Metuchen To Remove Outdoor Dining Tents By End Of October

METUCHEN, NJ — Metuchen will be removing all outdoor dining tents on New Street by the end of this month, Mayor Jonathan M Busch announced Thursday.

In September, Metuchen announced they were extending outdoor dining until the end of the year. But the unexpected changes in gas company work resulted in the plan being changed.

Read More Here: Metuchen To Extend Outdoor Dining Until End Of Year

The gas company was scheduled to commence work on New Street in mid-September before delaying it to mid-October and now scheduling work around Nov. 4. The tents will now have to come down in preparation for this work

“The gas company’s considerable delay has caused us to reconsider reconstructing the tents once the work is completed because of the limited number of days in which they will likely be used from that point until the end of the year,” Busch said.

“This, combined with the overall local decrease in COVID cases has led us to decide that the tents will not return once the gas work is complete. By December 1, all other restaurant tents in the Borough will also be required to be removed.”

Metuchen’s outdoor dining became incredibly popular over the past year. New Street has been partially closed to accommodate the tents. But with the outdoor dining tents coming down, Busch said “the street will return to the way it was before the pandemic.”

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