Downtown Manhattan Beach Dining Road Closure Gets 1 More Week

MANHATTAN BEACH, CA — The two Manhattan Beach City Council members who sit on the Long Term Business Solutions ad hoc committee decided today [Tuesday, Feb. 16] to keep the existing road closure of one block on Manhattan Avenue for another week. The closure allows specific restaurants to add extra dining capacity to their outdoor dining.

Council members Steve Napolitano and Richard Montgomery, who met at 3:30 p.m. today as the ad hoc committee, made the decision to keep Manhattan Avenue from Manhattan Beach Boulevard to 12th Street closed for another week.

During tonight's City Council meeting which began at 6 p.m., two downtown Manhattan Beach restaurateurs expressed displeasure with the road closure, saying it was not equitable because it gave more dining capacity to a select few restaurants.

Residents in Downtown Manhattan Beach also expressed dismay with the situation.

Community Development Director Carrie Tai said the Manhattan Beach police and fire departments were consulted before the block of Manhattan Avenue was closed to make sure emergency services would not be impacted.

The ad hoc committee said the road closure will continue through next weekend and noted that the past weekend was a 3-day holiday weekend with Valentine's Day and the upcoming weekend is a normal 2-day weekend without a special dining event like Valentine's Day.

In an LAist article published today, Chef David LeFevre, whose two restaurants enjoyed the privilege of adding dining capacity due to the street closure, said outdoor dining at Manhattan Beach Post, Fishing With Dynamite [both of which had extra seating capacity due to the road closure] and The Arthur J was fully booked for last Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and the four-course Valentine's take-out menu sold out.

Said Owner/Chef LeFevre, "We're still a little bit down over last year but with Valentine's Day, it's mostly couples that are dining. So if you have a table for four people, you're only seeing two people at it. So you're not normally as efficient as you could be. With to-go, it doesn't matter so you actually can do some pretty good sales with that."

Two Manhattan Beach restaurateurs, Mike Zislis and Sylvie Gabriele, took issue with the inequity of the dining situation downtown, saying that they, too, would love to have more dining space outdoors. Their comments were made during the City Council meeting tonight, after the decision had already been made. Manhattan Beach Patch does not know if Zislis and Gabriele had stated their displeasure to the ad hoc committee prior to [or during, if they were included in today's meeting] its meeting today.