Restaurants prepare for outdoor dining

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — Federal Hill is known for its restaurants, but many of those restaurants have little if any outdoor space.

That’s why they’re forced to get creative.

Opa on Atwells Avenue is taking safety seriously.

Staff plan to check customers’ temperatures, before seating them at socially-distanced tables in front of the restaurant on the sidewalk.

“We want to make sure that our patrons are coming in very healthy,” said owner Francois Karam.

They’re also looking to add tables in an alleyway on the side of their building.

And they have an idea to hang pieces of plastic from umbrellas on tables aiming to create an additional barrier.

“We’ve been coming up with some creative ideas just to make sure that the patrons are safe, staff is safe, and everyone’s feeling comfortable, by creating a curtain system around each umbrella for the tables outside,” Karam said.

But some restaurants say all the creativity in the world isn’t enough to make it worthwhile to have customers dining on the premises right now.

Of the roughly 50 restaurants on Federal Hill with space for al fresco dining, only eight are actually planning to use it at this point.

“It’s a challenging thing to do,” said Rick Simone of the Federal Hill Commerce Association. “It’s simple, it comes down to math. Then we’ve got weather. Then we’ve got making sure our customers feel ready to come back.”

Simone says he now has permission to close parts of Atwells Avenue in the coming weeks, allowing more tables in the street.

Trattoria Zooma, which doesn’t have enough outdoor space to move beyond takeout for now, is looking forward to expanded seating options.

“Hopefully being able to have a mix of indoor and outdoor seating, where we’ll be able to bring our customers back to dine with us,” said manager Dino DiFante.