For some reason, people don't want to be in a mall anymore. It's like how people don't want to be in a minivan anymore. Malls and minivans are practical. They just don't have the right image.

Large malls have lower space, often on only two sides, for delivery trucks. (the ground is commonly sloped so that customers enter on a different level from the deliveries)

I really hope these changes stay permanently.

My only gripe is that we haven't figured out the European style where all the seats face the road. :)

-- (fictional) Mark Twain

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/and-never-the-twain-shall-...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Gloom

I just paid my second $200+ electric bill this year, and that's for a 800 sq ft apartment with a single AC. That AC had to run for the last 3 months, nearly non-stop, just to keep the place in the low 70s. Sure, the place was renovated, and even has vinyl windows, but anything not relating to appearances was skipped in the remodel. No insulation. No leak sealing. Every time my neighbors light up a joint in the garage downstairs I get to smell it throughout my house.

https://county.milwaukee.gov/EN/Parks/Explore/Beer-Gardens

Of course, it's a big part of the cultural heritage in Milwaukee, so municipal beer gardens may be a pipe dream in more puritanical cities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholz_Garten

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53552526

[1] https://www.eia.gov/consumption/commercial/data/2012/c&e/pdf..., table E1. [2] https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec2_3.pdf

Additionally the ingredients tend to be inexpensive compared to “nicer” cuts. Similar to BBQ.

Not to mention the end result doesn’t have to be stews, etc. I like to braise brisket in a liquid of peppers and stock and then use the resulting liquid for salsa’s and shred the meat for tacos.

Thanks!

shudder

I think there's still a place for inspections, but unless you're absolutely terrible it should be informational for consumers rather than a hurdle that must be passed before doing business. Let people choose to eat at uninspected facilities if they want (with the knowledge of what they're doing), and have liability laws in place for when things go wrong.

While we're at it, we should make it easier to become a street vendor. We encourage children to be entrepreneurial with lemonade stands and bake sales, yet it's stupidly hard to actually do something like this as a real business.

Indoor Plexiglass partitions provide isolation too but the level of isolation is more limited. Plus the air in a smaller indoor location is recirculated between partitions, whereas outdoors it is ostensibly exchanged at much higher rates.

Which makes me wonder, can't we build indoor booths?

The catch would be one would also need a HVAC that can exchange air outside the booths at high throughputs like aircraft cabins.

ACPH = air changes per hour = 60 * Q / L where Q = volumetric flow (ft3/min), L = ft3.

Aircraft cabin ACPH are around 20-30 (and through a HEPA filter) [1], while a restaurant dining area is 8-12 [2] (many assumptions here, like airtightness, etc), and no HEPA.

[0] https://www.timeout.com/chicago/news/dine-and-drink-in-a-pri...

[1] https://www.iata.org/contentassets/f1163430bba94512a583eb6d6...

[2] https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/air-change-rate-room-d_86...

[1] https://coronavirus.dc.gov/page/coronavirus-new-and-expanded...

Also you'll need 14 gauge extension cords, many regular ones are only 16 or 18 gauge.

New plan for next time: electrically heated blankets!

A CO2 meter can give a quick approximation of whether the greenhouse canopy spacs is more like an inside or outside.

My intuition was you’re right. But I could see it being the other way if it’s just a loose shield.

You can use a co2 meter as a proxy. Outdoor levels are generally around 450 in a city. If your indoor space with open windows is there, you’re probably basically outside. If it is higher, you’re not.

See here for example, co2 is a commonly used tracer gas: https://www.ghdonline.org/uploads/Measuring_Air_Changes.pdf

—————

To be clear. I think very few restaurants have enough windows to really be like outside with a bunch of people in there.

I had a look at the greenhouses. Key difference from indoor dining: they prevent superspreader events. The problem with indoor dining is you have 30+ unmasked people dining in a poorly ventilated room. One infected person can infect many others.

In a two person tent an infected person can infect at most their dining partner, assuming waiters are provided good sanitary measures.

The best way to combat cabin fever is to get out of the cabin.

It's actually a nice concept, but NY state and North it won't work every day, and unlike 'breaking for rain'. there are long periods of at least several days, sometimes weeks, where it's 'too dam cold' which makes it really hard to operate, i.e. 'just on the nice days'.

And FYI for the skiiers chiming in, it's not the same thing. Skiiers are already 'being active', they're bundled up and prepared for cold, and 'doing an outdoor activity'.

