The boardwalk looks like Dublin's answer to the Left Bank in Paris: bright, breezy and great for a lunchtime sandwich if you can get a seat, for a rest if you've missed a bus, or just for stretching out and lying low.

Kick-started by the millennium, the project finally opened in the pre-Christmas rush last year, but only came into its own this summer, as Dubliners took to the (sporadically) sun-soaked benches.

But as the summer draws to a close, Dublin Corporation has further plans for the boardwalk which could keep it thronged all autumn and winter. It has lined up three kiosks to sell coffee, teas and sandwiches, and is looking at the feasibility of allowing stall-holders operate there.

Designed by McGarry N∅ ╔anaigh, a Drogheda-based architecture practice, the boardwalk stretches along the north quays from O'Connell Bridge to Grattan Bridge, at Capel Street, and cost £2 million to construct, with 75 per cent provided by the National Millennium Committee. It's four metres wide, 560 metres long and accessible from four bridges: O'Connell, Millennium, Grattan and, normally, Ha'penny (which is under scaffolding for renovations). To stop people falling into the Liffey, it also has a 1.15 metre-high balustrade.

It's a welcome amenity, a "passive recreational area" in corporationspeak, attracting the loungers, apartment dwellers and office workers who drift there at lunchtime with sandwiches and cans of drink. There's a row of bright blue litter bins in which to deposit their debris. The bins are a bit of an eyesore at the moment, but the corporation is investigating "more appropriate" colours.

At night, it is brightly lit, a place apart. There has been some criticism of the night-time drinking the boardwalk attracts. But the garda∅ from Store Street have increased their vigilance to ensure compliance with corporation by-laws prohibiting the consumption of alcohol in public places.

The kiosks have been standing empty all summer, while the corporation put the operating licences out to tender and worked through the selection process and organised insurance. Now the three kiosk operators (Debbie O'Byrne, Shay Whelehan and Barbara Kinsella) are ready to open shortly,with opening hours expected to be from around 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Casual trading may also be on the cards, with trial runs a possibility this autumn.

Until then, Bachelors Walk, the new RT╔ drama, has zoomed in on the boardwalk as a nifty backdrop. The way things are going, you'll be lucky to get a spot.