HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — A biergarten will be popping up this weekend in Huntington.
On Friday and Saturday night, city officials will close part of Downtown Huntington’s 9th Street to traffic between 3rd Avenue and 4th Avenue to open up space for outdoor dining at a time when state guidelines continue to limit indoor restaurant capacity to 50 percent.
For Summit Beer Station, that means a biergarten.
“We now have an opportunity to kind of do a pop-up biergarten in front of Summit, so we’re going to drag out five or six biergarten tables and, hopefully, give people a little more socially-distanced room outside,” said Jeff McKay, owner of Summit Beer Station.
The business is one of five restaurants on 9th Street permitted to participate in this effort.
The others are Sip Downtown Brasserie, the Marshall Hall of Fame Café, Bodega Market and Paula Vega Cakes.
No other vendors nor any live music was allowed.
All of the businesses were required to comply with state and federal social distancing guidelines.
Road closures were scheduled to begin at 3 p.m.
The biergarten at Summit Beer Station will be open from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays for as long as the expanded outdoor dining is allowed.
Other cities in West Virginia have taken steps to make it easier for restaurants to add outdoor space.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has forced restaurateurs to adjust their business model. The City of Huntington is committed to helping them in any way possible,” Huntington Mayor Steve Williams said in a statement about the planned street closures.
City officials previously waived B&O taxes for retail shops and restaurants in Huntington from Apr. 1 to Sept. 30, opened up parking spaces for curbside pickups and distributed personal protective equipment to 100 small businesses.
Typically, the fall is Summit’s busiest time of the year, McKay said.
This year in the pandemic, “I don’t see much growth,” he said.
Summit’s weekly events have been canceled and it was unclear, as of Friday, exactly how the football season would go for Marshall University which had plans to play games with limited fans in stands.
“Considering the circumstances and considering the fact that we’re at 50 percent (capacity), I don’t have too many complaints. We aren’t too far behind from what we were this time last year, but certainly not where I would like us to be.”
During recent weekends, McKay said they lost many customers because of the space limits.
“I see so many customers and, ultimately, revenue leaving before they can even truly enter,” he said.
“I’m thankful to have a business in Huntington where the city and the mayor, Mayor Williams, are willing to do things like this and they’re willing to help small businesses like us.”
No end date has been put on the Huntington 9th Street street dining option.
“Speaking with some of the other business owners, we would like to see this permanently happen and kind of go back to the way the 9th Street Plaza used to be where it was mostly pedestrian traffic,” McKay said.