While cold weather is just inconvenient for most people, the coming winter weather is a cause for alarm in the restaurant industry.
“It’s going to be a hard winter, a lot of guys aren’t going to make it,” said Mike Anderson, founder of Homegrown Restaurant Group, which operates Holy Cow, Sweet Fire Donna’s, Whiskey & Oyster, Tequila & Taco, Pork Barrel BBQ and The Sushi Bar.
While restaurants have been allowed to have some level of indoor dining since May, outdoor dining has been critical this year, with most patrons choosing to eat outside due to concerns about COVID-19.
Hank & Mitzi’s Italian Kitchen has an innovative offer for customers: "Bring your own blanket and hot drinks are on us!" Although you're welcome to bring your own blanket, the restaurant is offering free hot drinks to anyone who opts to dine outdoors on the heated patio. The offer is good for one drink from the hot beverage bar menu through the end of January.
Over at Fontaine Caffe and Creperie, they have seen most of the customers electing to sit outside. “You can have the inside completely empty, while the outside is full and has a wait list,” said Stacey Wharam, owner of Fontaine.
Other restaurants like Mia’s Italian Kitchen, Vola’s Dockside Grill and Theismann’s Restaurant and Bar have seen the inside of the restaurant filling almost every day, according to partner Dave Nicholas of Alexandria Restaurant Partners.
Even if they are able to fill the space available inside, the capacity limits with keeping tables 6 feet apart and no bar seating puts enormous financial strain on restaurant owners.
“No matter how many people want to sit there, they are only going to wait so long for a table,” Nicholas said. Additional outdoor seating on the street and sidewalks has helped restaurants stay afloat.
Creating heat
In early October, the City of Alexandria extended the outdoor dining program through March 2021, which allows for restaurants to use parking spaces for dining — a move restaurants were grateful for.
Restaurants have been working hard to figure out ways to keep their outdoor spaces open and welcoming when temperatures drop in addition to figuring out how to make people feel more comfortable sitting inside.
One common solution is heat lamps. While commonly used, the implementation can be a bit complicated.
The heat lamps you see with the mushroom top outside of restaurants run off propane, which has strict regulations on how and where it can be stored. Tanks must be locked away, but they cannot be stored inside.
Fontaine is working around the storage issue by using Propane Taxi, which will switch out low tanks for them.
“We never planned to store them,” Wharam said. “We don’t really have the space to do that. Even if we had the space to store something like that, we are probably using [the space] for something much more important.”
Wharam ordered heaters long before it started getting cold. Unlike some people, she realized very early on that changes to business operations as a result of the pandemic were going to be long term.
“Once we opened up in May, I was already thinking, ‘What does winter look like?’” Wharam said. By June she ordered heaters for her outdoor dining space.
Other restaurants have had a difficult time finding heat lamps as so many other business are rushing to get them, too. This also played out in the spring as restaurants all scrambled to get umbrellas.
Outdoor winter dining veteran Sonoma Cellar lucked out and found four new heat lamps on eBay for their expanded outdoor seating.
“There were none to be found at The Home Depot or Lowe’s or any of the normal places to find patio heaters. They were all sold out,” said co-owner Elizabeth Myllenbeck.
Sonoma Cellar garden
Sonoma Cellar has kept their back garden open during previous winters. Largely sheltered from the wind, they can keep the space warm with heaters and a fire pit. Every Tuesday night is cigar night. A group of guys has been gathering every week, even through the winter, and are up to more than 520 consecutive weeks in the garden.
In the past, Sonoma Cellar used to provide blankets for people to use out back, but out of safety concerns, they are asking people to bring their own blankets.
Blocking the elements
Other restaurants are not as fortunate as Sonoma Cellar when it comes to blocking the wind.
Many places are looking at ways they can use tents and heaters, but normal propane heat lamps cannot be used near umbrellas or inside tents.
At an Alexandria Economic Development Partnership webinar about businesses using outdoor spaces, Mike Anderson of Homegrown Restaurant Group discussed electric heaters specifically designed for use in a tent.
Some restaurants, including King & Rye at The Alexandrian, are looking at using igloo-type tents, which are common in Europe. There is not a clear consensus on how safe these bubbles are for preventing the spread of the coronavirus. In a Washington Post article, experts suggested dining with individuals from your close circle, keeping a side of the tent open, and after every use disinfecting the surfaces inside and air out the tent. Of course, keeping a side of the tent open might defeat the purpose of keeping it warm, although King & Rye plans to use heaters.
Safety indoors
While Alexandria Restaurant Partners has seen an increasing number of people eat inside, they want to make everyone feel as safe as possible. In late October, ARP announced they had installed needlepoint dipolar ionization (NPBI) air purifiers at all of their Virginia restaurants, which includes Mia's Italian Kitchen, The Majestic, Lena's and several others.
This air-purifying system has been tested on COVID-19 and has been able to reduce COVID-19 particles in the air by 99.4% in 30 minutes, according to an ARP press release.
Sonoma Cellar has also purchased air purifiers for their dining room. They are using Blueair purifiers.
“People are going to start choosing indoors as a dining option, because it's just too chilly outside,” Myllenbeck said.
Air purifiers have been found to be one effective way of reducing the risk of spreading coronavirus, according to Dr. Gregory Poland, an infectious disease expert at Mayo Clinic, although he and other experts emphasize that we still need to layer protection in addition to filtering the air. Limiting room capacity and having good ventilation are key factors in helping reduce the spread.
All the restaurants we spoke to are still adapting their strategies for this winter.
“This has been challenging,” Wharam said. “The good part is that we have all been forced to be creative and think outside the box in ways we probably would have never done.”
