Piccolo Trattoria will be expanding its 4,146 square foot Italian sit down and takeout restaurant at the Newtown Shopping Center on West Road.
The restaurant, located a few doors down from the ACME, received conditional use and land development approvals from the township [at the August 10, 2022, BOS meeting] to expand into the former Dogs and Cats Rule space next door. The expansion will allow the restaurant to enlarge its kitchen and dining area.
As part of the expansion, the eatery will also construct a 2,212 square foot covered outdoor dining area with 112 seats at the far western end of the shopping center. A knee high wall will surround the patio area to protect diners from the parking area and access road.
Two trees (located at the rear of the new outdoor dining site) will be removed and replaced with other native trees as part of the project. A third tree at the front of the area will remain.
In order to remain viable in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, restaurant owner Fahmi Elabed told the supervisors at an earlier meeting that restaurants now require an outdoor seating component/option for its customers.
A variance was … granted to permit the shopping center to continue to maintain 953 parking spaces, of which 169 are "held in reserve" whereas the patio addition would have required the construction of an additional 15 parking spaces.
The board did not think that parking would be an issue on that side of the Newtown Shopping Center parking lot.*
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* I was not at this BOS meeting, but if I were, I would have noted that he dining room expansion with additional seating plus additional outdoor seating could mean 200 additional guests requiring parking spaces.
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