That said - Montreal 'defeats winter' with weekend long raves in the dead of winter, getting more 'bundled up' for 'outdoor dining' might possibly be a cultural shift that could be made if enough people were on board and it became 'a thing'.

It needs to be something promoted widely in order for it to 'catch on' as a cultural touchstone.

Chefs Forced to Change Menus due to Government Restrictions

Is that after adjusting for things like population density/urbanization?

Also, while I don't have an easy cross references of case rates and restrictions, it certainly looks like the places at the top of per-capita case rates are also disproportionately places that have not had strong mandatory restrictions, so I suspect your claim is wrong as stated, too.

These states have had some of the harshest restrictions. They've gotten worse results than the mixed approach for the rest of the country.

Good case in point: Michigan vs Florida. Both have about the same deaths per million at 74 and 75 respectively. Yet Florida is fully open with no restrictions. And Michigan had some of the harshest lockdowns and restrictions.

Density may have been some kind of argument early on, but we are 9 or 10 months into this. The virus has had a chance to spread.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covi...

That is cumulative not current status; unsurprisingly, the states that were hit the hardest often instituted the strongest controls.

But in current cases, those aren't the top any more:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/corona...

Like someone paid money for this?

>A report from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. indicated that 45F (7.2C) is the temperature below which demand for outdoor dining will collapse. (In a separate report, the company projected that outdoor dining demand would fall to 5% in December before rebounding in 2021.

That and all the food they listed are typical winter dishes you find on menus every year. How is this newsworthy at all?

ETA: I guess i'm the only person who's eaten at a restaurant with heated patios in November then. Those crowded tables around me must've been my imagination.

It’s a new thing. You’d normally never eat outside in the winter in cities like Chicago, Boston, or New York, but because of Coronavirus people will.

It just so happens that people inclined to do these things have mostly all been driven out of major urban areas where the restaurants are and if they weren't they would mostly still not go downtown for overpriced beer.

With food trucks, first and foremost, people don't "hang out" for as long as they might at a restaurant. It's more akin to fast food - get your food, wolf it down, get out. The process is also different - people approach a window, order their food, and then eat it wherever they want. They have the option of eating it near the truck, but the convenience of taking your food to a different area of your choosing (say, your warm and cozy house) is also there. In addition, in places where food trucks are hugely popular like Portland and Austin, there are "food truck parks" where multiple trucks congregate around a shared communal eating area that is often covered and heated. That space is often operated by an entity other than the food truck so the truck operators don't have to worry about it.

Restaurants, on the other hand, are places where people like to hang out at for extended periods of time. Whereas at a food truck you might order all of your food at once, at a restaurant you're ordering your first drink, then an appetizer or two, then another round of drinks and your entree, then more drinks and your dessert. That process lasts a lot longer than your time at a food truck. There also isn't a convenient "communal area" like at a food truck park that is in the center of a block of restaurants that restaurants can send people to - restaurants must figure out how to build their own seating areas and provide ample warmth.

Food trucks don't care about people being comfortable because that's not in their business model - you order your food and where you eat it is your problem. In order for restaurants to maintain business, they need to cater to the comfort and warmth of their customers.

Winter is going to be very difficult for restaurants. If they don't adapt to serving meals outdoors, they may not survive.

They're going to have to change a lot to create a comfortable environment for patrons. Fire pits, heaters, warm dishes: soups, stews, ramen, pho, pastas. Warm drinks and heated cocktails. All of this while maintaining safe social distancing.

I've already seen a number of restaurants and bars make the attempt. It's pretty ingenuitive.

The pandemic will probably be over in a year, though, so at least in the USA, I don't see a great future in the near-term for mid-40Fs outdoor dining.

I grew up in the South and live in the Pacific Northwest now. I think you see a lot less outdoor dining in the South not because of the winters but because of the summers. It's so hot that eating outside is miserable half the year, so restaurants aren't physically designed for outdoor dining during the couple of spring and fall months when it would be nice.

This is wrong in my experience. There are hundreds of restaurants equipped for summer dining [1]. Lots of restaurants have open rooftops, patio seating, open-air "fireman"-style garage door walls, etc. Pretty much every BBQ joint and taqueria is outdoors.

Outdoor eating is very popular in the Georgia summer.

[1] https://www.gafollowers.com/13-rooftop-bars-atlanta/

And all restaurants, even outdoors, are banned for the next six weeks, anyway.

To be fair, we used to be smokers, so were used to this before. Around September, everyone else stopped eating outside, and the staff often looked at us funny when we continued.