Categories: News

Just how safe are outdoor dining tents? Sorry to pop your plastic bubble, but it depends.

As the weather turns, a handful of New York-based restaurateurs are erecting plastic bubble tents to protect diners from unpredictable conditions like rain and wind—as well as other diners. The partitions go for between $400 to $730 a pop depending on size and have sprung up on Manhattan sidewalks from the West Village to the Upper West Side. While they may keep people safe from neighboring parties, there’s no guarantee that they protect them from fellow diners within their (literal) bubble. In fact, one public health expert suspects that these dining tents might actually be more risky compared to true open air dining, due to lack of circulation. Just another wrench in our plans. Grub Street has the story.

Related Post
The Counter
Share
Published by
The Counter

Recent Posts

Grist acquires The Counter and launches food and agriculture vertical

Grist, an award-winning, nonprofit media organization dedicated to highlighting climate solutions and uncovering environmental injustices,…

6 months ago

Is California giving its methane digesters too much credit?

Every year, California dairy farms emit hundreds of thousands of tons of the potent greenhouse…

3 years ago

Your car is killing coho salmon

Highway 7 runs north-south through western Washington, carving its way through a landscape sparsely dotted…

3 years ago

The pandemic has transformed America’s dining landscape into an oligopoly dominated by chains 

One of the greatest pleasures I had as a child growing up in the Chicago…

3 years ago

California is moving toward food assistance for all populations—including undocumented immigrants

Undocumented immigrants experience food insecurity at much higher rates than other populations, yet they are…

3 years ago

Babka, borscht … and pumpkin spice? Two writers talk about Jewish identity through contemporary cookbooks.

Writer Charlotte Druckman and editor Rebecca Flint Marx are both Jewish journalists living in New…

3 years ago