Outdoor Dining is a way of life and a way forward for Food & Beverage

Outdoor Dining is a way of life & a way forward for Food & Beverage

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People love eating and drinking outside. Such is the deep, almost primal, desire for outside hospitality that every time a sandwich/milk bar puts out a couple of tables and chairs on the footpath right next to the parked cars, they are always being used. 

In a COVID world, Outdoor Dining is a safer option for patrons and staff alike. Just as importantly, this type of hospitality environment also happens to be a way for F&B operators to claw back some of their capacity lost due to social distancing requirements.

While some of the alfresco measures that are being adopted will, of necessity, be temporary fixes, it is worthwhile exploring how outdoor spaces can be a more permanent and positive addition to the F&B eco-system, no matter the climate or location.

When people think about Outdoor Dining, they often first think about these types of places: 

Beach Dining

Others bring up images of dining in wide open spaces like this: 

OUTDOOR Dining

For some, it’s all about F&B in a stunning urban setting:

CITY SCAPE DINING

If you think that Outdoor Dining is only for the height of summer or mild climates, think again:

WINTER

Before we go any farther, we fully admit these collections of great outdoor dining settings are places and pictures we love and acknowledge they are not necessarily instructive for a typical venue or development. They are presented here for the enjoyment they bring and for the sense of well-being they exude.

However, it is exactly these ideals that make Outdoor Dining so appealing to everyday consumers of F&B.  For millions of people around the world every day, eating and drinking outside is a way of life: European cafés are integral parts of the social fabric of every city and town. 

Classic EUROPEAN CAFES

One of the key drivers behind the success of Outdoor Dining is that it positively affects your meal: Good (not necessarily great) food tastes terrific in a beautiful setting.

Unfortunately, many days aren’t sunny and most nights aren’t warm. As the vibrancy of European cafes attest and the pictures of the winter scenes above show, this doesn’t necessarily put off a lot of people. Venues, however, cannot just cater to the hearty or the foolhardy.

In order to provide hospitality for most people, the weather needs to be accounted for. Neither snow nor rain nor heat are insurmountable problems and, in fact, the solutions can provide positive Design aspects to F&B venues. Equally, some of the solutions can handle more than one climatic issue.

The most durable way to have an all year Outdoor Dining area is to incorporate a permanent structure into the venue’s construction. The following examples are from Toronto, London, Chicago and Seattle – all cities with significant periods of cold and wet.  All of the venues shown here are open year round.

ALL WEATHER ALL YEAR

The key point about all of these international venues is that they are dedicated all-year outdoor areas protected by permanent structures and that each of these areas are flexible enough to handle anything the seasons can throw at them.

In Australia, there are a number of dedicated outdoor dining precincts that have followed on from the examples from other countries.

AUSTRALIA ALL YEAR 

We recognise that not every venue or building can provide permanent cover and spaces, but there are a number of aspects that can be added to outdoor areas to make them comfortable hospitality spaces for much of the year.

The following venues have set up great spaces that can cater to customers for at least half the year. What these all have in common is the space heater, in various placements, and canvas coverings. In short, it really doesn’t take much to create an outdoor dining area.

SEASONAL Dining SPACE

The following venues have created a designed outdoor space that enhances the dining experience in a variety of different ways. Note the blankets offered to all patrons at the Parisian Cafe.

CREATIVE Dining SPACES

The COVD-19 pandemic has restricted indoor dining capacity for most venues across the world. As a result, outdoor spaces have been able to allow F&B operators to serve their clients and claw back some of their revenue that would have potentially been lost. 

In the first instances, some municipalities have allowed venues to set up shop in plazas or in newly closed off streets. Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, was one of the first to initiate this scheme. 

One of the first ideas to come from Amsterdam was a venue that set up individual pods, much like the ones shown in Chicago above.

Lastly, when in doubt go right back to the basics. In Florence, the wine windows used to serve patrons at the height of the plague outbreaks (between 15 & 17th Centuries) have been brought back into use. While they might not have the same level of personal service as in a regular venue, they certainly get the job done in these crazy times.


COVID DINING SPACES

One last point about dining “alfresco”. In Australia and many other parts of the world, people use that word to mean dining out of doors.  In Italy, it effectively means that you are dining “in prison”. Instead, you want to dine “furori” (outside) or perhaps “all’aperto” (in the open/outdoors). Regardless of the language you choose and whatever you want to call it, eating and drinking outside is not just for the beach: It provides another dimension to hospitality and just seems to make life better.

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Cover Images of Sushisamba, London, UK. Image via Pinterest