Portsmouth restaurant owners: Close streets for outdoor dining

PORTSMOUTH — Restaurant owners Jo Kelley, Al Fleury and Joe Kelley have a plan to close four Market Square streets for outdoor dining and shopping, hired an engineer to show how it can work and are hoping city officials can make it a quick reality.

“We need to do it now, or there’s not going to be a Portsmouth to come down to,” said Fleury, owner of the Goat restaurant in Portsmouth, as well as Bernie’s Beach Bar, the Goat, Wally’s Pub and the former Colony Hotel in Hampton.

Fleury said Hampton already closed Ocean Boulevard for outdoor dining and shopping, with a better pedestrian experience. He said that happened quickly and Hampton needed approval from the state.

In Portsmouth, he said, “this can all be done in-house.”

Fleury said a 19-member committee just formed by Mayor Rick Becksted to study reopening plans can’t act fast enough.

“Committees slow it down,” said Fleury. “We don’t have time to slow down.”

The business owners retained Alex Ross from Ross Engineering who designed plans showing closures of part of Market Street where Jo Kelley’s Cup O Joe shop is located and Congress Street where the Goat and Joe Kelley’s Thirsty Moose are located. The plan also includes closures on Daniel and Pleasant streets.

The trio of restaurant owners say their plan calls for every business on those streets to have the option to expand into the streets, leave the sidewalks open and make accommodations for emergency vehicles. The plan, emailed to the City Council Thursday, eliminates on-street parking spaces on the affected portions of the four streets, while encouraging people to use the revenue-generating municipal parking garages. Every restaurant on all of the streets would get 48 outdoor dining seats at tables arranged six feet apart, according to the proposal.

“It was very easy to adjust in Hampton,” said Fleury. “It was done in a matter of days.”

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The restaurant owners said they’d like the plan to be able to continue after indoor dining is allowed because when it is, it will be to limited capacity.

“It’s a fighting chance for everyone,” said Joe Kelley.

Jo Kelley said there has been a lot of talk about Portsmouth creating pedestrian malls and what the future of Portsmouth looks like.

“Is this not a great time to test a new program?” she asked.

She said she’s about to celebrate her second year at Cup O Joe, just made a deal to run a second location at 75 Portsmouth Blvd., but if things don’t change fast, “We may have to close.”

Fleury said Portsmouth has the highest rents around and he’s now getting customers in Hampton who would have gone to Portsmouth if it had the same offerings.

“These are the cards we’re dealt right now,” he said. “We’re operating at 2% of normal” at the Goat where he offers 50% off meals to Portsmouth residents.

Joe Kelley said loss of business due to COVID-19 closures have been “death by a thousand cuts.” He said if indoor dining is restricted to 50%, when allowed, it will be hard to lure employees back to work.

Fleury said he’s talked about the plan with downtown business owners, including a who’s who of chefs, and all support the plan.

“No one said no,” said Fleury, who reported that in Hampton, no one got exactly what they want, but everyone is happy to have more.

“We’re getting it out there that we want to do it,” said Jo Kelley. “At the end of the day, it gets us all at the same starting line.”

The group's name is Portsmouth Outside and more information can be found at portsmouthoutside.com.

City Attorney Robert Sullivan said authority to close streets lies with the City Council. He said outdoor liquor licenses have to be approved by the city’s liquor board which includes public safety officials.

Becksted said he has reviewed the plan and thinks it’s asking too much. He said foot and vehicle traffic needs to be maintained and major streets like Congress need to remain open. When the Memorial Bridge goes up, he said, traffic would be worse than usual.

“In my opinion,” he added.

“The way I look at it is there are no bad ideas,” said Becksted, who reported all ideas for reopening Portsmouth should go through the new task force formed to study reopening plans.

Becksted noted more that 50 restaurants have been reopened for outdoor dining and the city has worked hard and quickly to make that happen.

“Ideas are great,” he said. “But not all ideas are good.”