"It makes a big impact on sales, on our servers and guests if we don't have an outdoor patio when the weather's beautiful, we don't get a lot of action," Kitchen 86 general manager Travis Morgan told KESQ in June.
The weather he meant is arriving now. When it does, only two Palm Desert restaurants will be seating guests on decks built into public parking spaces. Both decks run on a temporary city program that expires June 30, 2027. The permanent replacement under discussion at City Hall would let restaurants keep using the parking lane. First, though, each one would have to pay for a short stretch of sidewalk out in the street. So this fall and winter is the last full season of the decks as Palm Desert has known them since 2020.
One deck on El Paseo, one on the frontage road
The two holdouts sit on different streets and serve different kinds of nights.
Kitchen 86 is at 73-130 El Paseo, Suite I. It calls itself a locally owned restaurant and bar serving modern, eclectic food, and it describes its remodeled patio as overlooking the mountains and El Paseo. In its June coverage, KESQ called Kitchen 86's patio one of the last still standing on El Paseo.
Little Bar is at 73560 Palm Desert Drive North, on the Highway 111 frontage road. It is a bar and grill known for craft cocktails and cheeseburgers, and its outdoor seating includes a cozy patio and a large deck.
The street used to have more of them. The Palm Desert Post reported in June that Piero's PizzaVino on El Paseo had already taken down its deck voluntarily, leaving three recent participants down to two. Morgan told KESQ that more outdoor dining disappeared during last summer's construction on El Paseo, naming Mama Gina's, Armando's and Daily Grill. He said it "changed the whole face of El Paseo."
Dining on private property is a separate category from the public right-of-way program.
The week Little Bar's "Big Deck" almost came down
Both decks are still standing this season because of a signature, and it almost didn't happen. Here is how June went:
- June 11. The City Council voted 4-1 to extend the temporary deck program through June 30, 2027, and told staff to develop a permanent replacement. The Palm Desert Post reported that Kitchen 86 was fully compliant and that Little Bar was the one participant still in a compliance dispute. City staff said the main obstacle was a formal letter from Little Bar's property owner. The letter had to do more than acknowledge the deck. It had to approve it and accept responsibility for it.
- June 18. Carlos Flores, the city's deputy director of development services, told KESQ that the process for compliant operators included resubmitting their applications and getting property owner approval.
- June 24. KESQ reported that Little Bar planned to remove its "Big Deck" on Monday, June 29, with Saturday, June 27, as the last day for customers.
- June 26. NBC Palm Springs reported that the property owners had signed off. Both Little Bar and Kitchen 86 got the green light to keep serving outside through June 2027.
By October 8, The Palm Desert Post was still listing Kitchen 86 and Little Bar as the two restaurants using public right of way for outdoor dining. In June, the obstacle was a landlord's signature. The next one is the design of the street.
What the city is drawing for 2027
Under the October proposal, a restaurant that expands onto the public sidewalk next to it would have to build a replacement walkway in the street, usually in the parking spaces. The seating stays attached to the restaurant, and pedestrians walk around it on the new section. Flores said that keeps servers from crossing a public sidewalk with drinks, which simplifies compliance with alcohol-service rules while addressing accessibility.
The city hired a consultant, under a contract worth just under $40,000, to design these walkways using removable pedestal pavers. The consultant came back with three options:
| Option | What it adds | Where it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Base design | Wheel stops at either end of the walkway | El Paseo frontages |
| A2 | Wheel stops plus a white stripe and vertical delineator posts | Favored by the council for El Paseo |
| Ramp version | A ramp | Longer restaurant frontages |
Mayor Evan Trubee and Councilmember Jan Harnik favored A2. Flores summed up the council's direction as A2 for El Paseo, with individually tailored designs for restaurants elsewhere. Flores also said staff had not found comparable examples of this kind of sidewalk next to moving traffic in other cities.
The cost estimate shows how big a change this would be. Preliminary figures put a 120-square-foot replacement sidewalk at $12,000 to $21,000, depending on planters and specialty materials. The program's current annual fee is $7.08 per square foot, and staff are evaluating whether to keep it. At that rate, 120 square feet of public space costs about $850 a year. The walkway alone would cost roughly 14 to 25 years of that fee, and a restaurant would pay it before seating a single guest outside. Mayor Pro Tem Joe Pradetto supported requiring restaurants that use public space to pay for it and to help build accessible, high-quality sidewalks.
Why Highway 111 gets a different plan
The two remaining decks face very different streets, and the council said so. Pradetto and Harnik warned against using one design everywhere. They said the Highway 111 frontage road near Little Bar is significantly different from El Paseo and would probably need its own approach. Pradetto noted that the frontage road draws people heading to a specific destination, not people strolling from one business to the next.
Concepts drawn for the Highway 111 frontage roads showed that angled parking there could cost one more space than the same walkway would on El Paseo. Harnik asked staff to consider how the program affects public parking, and Councilmember Karina Moreno suggested possible caps on the total number of decks, the linear feet they occupy or the number allowed per block.
Where it stands heading into the season
Flores said Little Bar and PizzaVino, the former participant, had signaled that the proposed approach might not work for them. He said Kitchen 86 could relocate, and that staff had received no other expressions of interest. Moreno opposed going forward. She said the program "has fizzled" and that calling it permanent could mislead restaurant operators, because the state rules behind these arrangements have been extended repeatedly.
The proposal would operate through ongoing, revocable licenses subject to periodic review, and restaurant operators would prepare their own plans under objective design standards. Staff plans to bring a final proposal back to the council with the goal of adopting new rules before the temporary program expires in June 2027.
Until then, the two decks are open on the terms worked out in June. Little Bar's deck faces the frontage road and Kitchen 86's patio overlooks El Paseo. Diners have the whole cool season, through next spring, before the June 30, 2027 deadline arrives.
The City of Palm Desert's special events page also lists the free Concerts in the Park finale with MJ Vibes on Thursday, October 29, at 6 p.m. at Civic Center Park, 43900 San Pablo Avenue.
This post is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Restaurant operators weighing the program should confirm the final rules with the City of Palm Desert and their own advisors.
If you own or are considering a storefront or mixed-use property along El Paseo or Highway 111 and want to know how rules like these affect its value, Luca Realty Trust brings an investor's underwriting to that conversation. Schedule a consultation with Luca.
