Teuta presents new outdoor dining area plan

By Grace Lovins

Birmingham brunch spot Teuta, located at 168 W. Maple, was back before the city’s planning board during their Wednesday, January 28, meeting with new plans for a potential outdoor dining area.

Planning board members reviewed the application and provided feedback during a pre-application discussion.

Planning director Nick Dupuis explained that Teuta was selected by the city commission last November to move forward with pursuing a bistro license. A requirement of the city’s bistro licenses is that an establishment must have outdoor dining.

Prior to being selected by the city commission to pursue a bistro license, Teuta attempted to obtain approval on outdoor dining plans multiple times last year with no success. Their previous plans for an outdoor dining platform were denied due taking up an ADA parking space and two other restaurants on the street, one across from Teuta, were already approved for outdoor dining platforms.

During Wednesday’s meeting, Dupuis showed the board Teuta’s new approach: moving back the restaurant’s storefront to create space for outdoor dining.

Multiple planning board members said they thought the concept was a great idea, but showed concerns over proposed details like having curtains, movable planters and potentially too many tables in the dining area that could cause servers to utilize the sidewalk, blocking pedestrian traffic.

Some board members also showed concern over having tables located on the sidewalk on the other side of the proposed dining area. Chair Scott Clein emphasized that the sidewalk in that area is only a five foot space, and he is not in favor of allowing tables that could impede pedestrian travel.

The discussion concluded with board members encouraging revisions to remove the sidewalk tables, reconsider the movable elements shown in the plans like the movable planters, and take a look at the number of tables included in the proposed area to improve circulation.

Since the item was a pre-application discussion, no formal action or vote was taken by the board. Dupuis said he will communicate the board’s feedback to Teuta before they submit the plans for formal review by the board.