It's a nice enough day to talk about outdoor dining, even if the "living mojito bar" at Corks hasn't quite come to life.
Corks is building a deck out back that will seat about 35. When it opens in the middle of April, it will be planted with lots of varieties of mint that eventually, when the plants grow big enough, can be snipped off for use in mojitos, chef Jerry Pellegrino told me.
"What we're going to do is grow eight to 10 varieties of mint," Pellegrino said. "Spearmint, peppermint, pineapple mint, chocolate mint -- a living mojito bar."
The new deck will have something to offer patrons who crave another sort of leaf: tobacco.
Smoking will be allowed in the outdoor deck.
The restaurant will promote the deck as a place where smokers, in this indoor smoking-ban era, can light over a drink, Corks investor Chuck Nabit told me recently.
"We're going to put ashtrays out there," Nabit said.
Do they really want to promote smoking?
"Addictions are addictions," Nabit said. "They're going to get over them or not. We're not in the addiction treatment business, but we're in the food business."