movies in theaters, no indoor public gatherings of any kind for me anymore. At least not until covid becomes as seasonally predictable as flu, or AI creates a vaccine that actually blocks infection.
Got it, so this isn’t restaurant-specific, you’re just avoiding all indoor person-to-person interactions. I don’t have an answer for that kind of seclusion, but it doesn’t seem like streateries like this really solve much of it.
Y’know, I don’t much like the phrase “check your privilege” but in this case I think it’s the appropriate response. You apparently have the luxury of no longer having to think about covid at every indoor occasion where strangers are present, and that’s great. I’m happy for you. (Really, I am. None of us should have to do that.) But for those of us who still have to take essentially the same precautions we all did in 2020, outdoor dining is one of the few remaining opportunities we have for socializing outside the home — something that’s also essential to health, both mental and physical. To me and others in this situation, that consideration vastly outweighs the aesthetic and other issues with these structures. Removing them significantly shrinks our world.