SURVIVING AL FRESCO
Back to Brooklyn co-owners Jamie Love, left, and William Lesniowski are betting big on their ByWard Market restaurant's patio, effectively `winterizing' it to give coronavirus-nervous guests the option of outdoor dining as temperatures drop.
Restaurant owner Jamie Love is going all in when it comes to outdoor dining.
In front of his ByWard Market business Back To Brooklyn, Love will soon install walls to enclose his deluxe patio, which is already outfitted with Lucite sheeting separating its comfy chairs and tables. Love has propane heaters to take the chill off, but will upgrade to less obstructive overhead heating in the rafters of his patio's ceiling. Love figures his patio has cost roughly $30,000, which he can afford because in addition to owning the restaurant, Love is the CEO of the successful tech services company MatrixIT.
“We're raising the bar here on Clarence Street,” Love says, looking at his neighbours' tents and umbrellas. “We're winterizing ... You could sit out here in a T-shirt in the winter.”
Love's effort to extend patio season is one more pivot by an Ottawa restaurant as they revamp yet again in response to the novel coronavirus
This summer, Ottawa's restaurants enjoyed what in hindsight might have been optimal circumstances during a pandemic. Good weather fostered patio dining, which the Ontario government approved in mid-June. COVID-19 infection numbers were seemingly under control, and guests could dine indoors as of mid-July.
But this fall's reset among restaurants responds to worsening conditions, as temperatures drop and infection statistics rise.
While Ottawa city council on Sept. 9 relaxed regulations for restaurant patios until Dec. 31, cooler weather has already made patio dining more challenging, and, for some businesses, not worth the effort. Several downtown restaurants on Elgin have had to close temporarily because of associated cases of COVID-19.
Restaurateurs have only to look to Montreal and Quebec City for a worst-case scenario — restaurants in those cities were ordered this week to close until Oct. 28 as Quebec tries to quash its COVID-19 spread.
Meanwhile, the prevailing mood of restaurant fans is hard to read. A Restaurants Canada survey released Sept. 24 found that more than 85 per cent of Canadians trust restaurants to keep them safe and do not want provincewide shutdowns of indoor dining.
However, some Ottawa restaurateurs are more pessimistic, sensing a growing public fear of dining out whether indoors or out. Just this week, Starbucks locations in Quebec and Ottawa reverted to making seating off-limits and only offering coffees and snacks to go.
Amid so much uncertainty, restaurants are hardly unanimous regarding outdoor dining.
The National Arts Centre's restaurant, 1 Elgin, wound down its patio last weekend and will focus on its dining room.
Restaurateur Stephen Beckta says that as nights grow colder, fewer people want to eat at the tables outside his Westboro Gezellig and York Street restaurant Play, and he doesn't think adding heaters would help much. When it has rained, guests who had reserved on the patio did eat inside and felt very comfortable, he adds.
Chef Jon Svazas, owner of Fauna in Centretown, offers outdoor dining under an adjacent tent. But he doesn't expect the tent, which has heaters blowing hot air, to stay open beyond the end of October. Winterized tents are too great an expenditure, he continues.
“I think for us, the best move is to maintain who we are, drop the (indoor) seating, provide as much social distancing as possible and just stick to our guns,” Svazas says, defending his decision to prioritize dining in.
But at Bowman's Bar and Grill on Carling Avenue, owner Peter West wants to make maximum use of the 40-foot-by-20-foot tent that has occupied half of his parking lot since June.
All summer, the tent was left open on four sides. But West recently added walls to shield half its perimeter, as permitted by the city.
The quest for heaters has frustrated West and his peers. West says he saw Kijiji ads that asked $500 or more for heaters that were $150 at Canadian Tire until the store ran out of them.
Such brazen markups take advantage of the difficulties Harriet Clunie, chef at Das Lokal on Dalhousie Street, had finding heaters not just in Ottawa, but in stores as far away as Brockville and Perth. “It's like finding a needle in a haystack,” she says.
At Bowman's, West has a TV set up in his patio, which was handy last month when the Toronto Raptors were still playing. His tent seats about 30, at picnic benches and tables, and has cost West $10,000, he says.
“Given the choice between sitting in or out, even when it's a bit chilly, a whopping majority of guests seem to prefer the peace of mind of sitting out in the fresh air,” West says. “If they want to sit outside, I'm willing to wear my winter jacket and serve them even when there is snow on the ground.”
That said, the Bowman's dining room is outfitted with acrylic barriers and even some shower curtains hung on garment racks to lower guests' anxieties about becoming infected.
Das Lokal's Clunie says with Ottawa's COVID-19 numbers rising, the plan to reopen her restaurant's dining room this month was cancelled.
“It doesn't make sense anymore,” she says. “I don't think people being inside without masks on is the best idea personally, but I begrudge no one who is doing it.”
Clunie even thinks a return to lockdown conditions in Ottawa could be coming.
“There's definitely a feeling within the industry that we're going back to takeout and delivery, and I'm getting prepared for that,” she says. “Even if (Ontario Premier Doug) Ford doesn't bring us back to Phase 2, psychologically we'll be in Phase 2.”
As well as offering takeout dishes and meal kits of cook-it-yourself schnitzel and spaetzle, Das Lokal will encourage guests to dine under the big tent in its parking lot for the next month or so. Later, the restaurant will offer customers after-work drinks outside at its propane-powered fire pit.
“People are more amenable to sitting outside with alcohol,” Clunie says. She adds that Das Lokal will serve not only warm cocktails and German mulled wine, but also complimentary bone broth or tea to outdoor diners, who are also welcome to BYOB — bring your own blankets.
While Das Lokal serves dishes inspired by German and Austrian cuisine, this fall it will push a Scandinavian notion called friluftsliv, which means “open-air living,” Clunie says.
She cites the Nordic saying: “There's no bad weather, only bad clothing.”
Even when it's a bit chilly, a whopping majority of guests seem to prefer ... sitting out in the fresh air.