Downtown Kennewick streets close for 8 weeks. Open-air dining and shopping take over

Two city streets in downtown Kennewick were blocked off from traffic Thursday to make way for outside dining and shopping.

For the next eight weeks, restaurants and retailers in the neighborhood will move their tables and racks outside.

The “Alfresco Downtown Kennewick” boardwalk experiment is an effort to help small businesses during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, said Stephanie Button, executive director of the Historic Downtown Kennewick Partnership.

Many of the shops and eateries will expand out into the parking areas and streets at Cascade and Benton and Dayton streets during business hours through Oct. 8.

“You can come downtown and have safe, socially-distanced dining and shopping in our boardwalk environments,” she said.

The partnership also plans special pop-up events featuring different food trucks and other vendors.

The city of Kennewick eased rules for some businesses to allow them to operate on sidewalks and in parking areas because of state restrictions on indoor shopping and dining to slow the spread of the coronavirus.