Dining Under the Stars

If you’ve ever thought the rooftops in downtown Red Bank were a little bit underutilized you’re not alone. At a recent workshop, borough council discussed the possibility of letting businesses put the tarred-tops to better use. The idea: rooftop dining in Red Bank.

In what are very preliminary discussions, the council, with the goal of putting Red Bank on the cutting edge, believes that dining should no longer be confined to a ground floor, or even the inside of a building.

The notion of rooftop dining was brought to council members by at least one local restaurateur, but how it would operate, and how Red Bank could see its way to making it a reality, is still a bit cloudy.

Mayor Pat Menna believes it’s not so out of the ordinary. Pointing to DuPont Circle in Washington, DC, where there are several rooftop bars, Menna said rooftop access has been a success, a success Red Bank can follow.

“We have a number of pleasing architectural buildings, historic in nature, and a lot of them have flat roofs,” he said.

Imagine, if you will, dining al fresco four floors up, looking down over Red Bank with a glass of wine in your hand. OK, so maybe we’re not talking exactly that high, but a bite of Bolognese from at least some restaurant rooftop is definitely a possibility.

Menna isn’t letting slip which restaurant or restaurants are imaging the possibility of rooftop dining, but we’ve got our guesses. But, those pursuing the idea do own their building, he admitted.

Councilwoman Sharon Lee said this discussion isn’t all that new. As a previous member of the borough’s planning board, Lee said the idea was posed and discussed on several occasions. A stumbling block, she said, was that the planning board couldn’t talk its way to an answer for the question of how rooftop dining would impact the neighborhood.

With business and residential tied so closely together in Red Bank’s dense downtown, noise from rooftop eateries, whether that is music or just your average din of dining, could be a nuisance to residents.

“I’d be very interested in seeing some studies about how sound travels,” she said.

Menna, however, is championing the idea, or at least championing further discussions about the idea. Though there’s no timetable for a decision on rooftop dining, Menna requested that the borough’s engineer put together some basic designs regarding things like safety.