Downers Grove expands outdoor dining beyond its downtown

Downers Grove will now allow more al fresco dining beyond its historic downtown.

Earlier this week, the village council voted 6 to 1 to amend two ordinances. One expands regulations throughout the whole village to align with an earlier measure passed in February that standardized outdoor dining exclusively for downtown restaurants. The other ordinance amends building and fire codes for temporary structures, such as outdoor tents for cafes.

Commissioner Danny Glover, who also owns the Downers Grove restaurant Skuddlebutts Pizza & Catering, made the push in March for villagewide outdoor dining out of fairness. Glover also pushed for the previous limit of 180 days for a temporary tent on private property to mirror the allowable 246 days for outdoor cafes from March 15 to Nov. 15.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Downers Grove relaxed its outdoor dining regulations to help struggling restaurants that had to close down their indoor dining rooms. Since outdoor dining continued to be popular and fiscally helpful to restaurants in 2021, Downers Grove moved this year to standardize fees tied to permits, liquor licenses, insurance and other regulations.

For non-downtown restaurants, outdoor cafes within or adjacent to private parking lots must have physical barriers to safely separate diners from drivers. Temporary cafes outside are also not to have more seats than inside an establishment, and outdoor dining cannot displace each restaurant's required number of parking spaces.

In his lone vote against the ordinances, Commissioner Greg Hosé shared a wish for more permanently designed outdoor patio areas. He also had concerns about temporary tents not being aesthetically pleasing.

"I love the idea of outdoor dining," said Hosé, adding that he didn't want to endorse "putting up a bunch of cement around a relatively inexpensive tent you might pick up at Home Depot."

Andrew Bucas, an owner of Grand Duke's Restaurant at 980 75th St., welcomed the new ordinances.

"We were hoping that it was still going to be possible," said Bucas, who offered tented outdoor dining in the parking lot of Grand Duke's in 2020 and 2021. "There's still a lot of diners who don't want to come inside."

By contrast, The Baked Apple Breakfast Co. at 1224 Ogden Ave. is unlikely to offer tented outdoor dining the way it did in 2020.

"We still have a bit of a labor shortage, and we don't have the capacity in parking for both in and outside," said Baked Apple co-owner Angelo Doulas. "But if things go bad again, we've got to do the outside dining."