Dining Out In The North End: What's The Big Deal Right Now?

BOSTON — Boston Mayor Michelle Wu held a press conference in Boston's City Hall Tuesday afternoon to address the temperature surrounding North End restaurants after they threatened to sue her and the city, rather than comply with a lofty $7,500 fee just to do what every other restaurant in Boston can do for free - allow customers to eat outside.

Outdoor dining, a concept introduced during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, was once a vital workaround for the Boston restaurants that were struggling to stay afloat as curfews, social distancing, and capacity limits plagued the dwindling industry. Earlier this month, the city decided that North End restaurant owners would have to pay a $7,500 fee just to keep it up.

"There are many ways in which our city services are delivered differently across different neighborhoods," Wu said adding that some areas of the city need more days for trash pickup than others, and the city tries to adhere to that. "Equity doesn't mean equality all across the board."

This fee was met with backlash, as North End restaurant owners threatened to sue instead of complying. On Monday, Wu told Radio Boston restaurants could instead pay in installments as a month-to-month fee of $1,500 instead of the full $7,500 upfront. Or "If for some reason they did not want to start on the first day of outdoor dining, but instead wait a month or two into the program and they only wanted to have a patio for a few months, that should be charged month by month," Wu said.

During the press conference, Wu explained that all the money collected from the fees will go toward rodent and traffic control, cleanup, and additional street cleaning.

All restaurant owners have also been ordered to pay an additional $450 per month for each parking spot they use for outdoor seating, citing narrow sidewalks and a limited amount of space for dropoffs and pickups.

During her interview, Wu said she had many helpful and positive conversations with the restaurant community, and wanted to clear up any confusion over the newly implemented rules. "For example, being very clear that this was always intended to be a $1,500 monthly fee that added up over the course of five months, and that if restaurants want to divide that into monthly installments, that is perfectly possible, rather than making sure that could be upfront," Wu said.

In addition to the fee, North End restaurants will also have to wait until May 1 to allow sidewalk dining, whereas the rest of the city gets to start on April 1. This later start time is coupled with an earlier end date, giving North End restaurants a much shorter "al fresco" season, which could be a huge disruption for businesses.

Wu also explained there will be a process for "hardship waivers" which will include restaurants without a liquor license, restaurants with smaller street-front (a smaller patio area), or restaurants not on the main streets, like Hanover or Salem in the North End.

The North End is also supposed to end outdoor dining 30 minutes before the rest of the city, Wu said, having restaurants shut the action down at either 10 p.m. or 11 p.m. rather than 10:30 p.m. or 11:30 p.m. to prevent rowdy late-night customers.

"It is a very different situation in the North End compared to elsewhere, not only in the number of patios. It's just the scale of ... 79 outdoor dining patios in the North End last year. The next-highest neighborhood — that wasn't in the downtown area — was Back Bay, which had 59," Wu explained in the interview. "But the North End's sidewalks are very narrow, and so the patios can't fit on the sidewalks. They fit in the street, taking up parking spaces, putting diners close to traffic, in a neighborhood where there already were no alleys where food drop-off, deliveries and parking could happen."