Sidewalk Cafes, Outdoor Seating Up in Downtown D.C. Since Last Year

By Martin Austermuhle , dcist

August 20, 2012

There's little more sublime than sitting outside and enjoying a good drink and meal on a beautiful evening. Thankfully, there are more and more places to do so this year. Earlier this month the Downtown D.C. Business Improvement District reported that both the number of sidewalk cafes and outdoor seats had grown over the last year, and in the later case, the growth has been dramatic:

The DowntownDC BID’s 2012 Inventory of Sidewalk Cafes shows there are now 147—more than an 8% increase compared to 2011. Although our reporting methodology changed this year—we were able to capture exact seat numbers as opposed to approximate capacities—the nearly 4,400 seats tallied represent about a 70% increase in available seats from the previous year.

Some of the biggest growth has come in the number of small (1-20 seats) and mid-sized (21-40 seats) cafes, which have grown 59 and 105 percent respectively.

The DowntownDC BID encompasses 138 blocks bounded by Constitution Avenue to the south, Massachusetts Avenue to the north, 16th Street to the west and North Capitol Street to the east.

Reposted fro dcist,  "Sidewalk Cafes, Outdoor Seating Up in Downtown D.C. Since Last Year"