A McAllen restaurant can keep its outdoor patio following an approval from the city.

The McAllen Zoning Board of Adjustments and Appeals voted in favor of the outdoor patio for Mikhuna Japanese-Peruvian Cuisine during a Thursday hearing.

“I'm very happy that it turned out this way, because it's really very difficult to operate without a patio,” restaurant owner Jaime Muriel said. “A restaurant without a patio is like a city without a sidewalk.”

The patio was at the center of a lawsuit and was previously ruled as illegal.

As previously reported, Mikhuna built an outdoor patio that stretches up to the sidewalk in 2020. 

McAllen resident Jack Edwards filed a lawsuit arguing that the patio was in violation of a city ordinance.

The patio was built after the restaurant was granted what's known as a variance, an exception that allows the business to open up outdoor seating by the sidewalk.

An agenda packet from a June 2020 city hearing showed that the city recommended the variance request be denied, but the city's zoning board of adjustments and appeals voted in favor of it and allowed Mikhuna to add the patio.

In December 2024, Judge Ysmael Fonseca ruled the variance was illegal and void.

During Thursday’s hearing, the variance was approved with recommendation from the city.

Edwards spoke at the Thursday hearing. 

“Can you imagine having patios like that all down Main Street? What a nightmare that would be," Edwards said. “What matters is the case that our attorney made. He laid out the elements of the law and what's required. The applicant has to satisfy these requirements, and he didn't."

The decision from the board is final.