WEST HARTFORD, Conn. — The department of public works removed the outdoor dining barriers along Lasalle Rd and Farmington Ave in West Hartford Monday morning. Barriers along Isham Rd will be removed Tuesday morning.
The barriers were originally designed to help restaurants expand to outdoor dining in the warmer months due to the pandemic. These barriers are being removed prepare for the winter months. Regular traffic patterns will be restored in these areas as well.
On Lasalle Rd sits Savoy Pizzeria Craft Bar, they’re losing a large slice of there with 13 tables being removed from the outside. But General Manager Julia Rosenthal understands why.
"It’s a big loss for us, unfortunately, it was 13 tables outside, we’re definitely a smaller restaurant so it definitely helped us expand a little bit,” Rosenthal said. “We’re looking into ways to promote more of our to-go orders. We’re a very big takeout restaurant, we’re looking into doing promotions and trying to get people excited about ordering food.”
The business model doesn’t change even though the layout does, safety for the customers is still the number one priority.
“We added more partitions you can see around the restaurant we’re looking into getting more as well. We’d like to maximize the space and keep it safe for everyone. We’re continuing with constant handwashing, gloves, mask, keeping a strong presence at the door to make sure that we don’t have an influx of people coming in at one time”