Herndon town leaders didn’t find much success with the 2024 “streeteries” outdoor-dining initiative.
However, they’re hopeful some tweaks in 2025 will provide the data needed to determine whether to move forward with the effort on a permanent basis.
Council members informally agreed at a work session on Tuesday (Jan. 21) to continue the program this year, after just one restaurant participated in 2024.
“Staff wasn’t really able to gather as much data as we were hoping,” said David Stromberg, the town’s zoning administrator.
Launched last spring, the streeteries pilot let restaurant owners in Herndon’s downtown area set up temporary seating areas for outdoor dining in parking spaces — either on the street or in one of two shared parking lots. The initiative was focused on Lynn, Station, Pine and Center streets.
“In other parts of the town, we have restaurants [that] can fit outdoor seating on their own properties,” Stromberg said. “In the downtown, a lot of those restaurants don’t have that option.”
Council members passed the 2024 pilot program in May. The lone applicant, Mile 20 at Mediterranean Breeze, received its permit at the end of June, operating outdoor dining through the end of November.
“It was pretty late in the year to start it,” Vice Mayor Clark Hedrick said of the 2024 experience.
A warmer-than-usual summertime then put a damper on outdoor dining, and the restaurant owner “wasn’t necessarily as successful as he wanted,” Stromberg told council members.
But in follow-up interviews with other business owners in the downtown, there was no negative feedback about the pilot, and council members were eager to repeat the initiative with an earlier start in 2025.
Mayor Keven LeBlanc said having more months of operation would provide more data to determine the long-term viability of the initiative, suggesting a March start date so “we can see data for spring, summer and fall.”
That won the support of Councilmember Cesar del Aguila, a proponent of outdoor dining as a way to promote the town as a destination.
“St Patrick’s Day would be a huge draw,” he said.
Northern Virginians embraced outdoor-dining options — even in less than ideal weather conditions — when pandemic-era restrictions limited communal indoor dining.
Herndon, which had offered temporary outdoor dining licenses in 2020, phased them out a year later. In 2022, the town council amended the town code allowing restaurants to provide outdoor dining on public property, including sidewalks and parking spaces.
Intended to test whether lowering permitting fees encourages more businesses to offer outdoor dining, the streetery pilot program charges restaurant owners $1 per square square foot for the first two parking spaces used for outdoor seating, $5 per square foot for the third and a maximum fourth spaces.
Previously, business owners had been charged $10 per square foot and were limited to two parking spaces.
Under the pilot program, no more than 30% of a designated street or parking lot could be turned over for dining purposes.
