BATON ROUGE - The Downtown Development District is offering a grant to local businesses to implement new or improve existing outdoor dining at their establishments. 

The grant has been available since September 2021 but so far, the DDD says only four businesses have applied, leaving six open slots. As the pandemic is changing everyday life as we know it, outdoor dining is becoming more common. 

Cocha, a fine dining restaurant in the downtown area, built their outdoor seating section just before covid shut restaurants and bars down. Owner and executive chef, Saskia Spanhoff, says the outdoor seating has been beneficial to her business in a variety of ways.

“I encourage people to do it and see that people are really going to take advantage of it, they do love even if they’re just having a cup of coffee outside and reading a book," said Spanhoff.

If approved, the grant provided by the DDD includes reimbursements for outdoor dining furniture and sidewalk fees, and up to $1500 in funding among many other economic incentives. 

For more information about the grant, click here.