Seattle will hopefully see a significant increase in sidewalk cafes with a new, less expensive permit for restaurants. This article in the Seattle Times compares our process to other cities, which is interesting. I was recently in Portland for work and noticed how booming their downtown Pearl District was. That is probably because businesses pay a $10 fee to operate sidewalk cafes. Similar-sized cities like Copenhagen and Melbourne also have several hundred more outdoor dining spaces than us. This should be an exciting change! Now, they’ll just need a way to shield outside diners from the mist and rain that is so frequent here.