Flying Fish’s Tent Battle
Even before COVID-19 and its associated shutdown forced many restaurants to create makeshift patios and open-air dining rooms, Portland was already a big patio town — especially considering how rainy it is. Many bars and restaurants across the city have elaborate and beloved outdoor dining areas with fire pits, banquettes, planters, and even stages for summertime live music.
Restaurants and bars added to the city’s outdoor dining options with makeshift tents and structures during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and at the time, the city made it easier for businesses to set them up. Now those makeshift patios are crashing up against the reality of the city bureaucracy — which aims to return to prepandemic standards and keep these structures safe and compliant with neighborhood design.
But Lyf Gildersleeve, the owner of seafood market and restaurant Flying Fish, has been in a months-long campaign to try to adjust the expectations put on restaurant owners around these patios — and make things simpler for him and others.
Under construction. (Rachel Monahan / City Cast Portland)
What’s at Stake?
Originally founded in the ’70s by Gildersleeve’s parents in Idaho, Flying Fish began its life in Oregon in 2010, hopping from location to location until it opened its market, restaurant, and oyster bar on East Burnside in February 2020. It’s now one of the city’s best casual seafood restaurants, thanks to its diligent sourcing, house-smoked fish, and killer caesar with grilled steelhead.
About a year ago, the city responded to a complaint about Flying Fish’s patio, and the fire marshal told Flying Fish they needed to follow city code. I’m not going to get too in the weeds here (the main TV stations did, if you’re curious), but essentially, Gildersleeve will need to spend at least $150,000 to build this compliant patio structure. “Inside, we only have 12 seats,” he says. “Three-fourths of my business is gone because the patio is down, the whole thing has been a wringer.”
Flying Fish itself is not in danger of closing, Gildersleeve told me. At this stage, he’s really hoping to raise awareness for businesses who may depend on those tented patios during the rainy season, like small-scale restaurants with limited indoor seating and food carts set up in parking lots. According to the food service data platform RestaurantData, more than 7,500 U.S. restaurants closed in the first half of 2026, indicating that the industry has not bounced back to prepandemic levels. “We’re doing great, we just did a successful crowdfunding campaign,” he says. “But I’m fighting for my friends who might not be doing as good.”
The Result?
The city has invested energy and time into making outdoor dining easier, from PBOT’s Outdoor Dining program and public street plazas, to City Councilor Mitch Green’s campaign to loosen street vending rules.
Still, the city feels pretty strongly that they do need to enforce safety requirements. Rick Graves, Portland Fire & Rescue’s public information officer, says local rules take their cues from International Fire Code. Part of the reason we can’t keep tents up year-round has to do with the tents themselves: The fire retardants used on them aren’t designed to last as a permanent solution, and they start to break down more quickly than you think. That only gets worse when extreme weather is involved, which has only gotten more serious over time.
Gildersleeve turned to longtime Flying Fish customers and other donors to get through this crisis, raising $63,629 in donations — 127 percent of what he had sought. As someone who has talked to Portland restaurant owners about this stuff for almost a decade, permitting confusion remains a huge challenge for business owners, and the confusion surrounding requirements and compliance seem to create the biggest hurdles. A lot of people are talking to Gildersleeve about ways to make things easier. Maybe this is one option.
