Table for Two

By Krys Stefansky

Finally, outside dining gets more elbow room. Who knew it would take a pandemic to do it.

All across the country there‘s been talk about how to get our restaurants up and running again. 

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I saw a news report that the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority had given their blessing for indoor-only restaurants to create outside seating. To keep people from breathing on each other inside, take over sidewalks was the idea. Spill over into parking lots. Just keep people far enough apart and do what you can to start making money again.

For a second I was puzzled. The ABC board? Why would they have to OK this?

Ah, yes. The beer, the wine, the mixed drinks and our evident inability to consume them without being fenced in or watched over by the police.

Why is this such a big worry here? Just down the street from my house are several restaurants that created outside dining spaces in the past couple of years. They all needed wooden walls, stacked stone barriers, rope, rails. If you hop to the outside of these corrals with your mixed drink, you’re in violation of the law. And don’t get me started about beer and wine festivals and the hazard fencing there. So silly.

Just relax.

I cut my teeth in Bavaria in the dappled shade of the German Biergarten tradition. I seldom saw a drunk. The crunch of feet on gravel still makes me homesick for long wooden tables with metal legs, narrow benches, glistening liter mugs of beer and the smell of pork and fresh bread. It‘s still one of my favorite things about vacationing there now. You sit with strangers, sometimes you chat and get to know them, but mostly there is just a shared joy in being outside on a beautiful day with good food and drink.

In Regensburg, we have our favorite Biergartens. In some, we watch the sun set on the Danube River. In old town we people-watch, eat pizza and sip Italian wine at umbrella-shaded tables scattered across a cobblestone plaza. And at a beloved Vietnamese diner in a narrow alley with only four tiny, super-popular tables outside, we’ve spooned up hot, delicious soup with our coats on in the rain. Truly romantic.

I‘ve eaten in restaurants in city parks where the wooden tables stretch on and on until they simply peter out and you realize you‘ve reached the end. No wall, no rope, no fence.  No Polizei.

Parking lot dining in Virginia Beach. Photos by Bernice Pope.

But there‘s hope for us here in the States.

This past week Matthew Korfhage reported in The Virginian-Pilot that Norfolk has turned parking spaces into restaurant patios. Orapax in the Chelsea District of the city looked so darn cute in the accompanying picture. They had no outside dining, but now have tables in front of their building and a string of lights overhead for the evening. Now that‘s fun! Hope it stays.

Korfhage wrote that Phoebus closed streets in its business district to cars, and alfresco dining has taken over instead. Wouldn‘t it be nice if that became permanent? Make a pedestrian zone there, come on!

I‘m hoping this will spread in Virginia Beach. We have our favorite places that already have outdoor dining, some on the water, some just cleverly designed patios on sidewalks. But there are plenty of restaurants in this strip mall-loving town that could push out into their own parking lots and make a little magic.

That‘s what we need as we come out of this horrendous nightmare. Let‘s not worry so much about hemming everyone in. Millions of people have shown great restraint during the course of this thing. We can be trusted to behave and look out for each other while enjoying a meal with a refreshing drink. 

We need fresh air, good food, renewed joy in our lives. And we need a taste of what can be if we rethink outdated ideas about how to enjoy a meal and drink under the sun or stars.