Are you keen for some al fresco dining in the Summer?
Sydney is getting ready to welcome a new normal. Among the things to look forward to is a brand new era of al fresco dining. And it couldn’t have come at a better time, both for the hospitality industry and for patrons eager to get back to some semblance of normalcy.
City of Sydney’s al fresco dining scheme
Earlier in May, it was announced that around $5.7 million would be invested in an outdoor dining scheme. Although the delta outbreak put a bit of a damper on plans, it has now been announced that the City of Sydney has approved 266 al fresco dining applications. As part of the scheme, the council will also be waiving al fresco dining permit fees until June 2022.
Hospitality venues around the city can apply for outdoor dining permits through the official City of Sydney website.
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The initiative was first launched in December last year as an experiment to help out businesses that had suffered in the wake of Sydney’s first lockdown.
This is part of City of Sydney’s giant $20 million push to breathe fresh life and energy into Sydney’s CBD. The initiative will also fund live performances, outdoor spaces, public art in laneways and late-night ventures.
This news is especially exciting because it was recently announced that pubs could soon reopen to fully vaccinated customers as part of a vaccine passport trial. The decision to reclaim and transform some streets of Sydney for al fresco dining is a much-needed respite for the struggling hospitality industry. It was reported by SBS, that the hospitality losses due to the ongoing lockdown have surpassed a staggering $1 billion in NSW.
NSW’s race to reopen
NSW has today smashed a new milestone. 80 per cent of the state’s adult population is now vaccinated by at least one dose of a covid 19 vaccine. With the new al fresco dining initiative and summer around the corner, there is some hope that positive changes could be coming after what has been a very long and bleak winter for most of NSW.
At the moment, NSW’s roadmap out of lockdown states that the first batch of freedoms will occur the Monday after the state reaches a vaccination rate of 70 per cent with double doses.
The second batch of freedoms will occur after 80 per cent of residents have been fully vaccinated.
While we wait for these targets to be met, you can lend some support to the hospitality industry from home.
Check out our live list of over 125 Restaurants, Cafés And Bars That Are Offering Takeaway During Lockdown