El Paseo businesses react to Lupine Lane closure for outdoor dining space

“You are looking at the Lupine Plaza," Director of Community Development for the City of Palm Desert, Ryan Stendell showed News Channel 3's Caitlin Thropay on Monday. "It’s an effort under the Unite Palm Desert program and it’s an effort to provide outdoor dining spaces to our local restaurants,” Stendell explained.

Palm Desert restaurants can use the Lupine Plaza outdoor space to deliver food, set up a pop-up, or encourage their customers to eat in this dining area.

“I think it’s a fantastic idea,” Idalis Rivero who is the supervisor at Pokehana told News Channel 3. Their indoor dining is not available so she is encouraging her customers to use the Lupine Plaza. “We’ve been getting a lot more business lately since that opened up,” she said.

The space which seats about 60 people opened on Thursday, October 15.

“Every day or every evening we see a very slow and steady increase in the amount of people that are finding out about it,” Stendell said.

Fresh Agave is one of the restaurants walking food over to customers eating there and in the evenings they set up a pop-up bar.

“We actually think it’s a very good idea because a lot of people are still not comfortable sitting inside so it’s really nice out there,” Alondra Garcia an employee at Fresh Agave told News Channel 3.

“The City Council authorized us to use the Lupine Plaza until the end of the season May 2021," Stendell said.

Stendell also shared that it’s a rented facility so the City could shut it down at any time or keep it going as long as it’s relevant.

“We got Luscious Lorraine's and they don’t have a patio right now so we just decided to come hangout here and we’re having a good time, it’s fun,” one customer of Luscious Lorraine's said as they ate at the Lupine Plaza.

Not all retailers are in favor of the Lupine Lane closure.

“It’s inconvenient for Josie's on El Paseo because as you can see behind me the left lane is closed into Lupine. Also, our customer’s do a U-turn and park outside our store and they can no longer do that," Manager of Josie's Boutique on El Paseo, Denise Turner told News Channel 3.

“Yesterday, I noticed that there was a lot of garbage and trash; that people are not picking up after they’re eating,” Turner added.

Stendell believes shutting down part of Lupine Lane is a better alternative than shutting down El Paseo.

“As we’re learning from other communities, shutting down a major thoroughfare like El Paseo is very divisive," Stendell said. "Some subset of retailers think it’s a good idea and the other don’t so in an effort to observe that and learn from what we’re seeing in other jurisdictions, the Lupine Plaza kind of presents that balance, that middle ground that let’s not disrupt traffic and also let’s have some fun as well,” he said.

For more information about Lupine Plaza and how restaurants can take advantage of this new opportunity call (760) 776-6362 or email bizsupport@cityofpalmdesert.org.