If you ever try to park in downtown New Haven, you know what a challenge it can be.
So one of the owners of Ordinary, a new restaurant on Chapel Street, decided to make it a little easier for customers coming to Wednesday’s grand opening.
Jason Sobocinski worked with the city to pay for the meters outside his business and offer free two hour parking.
“It's important, because everybody knows parking is a bit of an issue sometimes, to provide something for people, especially when you're trying to get into a neighborhood,” said Sobocinski.
“It can be very difficult to park down here. It's pretty competitive, especially in the evenings and times when people go to come out to the restaurants and stuff,” said Patrick Sherwood.
So it's a good investment, even if Ordinary's customers aren't the ones parking there.
“People are going to see that, they're going to say, 'Wow, you bought me free parking and then they're going to walk by and see our name, and figure, 'What's that place?” said Sobocinski.
Needless to say, it caused a buzz in downtown.
“We thought it was a cool idea that I've never seen a restaurant do before,” said Steven Becker.
Ordinary says it's willing to pay for the meters again and work with other downtown restaurants to do it once a month. That's something the city's parking department supports.
“We want to have a partnership, so it's not solely a revenue generator, but it's really one that supports the need of businesses to have turn over, to have spaces, to allow customers the opportunity to come down and move spaces,” said Jim Travers, New Haven’s Director of Transportation, Traffic and Parking.