This column originally ran in the Off Menu newsletter, where you’ll find restaurant news, gossip, tips, and hot takes every week. To sign up, visit the Standard’s newsletter page and select Off Menu.

I’m about to say something that will piss off a sizable percentage of San Franciscans: With a few exceptions, I hate parklets. 

Cue the angry, kneejerk tweets from the SF Bike Coalition, Walk San Francisco, and SF New Deal, which is behind Building Blocks, a rent-a-parklet program. But this is not an argument to Make San Francisco Car-Friendly Again. 

My first reason for disliking parklets may appear subjective. Even shallow. But from my POV, our city is pretty, and parklets are eyesores. 

At the panicked height of Covid, plywood and corrugated plexiglass shack-chic was forgivable. But now, after several years of wear and tear, most parklets have devolved into “rotting carcasses,” as a fellow curmudgeon put it. The once lovingly tended plants have gone to seed. Every taggable surface has been tagged. And you don’t have to be from the Department of Public Health to know that beneath many parklets, where all the dinner scraps have fallen, it’s a rat happy hour.

Five years since former Mayor London Breed made parklets permanent fixtures, most still look like something someone paid Ronnie A. on Taskrabbit to build. 

Of course, there are exceptions that I would be sad to see go. Primarily, the parklet at Cotogna, which is opulent and elegant, built from bespoke wood salvaged by tree savior Evan Shively and outfitted with a grove of potted olive trees. Hook Fish Co. in the Outer Richmond crafted a parklet that makes you feel you’re adrift in a sea of native plants on a sturdy wooden boat. And the one at Nopa feels like a cloistered pied-à-terre in which you might have a torrid dining affair.

While these parklets accentuate their respective restaurants’ best qualities, the majority don’t. Often, they act as energy vampires — siphoning diners onto the street, where the experience gets detached from the main dining room. I like a restaurant that’s bumping, which in turn makes the city feel like it’s thriving. But for the many places still clawing their way back to pre-pandemic levels, parklets can actually dilute the vibe. 

Now, restaurateurs — if you’ve read this far before clicking away in disgust — I know what you’re thinking: Parklets provide much-needed revenue. The expanded seating capacity they’ve afforded has padded your Ozempic’d bottom line. For a tiny place like Hook Fish, which had only 15 seats to start, a parklet can effectively double the footprint. 

But remember that parklets aren’t necessarily fair game; they’ve caused plenty of financial inequity within the industry. For all the restaurateurs who have been able to build them, there are many who haven’t — often due to cost, or factors like proximity to an intersection, a bus stop, red or blue curbs, or a bikeshare station.

And according to some owners I know, the city’s inspectors are often frustratingly fickle, turning a blind eye to some parklets and allowing them to take up too many parking spaces (the limit is theoretically two), while forcing others to relocate or rebuild to comply with ever-changing codes. 

And last, but certainly not least, there’s the safety issue. A parklet on a designated “slow street” is one thing. But when you’re trying to chill with a celery G&T in hand on ABV’s 16th Street parklet, and a double-long 22 Fillmore bus barrels by like a scene out of “Speed,” you’ll wonder if your days are numbered. For motorists, parklets should be of equal concern. As a Bernal Heights resident, every time I head past the darling Pinhole Coffee parklet, which sits inches from the traffic on Cortland Avenue, I crawl to a school-zone MPH to ensure I don’t make The Standard’s news section for wiping out my neighbors and their very cute dogs. 

Yes, the city requires that parklets install “safety measures,” including gestures like red reflectors that look like they were stolen from a child’s bicycle and some flimsy plastic white sticks that must be set on each end. But even if your parklet is built of Vibranium, a vehicle is a force to be reckoned with. In February, there was the incident at The Napper Tandy, and last week, a sober, apparently spaced-out person got inches from ramming into the Andytown parklet in the Outer Sunset — the car was stopped only by the fortuitous placement of a bike rack. 

Still, parklet hope springs eternal. In spite of the recent accident, Andytown Coffee Roasters owner Lauren Crabbe thinks the risk-reward factor is worth it: “They create a more friendly pedestrian vibe. Parklets bring people together to enjoy the beautiful SF weather. In the U.S., our sidewalks are small, and our roads are really big. It’s only natural we reclaim that car space for humans.” 

Her relentlessly positive, civic-minded argument almost softened my stance. But what perked me up more was hearing that Mayor Daniel Lurie recently made sidewalk seating easier and cheaper by eliminating some required permits. This is something I can get behind.

Sidewalk tables feel European, are farther from busy streets, and are more integral to a restaurant’s fold. And, unlike parklets that stuff diners into a plywood box while obscuring other storefronts, sidewalk seating doubles as organic marketing: a see-and-be-seen way to say, “We are here, living the good life!” Plus, with Covid perpetually making a comeback, sidewalk seating gives customers the option of dining al fresco. (And don't forget, many restaurants have patios.)

I certainly don’t want restaurants to lack outdoor spaces should another pandemic arise. But the good news? If we need to rebuild parklets, we have a city-planning roadmap, and the Ronnie A.’s of SF already have a prototype.