Seattle City Council approves permanent cafe streets

The Ballard Ave cafe street is here to stay: The Seattle City Council has approved legislation to make cafe streets permanent in the city.

Cafe streets started during the pandemic when many bars, restaurants, and cafes sought to create or expand outdoor seating to accommodate social distancing. The Ballard Ave cafe street has become one of the city’s most popular and intentional cafe streets, with new traffic patterns supporting the many local businesses that now host large outdoor seating areas.

District 6 Councilmember Dan Strauss has been a driving force behind cafe streets’ inception and path to permanence.

“My Street Café legislation embodies right-sized permanent rules for outdoor dining to support small businesses and foodies alike. Outdoor dining areas have become commonplace throughout the city and now this vibrant, pedestrian-friendly use of public space is here to stay in Seattle,” Strauss said in a statement.

Strauss said the legislation will make the Ballard Ave cafe street, “a safer place to shop, dine, drive, park, walk, bike, and deliver the freight we depend on.” He added that Ballard Ave is the perfect place to pilot the cafe street model for the city because it’s one of the busiest pedestrian streets.

The legislation gives businesses in Seattle’s historic districts, including Ballard, six months to comply with new regulations because the city needs to finalize requirements for pergolas to meet historic district standards. To that end, Strauss and SDOT are collaborating with the Ballard Historic District to create standards that the historic district will approve—a design charrette in early 2023 will address those issues.

There will be some changes coming to Ballard Ave in the coming weeks to further support the cafe street: Strauss said to expect to see flexible porous paving installed in the tree pits to make it easier to walk on sidewalks. He said there will also be some temporary changes to the Ballard Ave and 20th Ave intersection to increase the crosswalk visibility and to better direct drivers.

“Passing my bill this week making outdoor dining a permanent part of Seattle’s fabric is a big deal—we are making it easier for small businesses to add vibrancy to our communities and do business,” Strauss said. “This process took nearly three years because during the pandemic shutdown SDOT focused on getting permits issued rather than creating permanent legislation. This was the right decision and this decision saved small businesses across Seattle.”