Restaurants are beginning to reopen across the country, and they’re coming up with some wacky ways to keep patrons 6 feet apart, from intertubes to pool noodle hats to greenhouses (though, sometimes, they aren’t doing much of anything).
As thrilling as that sounds to my inner kid, it’s clear there is a need for a practical design solution to help restaurants navigate the new rules of operation as states begin phased reopening under restricted guidelines—without turning patrons into human bumper cars.
Designer David Rockwell and his team at the architecture and design firm Rockwell Group—which has done interiors for Nobu and Catch, among other high-end restaurants—have developed a modular outdoor dining kit that restaurants can use to extend their existing seating area onto the adjacent sidewalk and street. Restaurants are a volume business. They need to serve a lot of customers to turn a profit. This would help restaurants maintain a degree of volume under reduced occupancy and social distancing guidelines—and let diners eat al fresco at a safe distance. No silly hats required.
On a practical level, Rockwell Group needs all those street closures for its concept to work. A spokesperson for Rockwell Group told Fast Company that the firm is on calls with the city “every day. . . . We, as an architecture and design firm, are able to institute these plans when we have a green light.”
The modular outdoor dining set includes a covered booth that provides semi-enclosed dining for individual parties, a sanitation station, a deck to cover the pavement, and plant-covered fencing to create an enclosed barrier from the street. The team has also developed floor plans for varying outdoor seating capacities, from as few as 30 seats to as many as 216. The concepts take over part of the sidewalk and street but appear to leave space for pedestrians. The firm says they plan to provide the instructions and tools needed to assemble the kit as the project develops.
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