INDIANAPOLIS — The dreary and cold weather on Monday, Oct. 19 is only a sign of things to come as the colder months of November and December near.
The drop in temperature could mean a drop in business at restaurants which rely on outdoor dining due to space restrictions indoors because of COVID-19.
Right now in Marion County, restaurants may operate at 50 percent capacity indoors and 100 percent capacity outdoors; but now that summer is over space challenges lie ahead.
That's why you'll notice more tents up and down Massachusetts Avenue in Indianapolis.
"I feel like we've jumped into early winter already with the cold weather and the wind, but we've had a couple of nice weekends, so we've got our tent out there from the spring, but it will be coming down soon," Patrick Lamble with Bazbeaux Pizza said.
The tent outside Bazbeaux will disappear this week, Lamble said. It doesn’t have side flaps like others do to keep out the cold air.
A few doors down, the owner of Slapfish is trying to keep his tent up as long as possible. He just opened in July and says business has been steady.
"Thursday, it's going to be 80 degrees so I think we're all trying to figure out what to do and how to keep the outside dining still going. We were trying a little heater this last weekend and it worked well when it's 50. I think it will work well in the 40's, but you get down in the 20's and 30's and I don't think people are going to be running to go eat outside," Slapfish owner Mark Weghorst said.
On top of that, the city's donation of the parking spaces to businesses will expire at the end of November.
"Planning went out the window months ago. It's just the dynamic sort of day by day, week by week, things change with the state and the way the Avenue is working and our other location, so we try to work with it as the problems come up and keep as many seats as we can in here while keeping with the guidelines of trying to keep people safe," Lamble said.
Restaurants hope customers will continue to choose takeout until capacity returns indoors.
"You're really limited by your square foot. Your footprint is a certain amount and you've got to space those tables six feet apart," Lamble explained.