The highly popular Palm Beach restaurant Cucina has pulled its outdoor patio seating after being hit with a slew of code violations for the area that was built on a section of its parking lot and included, among other things, 51 unpermitted seats.

Dubbed Cucina Beach, the patio-styled outdoor dining area was built in the spring of 2020 in response to the social distancing policies followed during the COVID-19 pandemic after the Palm Beach Town Council passed a provision that allowed eateries to temporarily add or expand outdoor seating.

When the provision ended in September 2022, Cucina, located at 257 Royal Poinciana Way, said it was not interested in applying for the permanent outdoor seating program, but continued to operate the space. That lasted until February, when a resident’s complaint alerted officials to the unpermitted space, code enforcement officer John Moriarty said during the Code Enforcement Board’s May 23 meeting.

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Moriarty, who visited the site, said the outdoor dining area featured multiple unpermitted structures, including an outdoor bar and pergola on the patio’s west side, as well as unpermitted fake grass. “There’s all kinds of turf put back there, and a (golf) putting green,” Moriarty said. “The whole parking lot has been filled up with potted plants to create some kind of a garden effect.”

The patio’s 51 seats also violated the number approved for Cucina by the town, Moriarty said. Cucina also violated its off-street parking requirements by reducing the on-site parking offered to employees from 22 spots to six, he added.

“Where we have in town an enormous parking problem, this is adding to that big time,” code board chair Brian Majtlis said of the latter violation.

Board members were taken back by the amount of unpermitted construction. “This is the longest description I’ve seen for a case,” board member Martin Klein said.

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While critical of the unpermitted construction, vice chair Scotch Peloso, who lives blocks away from Cucina, noted that the restaurant reached out to residents before starting the patio’s construction in 2020.

Attorney James Crowley, who represented Cucina, told the board the restaurant would heed his advice and dismantle the patio space. “They hired me to get permits for what was back there, and I told them that was probably not going to happen,” Crowley said, noting that the 51 chairs had been removed by the board’s May 23 meeting.

Crowley asked the board to give the restaurant more than the usual 30 days to come into compliance, to allow Cucina enough time to apply for any permits needed to restripe the lot’s parking spaces.

With Moriarty supporting the extension, the board ordered Cucina to pay an administrative fee of $150 within 30 days and gave it Sept. 16 to come into compliance. The dismantling of the patio started Tuesday, with workers removing the fake grass and foliage.

Cucina did not respond to an email sent Tuesday requesting comment.

Diego Diaz Lasa is a journalist at the Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at dlasa@pbdailynews.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Cucina in Palm Beach closes patio space after multiple code violations