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Opening a Restaurant Shouldn't Take a Year: Civic Service Design at the Permit Counter

Thursday, November 12, 2026 • Rosenfeld Community
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Opening a Restaurant Shouldn't Take a Year: Civic Service Design at the Permit Counter
Speakers: Ryan Hunter
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Summary

In Walnut Creek, California, a restaurant that needed both a building permit and an alcohol license could spend well over a year getting from application to opening. Applicants described inconsistent rules, delays and little visibility into where things stood, and staff were working through post-pandemic turnover with little written down. Over the past year, the City's Development Services team and Partners in Public Innovation ran five facilitated workshops built around the people actually going through the process: a Voice of the Customer session with applicants in the room alongside City leaders, a 21-person improvement team, and five workstreams ranging from pre-submission consultations to plain-language forms. Partners in Public Innovation and the City of Walnut Creek will walk through what changed, what moved, what didn't, and what service design looks like when the product is a permit.

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