Three local restaurants will test out a parklet in downtown Windsor in the hopes it will help them bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic.
La Guardia Italian Cuisine, On a Roll Sushi and Panache Restaurant and Lounge on Pitt Street East near Ouellette Avenue officially opened the first parklet ever constructed in the city's core Friday.
The trio split the cost of a $12,000 deck and the 50 seats it provides based on their frontage.
All three either lacked a patio or had a meager set up, which is a challenge without use of the indoor dining area during Phase Two.
La Guardia owner Michael Ciliberto says the city and the Downtown Windsor Business Improvement Association gave them a fighting chance.
"The recovery is going to be really hard, I don't even know if you can recover from what we've lost, but it's a start, he says. "Hopefully this will lead to Phase Three when we can do the reopening inside and try to build back what we've lost."
Panache owner Michael Stojcic says the patio opened unofficially Thursday night and has already been a huge boost.
"We had a very successful night last night from it alone and we're getting tons of feedback; it's been great so far," he added.
The hope is the concept catches on elsewhere downtown and maybe sticks around after the pandemic, according to On a Roll owner George Stratis.
"It feels good that we're the first ones but if everybody else hops on board like this and this becomes a Windsor, Ont. culture thing we could be a little tourist hot spot here," says Stratis.
The parklet will have to be taken down and stored after Nov. 1 as a condition of the permit granted by the city.