I’m guessing no chairs means a take-out only establishment and no need for public restrooms. Germany had lots of small take-out shops called Imbiss. They were little more than an alcove to get out of the weather. They just had a ledge around the wall to eat at but no chairs to sit in. They could do plenty of business.
I deal with many of the things discussed in the article and thread frequently in my line of work. My suspicion is that the proposed use of the space triggered a general requirement to upgrade or expand an existing bathroom — or maybe even add a second bathroom. And the bathroom requirement meant that the new bathroom had to be ADA-compliant as a matter of law, not that there was something about the deli operation itself that made wheelchair accessibility necessary.
I had a situation in a client’s office building. One of his new tenants was doing a remodeling project that required them to relocate an existing bathroom ten feet along the same wall. The previous bathroom had been constructed in the late 1980s before the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed. By moving the bathroom the tenant had to make it somewhat larger to accommodate the required ADA accessibility features.