A patio on the street in front of Quality Italian? Fuhgeddaboudit!
The Cherry Creek restaurant won’t be getting additional outdoor seating after the Denver City Council voted 10-3 Monday afternoon against giving the eatery the necessary permit.
Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer, who represents the neighborhood, said her “no” vote represented her constituents, citing hundreds of signatures submitted against the patio.
“When I say that the community is angry, they have every right to be angry about this,” Sawyer said at the meeting.
The discussion about the hypothetical future patio, which would have replaced parking spaces, was primarily about a previous patio.
Quality Italian had tables below the curb for years upon the onset of the pandemic, when Denver allowed restaurants around the city to take over parking areas on short notice in an effort to help the industry. The patio has since been taken down, and what was once a Denver pilot program for “Tier III encroachment” into city right of way is now a permanent offering.
But restaurants need a permit. And neighbors in Cherry Creek have not forgotten Quality Italian’s COVID-era patio.
“It was a community safety issue, right? Cars were running into it, people were running into it, it was wild,” Sawyer said.
The restaurant at 241 Columbine St. sits within the Halcyon hotel. Sawyer noted that the other side of the street has diagonal parking spaces.
“These diagonal parkers are backing up into this patio,” she said. “It has happened over and over and over again.”
Lou Raders, a leader with the Cherry Creek North Neighborhood Association, described a hectic block. People exiting the diagonal spots often walk directly across the street, rather than going to the corners to cross, she said. A post office next to the Halcyon attracts those in a rush. Access to a condo building’s parking is sometimes blocked. And parents come to pick up kids at Bromwell Elementary, which is just to the north.
Sawyer also claimed that Quality Italian defied city authorities when it was told to get rid of the previous patio.
“The problem came when they didn’t take it down,” she said. “And they didn’t take it down for 532 days after they were told by DOTI to take it down.”
But Nicholas Williams, a deputy manager with Denver’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, told council members that was not the case.
While city staff were figuring out how to make the patio pilot into a permanent program — “that, you will not be shocked to learn, took longer than expected,” Williams said — no one was ordered to remove their below-curb patio.
“During that process, we did not revoke anyone’s permits,” he said Monday. “Anyone’s permits. This was not unique to Quality Italian.”
When council members asked if anyone from Quality Italian could answer questions, the restaurant’s lobbyist, Josh Hanfling of Sewald Hanfling, stepped forward. He said the general manager had a vacation planned for this week.
“Based on the expected outcome of this evening he chose not to cancel his vacation,” Hanfling said.
Hanfling described the previous patio era this way: “There were some problems with the patio, and we resolved those problems and were allowed to keep the patio.”
Council members asked how much business Quality Italian might miss out on by not having the patio. About $100,000 a month, Hanfling said. It was the same day Mayor Mike Johnston laid off 171 employees and eliminated hundreds of open positions, citing below-expected sales tax revenue.
When it came time for a vote, only council members Sarah Parady, Shontel Lewis and Flor Alvidrez were pro-patio.
An executive with Quality Italian, which also has a restaurant in New York, did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. Hanfling told BusinessDen that complaints about the previous patio largely revolved around it being too far into the right of way. That was addressed, he said, by moving the patio about 2 feet onto the curb with city approval. Reflective tape was also added.
Hanfling said the business started the process of applying for the new patio about eight months ago and already bought the materials for it.
He noted that the business had a letter of support from the Cherry Creek Chamber of Commerce and the approval of the neighborhood’s design review board and business improvement district. Quality Italian met with the neighborhood association, he said, even though it wasn’t required.
“We did everything we were asked to do by city process and Cherry Creek North process,” Hanfling said.
