The Mirror Newspapers Reflecting Life Along The Maumee River
NANCY GAGNET | MIRROR REPORTER — Dale’s Bar and Grill in uptown Maumee broke ground this week on a new outdoor patio. The space will provide outdoor dining for restaurant patrons, which is unprecedented in the uptown district. The 1,350-square-foot patio should be open for business in June, providing additional seating for 50, which is nearly double the restaurant’s capacity, said owner Bill Anderson. He plans to add six additional staff members to handle the increased business and will expand operations by remaining open seven days a week. The decision to move forward with the plans happened after many conversations with Tom Dibling, the retired owner of Dibling Flooring & Interiors, located across the street from Dale’s. “Every time Tom Dibling would walk by here and we’d chat, he would tell me that I had to have outdoor seating,” Anderson said. Dale’s is located on the corner of Conant and East Dudley streets and initially, adding a few tables and chairs on East Dudley was considered, but Anderson quickly realized that it would take a lot more planning and money to do it right. “The more we put pencil to paper, the more we realized with the regulations in place there was no way we could have tables out there without going into the street,” he said. Anderson is investing approximately $175,000 into the patio, which will be constructed along the East Dudley side of the building. Three current parking spaces on East Dudley will be removed to make room for the patio, but Anderson says that the benefits of having it far outweigh the loss of parking. In September, the Land Use and Zoning Committee recommended passage of a license agreement between the city and Dale’s to use the parking spaces for the patio. The five-year agreement included a $100 fee paid to the city. The area will consist of patio lights, tables with umbrellas and couch seating beneath a newly constructed pergola. “I think this is going to be a real nice setting for outdoor dining,” he said. “This has a nice ambiance because it’s right in the midst of what’s going on.” The patio will be the same elevation as the restaurant, which is a couple of feet above the current sidewalk, with two access points, including an ADA-certified ramp. The current front entrance to the restaruant will remain unchanged. The city trees along East Dudley Street will remain in place, allowing for a natural canopy, and the city sidewalk will be relocated along the perimeter. A wrought-iron fence and new plantings will also be added. Since Dale’s is a sports bar, the patio will also contain two televisions for easy sports viewing. “I’m hoping to get five or six months of use a year out of it. We’ll see how it goes. It just depends on the weather,” Anderson said. Paul Sullivan of EDGE landscape architects, the firm created by OSU Heisman Trophy winner Eddie George, served as lead architect for the project. Hoffman Builders will serve as general contractors and Schoen will provide the excavation work. Anderson purchased the business in 1987 and looks forward to enhancing uptown dining with the addition of the patio. “Where you can do it, it pays to do it, because people like to be outside,” he said.
