On May 27, 2026, the Encinitas City Council voted unanimously to extend the city's "temporary" outdoor dining program again, this time to July 1, 2027. Staff will use the extra year to rewrite a permanent ordinance, which is expected back before the council in late 2026 or early 2027. Most of the coverage treated this as one citywide story. In Cardiff, the extension changed very little, because Cardiff's patios no longer depend on it.
All three Cardiff businesses in the program set up their outdoor seating on private parking lots, and none of them use public street spaces. A state law signed in October 2025 made that kind of patio permanent. The vote still pending at City Hall mostly decides what happens to the parklets along Coast Highway 101 in downtown Encinitas and Leucadia. In Cardiff, the outcome is already settled.
Three Permits From 2020
The staff report prepared for the May 27 meeting includes the city's full list of outdoor dining permits. One table covers the public right-of-way and has 18 entries. The second covers private property and has seven. The report says three of those seven are in Cardiff and use 22 parking spaces between them. Leucadia has three that use 13 spaces, and downtown has one that uses seven.
The three Cardiff entries, with the permit numbers the city assigned:
- The Shanty, 126 Chesterfield Drive, permit COVID-003907-2020
- The Besta-Wan, 148 Aberdeen Drive, permit COVID-004046-2020
- Tower 13, 2633 S. Coast Highway 101, permit COVID-003958-2020
The city didn't publish how the 22 spaces split among the three businesses. The report gives totals by community, not by address.
The right-of-way table has no Cardiff entries. Fourteen of its permits are downtown and four are in Leucadia, together occupying 47 public parking spaces along Highway 101.
The Sentence in the Staff Report That Changed Cardiff's Status
Governor Newsom signed AB 592 on October 9, 2025. It took out the expiration date on the state's waiver of private parking requirements for pandemic-era outdoor dining. Before that, AB 61 and AB 1217 had each set a deadline, first January 1, 2024 and then July 1, 2026. The text of AB 592 is posted on the state legislature's site, and the city's outdoor dining page lists each extension in order.
The May 27 staff report explains how that applies locally:
"Pursuant to the AB 592 waiver of private parking requirements provision, the seven existing outdoor dining establishments operating on private parking lots are allowed to continue operations at their existing footprint in perpetuity. If the City Council adopts a future permanent outdoor dining ordinance that limits the amount of private parking that can be converted to outdoor dining, these properties would be considered legal-nonconforming or 'grandfathered-in.'"
The next sentence in the report sets the limit on that protection. If a grandfathered establishment stops operating, whatever opens there next has to meet the parking standards in effect at that time. The permanence belongs to these particular operations at their current size. If one of the three closed, its patio would most likely go back to being parking spaces under whatever rules the city has adopted by then.
The report also says the waiver "is not subject to" the public right-of-way. The downtown and Leucadia parklets get no protection from AB 592.
Downtown Pays an Annual Fee. Cardiff's Patios Don't.
The two permit types also differ on cost. In June 2024 the council adopted a fee for dining in the public right-of-way that rises each year with the San Diego Consumer Price Index. The city's page shows the rate at $2.68 per square foot per month as of August 2026, charged once a year.
| Cardiff private-lot patios | Downtown and Leucadia street parklets | |
|---|---|---|
| Permits | 3 | 18 |
| Parking spaces used | 22 private | 47 public |
| Annual city fee | None listed | $208,805.43 combined, billed August 1 |
| Expiration | None under AB 592 | Temporary program runs to July 1, 2027 |
| Exposed to a future size cap | Grandfathered at existing footprint | Yes |
The private-property table in the attachment is labeled "no expiration" and "no annual fee." On the street side, the largest single entry is Goodonya Organic Eatery at 1051 S. Coast Highway 101, which was billed $25,944.48.
That gap explains why the downtown hearings get heated and Cardiff's don't. Downtown, retailers have long objected that customers can't park near their storefronts. Mark Dobbins, an owner of The Roxy on South Coast Highway 101, gave the council the restaurant side of that debate in May, as The Coast News reported:
"These patios coming out of Covid were just a godsend for us. We probably would've gone out of business without them."
