Spring is all too short a season in southeast Louisiana. But it’s prime time for outdoor dining in New Orleans, and these options have been growing all around town lately. There are more decks overlooking the lake and more courtyards open in the French Quarter. Take a spin down Magazine Street on a nice early evening, and some stretches look like linear plazas, with the sidewalk seating of one restaurant merging into the next.
But in one part of town in particular, new outdoor dining spots are contributing more than just a picturesque perch and they promise an impact that reaches beyond any one season.
In downtown New Orleans, the trend for more outdoor restaurant seating is also tied to the changing profile of the area, the shift for what has historically been a hub of office buildings and industry into a more densely populated and active center of the city.
Consider Wood Pizza Bistro & Taphouse. This is a former icehouse in the middle of the Warehouse District now built out with a wood-fired pizza oven along one wall, a bar along another, just a handful of indoor tables in between but a large patio holding down two corners of its block.
On the right night, Wood can look like a mini festival grounds, with strings of lights swept up above and tables outside filled with people, pizza and pints. For as long as I can remember, this lot at the corner of Tchoupitoulas and Andrew Higgins was just an empty yard and a tease, a place where you wanted to park when the Warehouse District was packed but where knew you’d get towed. Now, its patio looks directly across the street at the bustle of cabs and café tables at Cochon, Donald Link’s perpetually busy Cajun restaurant, and the open flank of Butcher, the related sandwich shop that was remodeled with a roll-up garage door to connect the dining room to the street scene.
This is just one corner. Around downtown, you see new sidewalk tables under balconies and galleries and in their own little enclosed patio areas and more is on the way.
At the South Market District, that multi-block apartment development taking shape in the CBD, each of the flock of casual eateries planned for the ground floor will have outdoor seating. Otherwise, the trend is happening one restaurant at a time, but it’s also in synch with a broader development arch for downtown. As more old warehouses and office towers are converted to apartments, more people are living downtown. The more activity there is on the streets after office hours, the more it looks like a place where people want to live, potentially attracting more in a circular cycle.
Restaurants are right there in the process. By taking it to the streets with outdoor seating, they’re softening the hard edges of their neighborhoods and adding more life to the street scene, making it all feel safer, more vibrant and more like a place to live. That means getting people to take a new look at downtown. But then, when you want to turn heads in New Orleans, food and dining is a pretty good way to start.
Wood Pizza Bistro & Taphouse
404 Andrew Higgins Blvd., New Orleans, 504-281-4893; www.woodpizzaneworleans.com
