Outdoor patios have become staples of today's successful Milwaukee restaurants and bars. Up until a few years ago, however, a street-side table Downtown was as rare as a July snowstorm.

It wasn't that outdoor dining was illegal, but it was hard enough to get the necessary permits that virtually no restaurateur could make it happen.

"It was effectively a ban, though it didn't say in the ordinance that outdoor dining was prohibited," says former Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist, who is now the president of the Congress For The New Urbanism in Chicago. "But the effect of the way the regulation was administered, it was."

Third District Ald. Mike D'Amato says the concept was so scarce that when he first took office in 1996, the only restaurant he knew of with patio dining was the old La Casita on Farwell Avenue.

D'Amato says that getting a permit for outdoor dining was far too challenging for most business owners.

"When you allow the Department of Public Works to dictate what happens without any vision, they will dictate to the letter of the law," he says. "Not until the policy makers stepped in did this change."

According to Norquist, the health department was a stumbling block in getting diners outdoors.

"They had concerns that food outside was somehow unsafe," says Norquist.

For Department of Public Works Permits & Communications Manager Cecilia Gilbert, it was more about a lack of precedent and procedure.

"We really didn't even have things on the books to allow for it," says Gilbert. "You had to get a special privilege. A lot of people saw that (outdoor dining) was popular, especially with a short summer season, when places started to build decks. Louise's Trattoria (on Jefferson Street near Cathedral Square Park) was one of the early ones to do permanent seating. It just kind of grew (from there)."

The topic even ruffled some feathers between business owners and the area's summer festivals.

"It was an issue that at some point became a little bit divisive, because people were saying the ethic festivals and Summerfest and State Fair were taking away business," says Beth Nicols, executive director of the Milwaukee Downtown, Business Improvement District 21.

But trips to Italy and Boston helped D'Amato and others in the City come to the conclusion that outdoor dining is both "vibrant and exciting."

Says D'Amato, "We went to Boston and were walking through Faneuil Hall. It was early December and people were sitting outside drinking coffee. They didn't allow the inclement weather to bother them."

And in Italy, sidewalk dining is everywhere.

"It's fairly simple," says D'Amato. "Both the mayor and I looked at this like a European model, where restaurants are as much a part of the public realm as they are the private realm."

"It's pretty crowded," adds Norquist. "But it's 'fun crowded.'"

Norquist describes the eventual change as logical process.

"We had some restaurateurs who were interested in having outside dining, and they were having some resistance. I just asked questions, talked to the Health Department and the Public Works director at the time, and we came up with a way to relax the barriers."

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