Outdoor Winter Dining: Strategies for the Pandemic and Beyond

While many restaurants are experimenting with outdoor winter dining for the first time, open-air dining in cold weather climates is nothing new. Ski resorts, holiday markets and winter festivals around the globe have been creating memorable cold-weather dining experiences for decades. The “Winter Dining Guide” published by Streetsense, a strategy firm focusing on the retail, restaurant and hospitality industries, takes inspiration from these cold climate experiences. The study generates recommendations that combine current technology with time-honored cold-weather programming to create dining experiences that restaurants and bars can utilize to assist them through the pandemic.

But creating dining environments tailored to the winter months does not need to be a pandemic-only exercise. Once investments for this year are made, many of them can be leveraged year after year.

With indoor dining restrictions, lockdowns and curfews being imposed across the country in response to the COVID-19 crisis, the restaurant and bar community faces the biggest challenge to its survival in a generation. While many operators have found relief from outdoor dining during the warmer months, the onset of colder weather in the U.S. creates new challenges for an already struggling industry. Below is a summary of some of the guidance provided in the report.

Extending the outdoor dining season centers largely around two items: outdoor heaters and cold weather enclosures. The study acknowledges that heaters may seem like an obvious solution but cautions that selecting the right units is critical. The rules and regulations of local municipalities, such as the type of fuel allowed or restrictions relating to power cords running across sidewalks, must be considered. Practical advice on outdoor enclosures like tents, inflatable enclosures, geodesic domes and portable greenhouses is also provided. For example, the study says that often temperature is less of a factor than the chill generated by wind, so understanding if one or both elements must be addressed will determine the type of protection or enclosure that makes sense for a particular location. Enclosures are available in a range of styles and prices, from affordable vinyl curtains to elaborate heated domes. These structures also vary in size, enabling operators to accommodate one group of four people in a private setting or numerous patrons under one large enclosure.

The “Winter Dining Guide” also offers practical advice on programming concepts to create a dining experience that is comfortable, memorable and fun. It emphasizes that the outdoor atmosphere should be as carefully considered as the ambiance created indoors. Details such as string lights and music will help set a tone. Warm winter uniforms for the wait staff will keep them safe and reinforce the outdoor setting. Organizing outdoor seating around a firepit, if possible, will make the environment feel festive and planned. Offering winter-only menu items, such as warm cocktails and stews will further differentiate the experience. As the study states, “The goal is to turn these all-weather outdoor spaces into a dining adventure, and not something you have to apologize for during the pandemic.”

For restaurants permitted to operate indoors, the “Winter Dining Guide” provides clear advice on the most effective ways to keep the restaurant's patrons and staff as safe as possible. It establishes that the exchange between servers and customers is at the heart of eating out. “For many restaurants, personalized high-touch service is the very definition of their guest experience,” the study says. But it acknowledges that during the pandemic, this fundamental aspect of the experience has been muted. Instead, restaurants should focus on practices that make their customers feel safe dining out, such as mobile preordering capabilities, coverings over plates that are removed tableside and updated reservation processes to prevent overcrowded waiting areas.

The guide also explores different methods of improving the air quality in indoor establishments, with everything from spot purification to integrated HVAC system upgrades. It includes a series of detailed diagrams that help restaurateurs create a socially distanced indoor table plan with guidance on table barriers, restroom best practices and traffic flow throughout the establishment.

A section titled “Broadening the Revenue Generating Potential of Your Business” provides step-by-step explanations of how restaurateurs can expand their business through takeout, delivery, catering, retail and digital sales. For example, if you do not already have an online ordering system for takeout, evaluate options for setting one up; establish clear pick-up procedures and adjust your menu to include items that travel well. For catering, prepare a specialized menu that can be tailored for small groups and includes a streamlined offering of core dishes; plan packaged meals that include cutlery and food containers that can be used as plates. If you have already adopted some of these tactics, the guide presents ways to tailor them to make them more profitable.

The study concludes with advice on how businesses can leverage their local community organizations, like chambers of commerce, business improvement districts, main street managers and local governments, to market and amplify their businesses during the pandemic. Discussed are marketing initiatives, regional programs, funding opportunities and common regulatory changes that restaurants and bars can take advantage of to improve the viability of their businesses. From sidewalk “streateries,” to digital community marketplaces to one-on-one consulting opportunities, the study discusses how to get the most out of your local business support groups.

Though the landscape is bleak right now for restaurants and bars, the “Winter Dining Guide” ends with the following words of encouragement:

“Although the holiday season will look a lot different this year, guests still have hopes to gather — even in smaller numbers — and the hospitality industry will cater to those needs in innovative and creative ways. Looking ahead, for those that can modify their business and survive through the winter, there will be a lucrative combination of long-term pent-up demand and deflated competition as life returns – ever so slowly – to normal following the eventual distribution of a vaccine.”