By Mary O’KEEFE

It looks like Montrose Shopping Park restaurant owners along Honolulu Avenue will finally see the return of outdoor dining.

Outdoor dining parklets were set up during the pandemic along Honolulu Avenue allowing restaurants to provide outdoor seating when interior dining was restricted. Although prior to the pandemic some restaurants had a few tables on the sidewalk outside their facility, the City of Glendale’s al fresco dining project expanded seating to the street. K-rails were erected around parking spaces and acted as barricades. These dining areas were filled with tables, chairs, heaters and umbrellas for diners. In addition, many restaurant owners personalized the K-rails by painting and decorating them with plants and other items.

But the parklets took parking spaces, which was an issue for the Montrose Shopping Park Association. In addition, the MSPA had an Arts and Crafts Festival planned for October 2021. Prior to the pandemic, the association would close down most of Honolulu Avenue for the two-day event to accommodate the hundreds of vendors and thousands of customers and in October it wanted the space for vendors where dining was established. The Glendale City Council had planned for the removal of the K-rails in October; the MSPA board originally wanted the parklets removed several weeks earlier than the City had planned. After speaking with the City, restaurant owners and the public, the MSPA agreed that the parklets could be removed in mid-October.

The City’s plan was to have new outdoor dining up and running in Montrose as early as November 2021; however, “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry” [or so wrote Robert Burns].

“We hit a number of snags,” said Bradley Calvert, assistant director of Community Development for the City of Glendale.

Though the installation of new outside dining areas was delayed, according to Calvert the City is moving in the right direction and plans are set to begin pre-construction in Montrose at the end of February. The design and construction of the new parklets have already been approved. It is expected that the parklets will be up and ready to go by the first week in March.

Then the City will turn its attention to other areas in Glendale.