The streets of the Central West End will transform into an outdoor dining oasis this Friday and Saturday night thanks to the CWE Streatery, an al fresco dining program that is turning three intersections into patio seating for the neighborhood’s restaurants. 

This is the second year for the Streatery, which first launched as a way to help restaurants earn money as they struggled with shuttered dining rooms, reduced indoor capacity and a dining public uneasy about eating indoors during a pandemic. Though things have eased up a bit since last year, the CWE Business Improvement District and the neighborhood’s restaurants still felt that there was a need for the program — and robust demand, too.

“Last year, this obviously came from a need to do what we could to help businesses and restaurants in the neighborhood so that they could have an opportunity to make it through this pandemic,” says Kate Haher, executive director of the CWE Business Improvement District. “This year, we’re still in this. Things are improving and vaccines are out, but we still have guidelines and regulations, and many people are still concerned about eating inside.”

Read the full article on the Riverfront Times.