Snow's gone. Time for Saskatoon parking patios

"With the somewhat disastrous, drawn-out winter that we had, I think we all just want a little bit of time outside," says Greg Clark.

Yup.

Clark is the managing partner of downtown pub Hudsons. It's one of three businesses CBC Saskatoon can confirm will have a parking patio or sidewalk cafe up again this year.

Workers were rigging Hudsons' large, 125-person patio at the corner of 4th Avenue S and 21st Street on a blustery, dust-kicking Sunday afternoon.

"No brainer," said Clark of the patio.

Tania Friesen, the co-owner of Nosh Eatery & Tap over on Broadway Avenue, was of the same mind.

Hers should be up by mid-June, she said.

"Everyone knows Saskatoon loves to suck up every last minute of summer, so we want to be a part of that," she said.

Across the street, Burning Beard will have its own patio up by mid-May.

Tysyn Cardinal, the manager of Museo Cafe, said it was still undecided, citing damage to last year's patio.

The three patios on Broadway last year sparked concern from another business about reduced parking space.

• Patios on Saskatoon's Broadway make already 'horrible' parking situation even worse: store manager

Friesen didn'tthink it was an issue, and still doesn't.

"There's lots of new lots and lots of residential parking, and we actually don't get a lot of feedback or complaints from our guests that they have trouble getting to us," she said.

'An occasional treat'

Shift Development installed a parking patio in front of its Two-Twenty co-working space last summer, from May to October.

At the end of the season, it conducted a small email-and-social-media poll of 48 people. The majority of respondents said they only sat in once or twice a week.

But Lee Smith, then-employee of Shift, mused that parking patios are "an occasional treat, happened upon by chance and used in passing, either while waiting for something else or when faced with a need to sit."