MANKATO — A restaurant in downtown Mankato has had to increase the amount of foliage on its patio after lacking the city’s required amount of plants.

The the front patio of Blue Bricks was shut down May 28 because it didn’t meet a requirement that 25 percent of it be covered with live plants. Mankato City Manager Pat Hentges says the rule was put into place last summer amid efforts to spruce up downtown.

Hentges says Blue Bricks and other businesses with patios on city-owned sidewalks were told earlier in the month that they had until May 25 to comply with plant requirements. He says closing the patio of Blue Bricks was “a harsh decision.”

According to Hentges, the restaurant bought and installed “landscape material” and reopened the next day.