What "Permanent" Does and Doesn't Cover
Under AB 592, a grandfathered patio can keep operating at its existing footprint. The staff report also lists other aspects of outdoor dining that the city still controls through land use, zoning and right-of-way rules:
- Drainage
- Noise
- Signage
- Structure height
- Enclosures
- Materials
- Storage
That means Cardiff's patios still have a stake in the permanent ordinance, just a smaller one than downtown has. The report says a future ordinance could cap the number of street parklets per block, or limit the size of patios on both public and private property, with an exception for grandfathered establishments. For Cardiff, the questions still open are how a patio can be enclosed, how tall its structures can be, and how loud it can be in the evening. Its existence and size are no longer in question. Every operator, including the three in Cardiff, is also still inspected against the city's outdoor dining checklist.
The Three Patios This Fall
The protected footprints belong to three very different places.
The Shanty
The Shanty's website describes it as a bar serving beer and cocktails at 126 Chesterfield Drive. It posts hours of noon to 2 a.m. Monday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Friday through Sunday. Those hours appear on a page last updated in 2024, so they may have changed since. Food rotates through visiting vendors. The Pastrami Stand has The Shanty in Cardiff on its schedule for Friday, October 16.
The Besta-Wan Pizza House
Two blocks inland at 148 Aberdeen Drive, The Besta-Wan serves tavern-style pizza alongside American and Italian standards. Its menu lists the Besta Wan Special pizza and a drink called the Infamous "Man" Mosa. The restaurant's photo gallery labels a "Back Patio." According to the restaurant's own history page, it changed hands in 2023. Posted hours run 3 to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11:15 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday. It was one of the participating restaurants at Cardiff 101's Taste of Cardiff on May 7, 2026.
Tower 13
On the beach side at 2633 S. Coast Highway 101, Tower 13 calls itself a beach bar and sports lounge. It has a scratch kitchen, a full bar and more than 25 TVs, and its site is currently promoting the MLB playoffs. The restaurant says two of its patios are dog-friendly and its dining room looks out on the ocean and the sunset. Happy hour runs 4 to 6 p.m. on Mondays and 3 to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, with Ahi Poke Tostadas and Gnarly Nachos on the menu. Tower 13 also took part in the 2026 Taste of Cardiff.
Cardiff's Parking Numbers Are From 2022
The parking concern that drives the downtown debate does show up in Cardiff's numbers, but the data is old. The city's Cardiff, Downtown Encinitas, and Leucadia Parking Study was accepted on October 9, 2024. Its counts come from Thursday, July 7, 2022 and Sunday, July 3, 2022, during the Independence Day holiday period. On that holiday Sunday, Cardiff's public off-street lots peaked at 91% full between 2 and 4 p.m. Public on-street spaces peaked at 65% between 10 a.m. and noon, and private off-street lots peaked at 66% between noon and 2 p.m.
The study found critically high weekend occupancy in Cardiff's commercial core and at San Elijo Beach. On the weekday, Cardiff as a whole never reached that threshold. Its outdoor dining analysis found that dining spaces didn't significantly affect coastal access points, and the parking-supply effect it flagged was for downtown Coast Highway destinations, not Cardiff. Those holiday-weekend figures are more than four years old, so they show the pattern at the peak rather than conditions in October 2026.
On the Cardiff Calendar
Cardiff 101 has Music in Glen Park scheduled for Tuesday, October 20, 2026, starting at 4:30 p.m. It features Jesse Ray Smith, local makers and food from Cardiff restaurants. Small Business Saturday follows on November 28, with a limited-edition Cardiff poster for shoppers who make a purchase. The permanent outdoor dining ordinance could reach the council around then. If it does, Cardiff's three patios will be in a separate column of the staff report, and their size isn't up for a vote.
Rules like AB 592 that protect a use tied to a specific business, rather than to the property, can affect what a commercial or mixed-use address on Chesterfield, Aberdeen or South Coast Highway 101 can become later. If you own near one of these blocks or are thinking about what a nearby property allows, Connie Sundstrom can go through the city's records with you. Work With Connie.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
