LOUISVILLE, Ky. — During the pandemic, some local businesses have been forced to cut operating days and hours due to lower capacity, but that isn’t the case for The Cafe at Paristown in Louisville. 

Jeanne Hilt, manager of business development for Paristown, the development where The Cafe is located, said the green space called Christy’s Garden across the street from The Cafe is usually used for festivals, concerts, and other events. Now, since most of those events have been canceled, The Cafe uses it as a dining space. On Saturday, the restaurant had the UofL vs. Notre Dame football game playing on a giant screen for anyone sitting outdoors. 

“The wait staff is all very fit because they get their steps in all the time, you know, running back and forth between the building to the outside garden. This is truly a beautiful venue,” Hilt said.

The Cafe was originally across the street with a maximum capacity of 190, but since it moved across the street earlier this year, the maximum capacity in the new space is 600. That means at 50 percent capacity during the pandemic, the restaurant is still able to serve more people than when it operated in the old space, pre-pandemic. Therefore, sales are up compared to last year.

The outdoor garden provides extra capacity on top of that. The green space opened last winter for ice skating, but it didn’t host another event until the Fourth of July.

“Things started to open up a bit, live music was again permitted, you know, we really did realize, first of all, we’re not gonna give up,” Hilt told Spectrum News 1. “We have this really incredible venue that we can, within the guidelines, really create some dinner shows,” she added.

Beyond just outdoor seating for The Cafe, the garden is an event space at heart, but now there are extra precautions taken when there are activities like live music with dinner.

The normal capacity of the outdoor space is 500, but that’s now cut in half. Temperatures are taken before entry to a ticketed dinner show, and there are no walk-ups for ticketed activities.

“It is reserved now because we need to have that point of registration so that we can provide that contact should anybody need to be reached,” Hilt explained.

As the weather gets colder heading towards winter, there are no plans to slow down programming due to weather. Hilt said they are already planning outdoor movies for Halloween, an ice rink in the winter, and an outdoor Christmas market.

Hilt believes part of the reason people come out to do something they may be able to do at home, like watch a football game, is because people are longing for human connection during this time.