Outdoor Seating: An Advocacy Win

This post is about small business advocacy. It draws on the experiences of Syndicate Wine Bar with recent outdoor dining policies, and is written by David, one of the owners.

A Facebook memory popped up in our feed today, reminding us of our former, curbside outdoor seating during the pandemic. We called them cabanas, and they offered classy, sheltered, year-round dining for our guests from mid-2020 until 2022.

The cabanas got us through the pandemic, but we were glad to replace them with a more permanent, durable, and protected dining structure that is now outside our front door. It’s an incredible showpiece, and combined with sidewalk seating we can accommodate 24 people outside, almost as many as our old parking lot tent allowed.

During peak season, our outdoor seating gets a lot of use. However, it doesn’t really increase our total seating capacity, as people either choose indoors or outdoors based on the weather. What outdoor seating does is prevent us from losing customers who would otherwise move on to another place with a patio. During the winter, no one requests outdoor seating and our dining structure remains locked until springtime.

This was an important point we raised during our recently testimony to the City about outdoor permit fees. The City was proposing a staggering 500%+ increase in annual renewal fees. One of our friends in Old Town was facing annual fees of more than $1200, at a time when small business is already struggling.

One City councilor disregarded this point, stating that outdoor seating means increased seating capacity, full stop, and we should pay for it. Thankfully, their single vote was outweighed by others who all agreed with our position. The result of our advocacy was a dramatic decrease in fees that are reasonable and considerate of not only the amount being assessed, during a challenging economy for small businesses everywhere, especially restaurants. Plus, outdoor tables on sidewalks, city-wide, will incur NO fee at all!

This past week, we additionally learned the City heard us about the timing of fee increases, and decided to halt ALL increases City-wide at this time, not just those pertaining to outdoor dining. This means more than 700 possible fee increases for businesses and residents has been halted for the forseeable future! Everything from filing a construction permit, to obtaining approval for signage outside a business, will remain at previous rates.

The process has reminded me that advocacy works when it’s done for the right reason and with the right attitude. We’ve always raised concerns from a position of helping our district, offering solutions for the consideration of those who vote on these kinds of things. We don’t ever try or want to waste the City’s time.

Recently, there feels a definite shift in the air lately, with how the City, and now the Beaverton Downtown Association, seem to be offering a new and positive energy that engages small business at many levels that previously would have seemed impossible.

We appreciate this new chapter of transparency we’re seeing from local leaders, and look forward to working with them and other members of our small business community, as we continue to advocate in this big, small town of Beaverton.