Dining Al’fumo

This is about sidewalk cafés.

Specifically, it is about the fact that the city gives away chunks of the public way for chump change.

These aren’t some trash filled lot or a mothballed school building, these are our sidewalks, paid for and maintained by our motor fuel taxes and city sticker fees.

I first looked into this when the restaurants on Division Street, on the border between Wicker Park and the East Village, wanted to remove the tree pits in the sidewalks in order to expand their café seating.

Let me set this up a bit. In Chicago, the size of a sidewalk café is pretty much limited by the width of the sidewalk. You have to keep a 6 ft path for pedestrians and dodge around the street furniture, but anything else that’s paved is fair game.

Division Street has really big sidewalks. From Milwaukee to Humboldt Park, Division was intended to become one of Chicago’s tree lined boulevards. They laid it out with a large (100 ft) right of way. The boulevard thing fell through. As a result, the sidewalks on division are 25 feet wide.

So, these restaurants, who are probably paying $24000 a year for a single 1200 sqft storefront, can lease a 19 ft wide(300 to 475 sqft) stretch of sidewalk for $600 for the entire 9 month season. This area is ¼ to 1/3 of their entire interior floor area and they felt that they weren’t getting their money’s worth because the trees took up too much space.

It gets even worse.
That $600 is actually the minimum charge for a café. Goddess and Grocer up on Damen, where the sidewalks are much narrower, pays the same $600 for their 58 sq ft café. That is about the size of the tree pits on Division.

It gets even worse.
The base rate the city uses for most* of the city’s sidewalks is $1.10 per sq foot. The price to lease the sidewalk for 9 months is $600 or $1.10 per square foot net, whichever is larger.

Tocco Pizza e Arte on Milwaukee Ave has a sidewalk café on Mautene Court. Mautene Court was a tiny stub of a street that was vacated back in the 1980’s for a public open space. Unencumbered by an actual roadbed, the city leases ¼ of the space to Tocco. 1280 sq ft, larger than most actual restaurants and bars in the area and for this lease the city receives the princely sum of $1408 per season.

This is ridiculous. With retail leases running $15-$25 psf triple net, why are we leasing our sidewalks for a $1.10.

In retrospect the parking meter deal makes a lot more sense. Daley leased the parking space for $2.60 psf a year. He must have thought he made out like a bandit. Now LAZ sublets it back to us for $46.00 psf.


Other cities have sidewalk cafes. What do they charge?

San Francisco $5-6 psf plus $112

Miami $20 psf

Boston is mum on what their sq ft rate is, but they say the average café run $500-$1200 per month

New York is about $26 psf. That isn’t for midtown Manhattan, that is the rate for coffee shops in Canarsie. That is also just for the consent fees. Licensing and permitting costs are more than our minimum charge.

Heck, Seattle charges more than we do.


Why are we on this race to the bottom? I don’t see any of Boston’s beaneries flocking to Chicago because of our liberal sidewalk café policy.


I am not a greedy man, and to me, some of these cities sound a little expensive. My personal belief is that commerce should not be a zero sum game. Everybody has to make a little money or the whole thing falls apart and no one makes anything. So, lets find out how much these seats are worth.

In 2010 the National Restaurant Association published the results of a survey of restaurant operators. The report is a wealth of information.

In full service restaurants with an average check of $15-$25 per person each seat brought in:

$10866 total sales (food and beverage)

$7437 gross profit

and $346 net profit before taxes.


Ok, that net profit doesn’t seem like much, but it also reflects $495 in restaurant occupancy costs (lease, taxes, fire insurance). The occupancy cost for the sidewalk seat is $16.50 ($1.10 x 15 sqft).

Median restaurant seat profit plus occupancy cost equals $841 a year.

The sidewalk seats are only used for nine months and the weather probably puts the kibosh on a third of those.

Pro rated for season and weather, every sidewalk seat is worth $420.50 free and clear.
The city charges $16.50.


Put into perspective, Tocco’s use of Mautene Ct. puts $32232 in his pocket and the city’s gets $1408.

That is way too cheap.



Here is my idea.

First, eliminate the $600 minimum charge. This is extremely regressive and charges the most to the ones who get the least.


Second, we create two separate classes of restaurant each with its own base rate.

The first class is for small local businesses that do not have a liquor license.

Their base rate should be $6 psf (about $90 per seat). At this rate the small coffee shops and hotdog stands that have got a little 100 sqft café will still be paying about the same as they are now.

The Second class is for restaurant chains and any restaurant with a liquor license.

Their base rate should be $10 psf (about $150 per seat). They have higher profit margins and can afford to pay a higher rate.

These two rates should cover most of the city, but they should be doubled in the loop and halved in the enterprise zones.


City hall has been leaving a lot of money on the table and this should bring in millions from the 1000+ cafes and still encourage small businesses. The restaurants will all cry poor, but they will still be making more money each month from each their sidewalk seats than they do from the ones indoors.


As usual, I offer these suggestions for the good of my city, but if they want to reward me, they could wave my property taxes for the next 50 years. I estimate that would equal about 10% of one year’s increased revenue.





Paul K. Dickman



* The city’s rates go up incrementally in the central business district. I have found rates of $1.50, $2.30 to peak of $4.50 for Michigan Ave. facing the park