Walk south on Broadway Avenue past Chico's this month and you'll see the evidence before anyone tells you the story: a wider strip of sidewalk roped off, a stack of new patio furniture waiting under plastic, and a permit taped inside the window next door at Eloise. The restaurant is becoming Bar Eloise. But the more interesting change isn't the name. It's what the city had to do to let the patio happen at all.
On July 21, the Wayzata City Council voted 4-0 to approve a sidewalk café permit that lets Eloise's patio grow from 165 square feet to roughly 633 square feet, adding seating for about 28 more guests. That part is straightforward. The part that made city staff pause is that the new seating doesn't stay in front of Eloise. It extends south along Broadway into the public right-of-way in front of the neighboring retail space, Chico's. Community Development Director Alex Sharpe told the council that Wayzata had never before approved a sidewalk café extending beyond the storefront of the business holding the permit. This is the first one.
A Sidewalk That Wasn't Built to Work This Way
That distinction matters more than it sounds. Every prior patio permit in downtown Wayzata assumed a simple rule: your outdoor seating stays in front of your own door. Eloise's request broke that assumption, and the council had to decide, in real time, whether the rule was actually load-bearing or just a habit nobody had tested.
Councilmember Alex Plechash asked the obvious follow-up question during the meeting: what happens if Chico's changes tenants, or the space becomes another restaurant? Sharpe's answer was that the permit is tied to the calendar year, not the tenant, so the council can reconsider, amend, or decline the arrangement at any future renewal if circumstances change. In other words, the city didn't rewrite the sidewalk rule permanently. It approved a one-season experiment and kept the door open to reverse course.
Here's what changed, side by side:
| Before (2024-2025) | Now (2026 season) | |
|---|---|---|
| Patio size | 165 sq ft | 633 sq ft |
| Approximate seating | Small cocktail/appetizer footprint | ~28 additional guests |
| Frontage used | Eloise's storefront only | Extends into Chico's frontage |
| Permit precedent | Standard, storefront-only cafés | First café extending beyond its own storefront |
Mayor Andrew Mullin framed his support in terms of what the city wants downtown to look like going forward, saying Wayzata should back locally and independently owned businesses. That's a policy stance, not just a nice sentiment. It signals that this precedent was set on purpose, not by accident.
The Restaurant Behind the Request
The push for more outdoor seating didn't come out of nowhere. Pohlad, who represented the restaurant at the meeting, told the council that when Eloise opened in 2024, the original patio was designed mainly for cocktails and appetizers. Customers had other ideas. They kept asking to eat full meals outside, and the small footprint couldn't keep up with the demand.
"Everyone wants to take advantage of every opportunity they have to sit outside," Pohlad said.
The rebrand to Bar Eloise is built around that shift. The menu is moving toward more approachable, shareable fare, drawing inspiration from Pohlad's sister restaurant, The Grocer's Table, while keeping the seasonal ingredient focus and cocktail program that built Eloise's reputation in the first place. A family-friendly menu is also part of the plan, widening who the restaurant is trying to serve on a Tuesday night versus a date-night Saturday.
The practical details, if you're planning your fall calendar around it: Bar Eloise will be open 4 to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and 4 to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, closed Mondays. Sunday brunch begins September 20, featuring dishes pulled from The Grocer's Table alongside items created specifically for Bar Eloise. The expanded patio itself is expected to open toward the end of August, timing that depends on how quickly the new furniture arrives.
The Trade the City Didn't Ask Eloise to Make
Here's the detail that tells you something about how Wayzata actually manages its downtown. When a restaurant adds real seating capacity, cities often require additional parking, or a payment into a fee-in-lieu-of-parking fund to offset it. Wayzata's ordinance doesn't count seasonal sidewalk café seating toward a business's parking requirement at all. Staff confirmed Eloise wasn't required to add parking or pay into that program for the expansion, even while acknowledging that the added seats will likely increase parking demand during dinner hours.
That's a real trade-off the city is making, not a loophole nobody noticed. It means downtown Wayzata's outdoor dining capacity can keep expanding without a corresponding expansion in downtown parking, which is already tight around Broadway and Lake Street on a busy evening.
Councilmember Dan Koch raised the practical version of this concern directly, noting that the intersection near Eloise is one of the busiest pedestrian crossings in the city. He asked that the relocated bike rack tied to the patio project not interfere with the gathering and crossing space just south of the corner planter. Koch supported the permit but was clear that the rest of the 2026 season would function as a test run before the city commits to renewing it.
If you live nearby and plan to walk to dinner on Broadway this fall, that corner is worth knowing about. It's already busy. It's about to be busier.
The Block Was Already Giving People Reasons to Stay Outside
Bar Eloise's patio isn't opening into a quiet block. A few hundred feet away, Hotel Landing hosts a free outdoor concert series on its Great Lawn at 925 Lake Street East, running through August 26 this year. The Wayzata Farmers Market sets up Thursdays from 2 to 6 p.m. at 301 Promenade Avenue, a rhythm that continues into late October. James J. Hill Days, the city's downtown festival with its street market, parade, and community events, adds another full weekend of foot traffic to the same handful of blocks.
None of that is new information on its own. What's new is that the city just changed its own sidewalk rules to keep pace with it. Downtown Wayzata's outdoor social calendar has been building for a couple of seasons now, between the concerts, the market, and the festival weekends. Eloise's patio request was arguably the first time that pressure showed up as an actual policy decision rather than just a busy Thursday night.
What to Watch For Through the Fall
For anyone who already treats Broadway Avenue as part of a regular routine, here's the short version of what changes over the next few months:
- Late August: the expanded 633-square-foot patio at Bar Eloise opens, pending furniture delivery.
- September: Bar Eloise settles into its regular hours, four days a week plus weekend evenings.
- September 20: Sunday brunch service begins.
- Through the fall: expect more foot traffic and tighter parking near the Broadway and Lake Street intersection during dinner hours, especially on weekends.
- November 1: per the city's permit conditions, patio furniture and planters come down for the season, clearing the sidewalk for snow removal.
The bigger point isn't really about one restaurant's outdoor seating. It's that Wayzata's downtown has grown busy enough, and popular enough with people who want to eat and gather outside, that the city had to write a new answer to a question it had never actually been asked before. That's not a small thing for a downtown this size. It's a sign of where the momentum has been building, one patio at a time.
If you're watching what's happening in downtown Wayzata because you're thinking about your next move in this market, not just your next dinner reservation, The Ryan Johnson Group has spent nearly three decades tracking how neighborhoods like this one actually live day to day. Contact us when you're ready to talk about what a changing downtown means for property values on the surrounding blocks.
