5 ms·

I don't really understand the point of this. Is outdoor dining and cold a new thing? Doesn't this happen every year at winter? Like someone paid money for this

I don't really understand the point of this. Is outdoor dining and cold a new thing? Doesn't this happen every year at winter? Like someone paid money for this? >A report from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. indicated that 45F (7.2C) is the temperature below which demand for outdoor dining will collapse. (In a separate report, the company projected that outdoor dining demand would fall to 5% in December before rebounding in 2021. That and all the food they listed are typical winter dishes you find on menus every year. How is this newsworthy at all? ETA: I guess i'm the only person who's eaten at a restaurant with heated patios in November then. Those crowded tables around me must've been my imagination.

ghaff 6y ago
Outdoor dining is a new thing for a lot of restaurants given the current circumstances. That said, colder weather meals is only going to make a difference at the margin of whether people eat outside.
stephenbez 6y ago
> Is outdoor dining and cold a new thing? Doesn't this happen every year at winter? It’s a new thing. You’d normally never eat outside in the winter in cities like Chicago, Boston, or New York, but because of Coronavirus people will.
- nine_k 6y ago
  Food trucks operate year round. Restaurants could take a page from their book.
  - munificent 6y ago
    Restaurants are already doing take-out. Most people don't eat the food truck, and certainly not when it's cold out, so I don't know what else restaurants would learn from them.
    - nine_k 6y ago
      I meant the kinds of food,and its packaging maybe, that is known to work well in the cold. Wrapping things, serving things excessively hot, etc.
      - jjulius 6y ago
        There are multiple points in the article we are discussing that touch on how restaurants are pivoting how they serve dishes in order to keep them warm.
  - jjulius 6y ago
    You're talking about two fundamentally different operations. With food trucks, first and foremost, people don't "hang out" for as long as they might at a restaurant. It's more akin to fast food - get your food, wolf it down, get out. The process is also different - people approach a window, order their food, and then eat it wherever they want. They have the option of eating it near the truck, but the convenience of taking your food to a different area of your choosing (say, your warm and cozy house) is also there. In addition, in places where food trucks are hugely popular like Portland and Austin, there are "food truck parks" where multiple trucks congregate around a shared communal eating area that is often covered and heated. That space is often operated by an entity other than the food truck so the truck operators don't have to worry about it. Restaurants, on the other hand, are places where people like to hang out at for extended periods of time. Whereas at a food truck you might order all of your food at once, at a restaurant you're ordering your first drink, then an appetizer or two, then another round of drinks and your entree, then more drinks and your dessert. That process lasts a lot longer than your time at a food truck. There also isn't a convenient "communal area" like at a food truck park that is in the center of a block of restaurants that restaurants can send people to - restaurants must figure out how to build their own seating areas and provide ample warmth. Food trucks don't care about people being comfortable because that's not in their business model - you order your food and where you eat it is your problem. In order for restaurants to maintain business, they need to cater to the comfort and warmth of their customers.
- nprz 6y ago
  I doubt they will. Especially once temps hit near freezing, plus with wind and precipitation... If I owned a restaurant I would just make ordering take out as quick and convenient as possible.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    There's plenty of people who eat and drink (mostly drink, usually from cans) outside once every week or two in nearly zero (freedom degrees) temperatures. Often they also light a pile of pallets (and maybe even a fiberglass boat if the wind is right) on fire for warmth. It just so happens that people inclined to do these things have mostly all been driven out of major urban areas where the restaurants are and if they weren't they would mostly still not go downtown for overpriced beer.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
echelon 6y ago
No restaurant that I can think of has outdoor dining in the winter. I live in Georgia, and our winters are fairly mild compared to northern states. Even so, outdoor dining in the wintertime is very uncomfortable. Winter is going to be very difficult for restaurants. If they don't adapt to serving meals outdoors, they may not survive. They're going to have to change a lot to create a comfortable environment for patrons. Fire pits, heaters, warm dishes: soups, stews, ramen, pho, pastas. Warm drinks and heated cocktails. All of this while maintaining safe social distancing. I've already seen a number of restaurants and bars make the attempt. It's pretty ingenuitive.
- yakz 6y ago
  I found outdoor seating at bars to be comfortable in the winter before the pandemic; the heaters work pretty well, and the fresh air is still much better than the crowded interior. I think it could work just fine, but might require an adjustment period. The pandemic will probably be over in a year, though, so at least in the USA, I don't see a great future in the near-term for mid-40Fs outdoor dining.
- munificent 6y ago
  > No restaurant that I can think of has outdoor dining in the winter. I live in Georgia, and our winters are fairly mild compared to northern states. I grew up in the South and live in the Pacific Northwest now. I think you see a lot less outdoor dining in the South not because of the winters but because of the summers. It's so hot that eating outside is miserable half the year, so restaurants aren't physically designed for outdoor dining during the couple of spring and fall months when it would be nice.
  - echelon 6y ago
    > It's so hot that eating outside is miserable half the year This is wrong in my experience. There are hundreds of restaurants equipped for summer dining [1]. Lots of restaurants have open rooftops, patio seating, open-air "fireman"-style garage door walls, etc. Pretty much every BBQ joint and taqueria is outdoors. Outdoor eating is very popular in the Georgia summer. [1] https://www.gafollowers.com/13-rooftop-bars-atlanta/ https://www.gafollowers.com/13-rooftop-bars-atlanta/
rsynnott 6y ago
Up until today (when they were all closed) every restaurant near my house had a crowd of people eating outside in temperatures of around 8 degrees C. That’s not at all normal; they’d normally have abandoned outdoor seating by now. It’s a consequence of COVID regulations.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  Seems pretty crazy! I’m from the northeast and I can’t imagine people doing outdoor dining through the winter! Half the point of restaurant dining is the comfortable no-stress environment. Why would people go when they will be shivering outside under a little heater?
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    Indoor restaurants aren’t allowed at the moment, so if people want to go out... I can’t see it continuing all the way through the winter, though; while it doesn’t get very cold here (minimum of about 0 C usually) it does get very windy. And all restaurants, even outdoors, are banned for the next six weeks, anyway.
    - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
      Yeah, my wife and I have been eating outside (in Ireland) since restaurants re-opened. To be fair, we used to be smokers, so were used to this before. Around September, everyone else stopped eating outside, and the staff often looked at us funny when we continued.
smitty1110 6y ago
Here id DC, eating outside in the winter sucks. Wind makes the outdoors miserable, and we have a tendency to get just-above-freezing rain. Outdoor seating just packs up for 4 months.
prawn 6y ago
Read the article (paywalled for me) and see who is mentioned. That is likely who paid for the PR. They're just making something normal into something topical.

ghaff 6y ago

Outdoor dining is a new thing for a lot of restaurants given the current circumstances. That said, colder weather meals is only going to make a difference at the margin of whether people eat outside.

stephenbez 6y ago

> Is outdoor dining and cold a new thing? Doesn't this happen every year at winter? It’s a new thing. You’d normally never eat outside in the winter in cities like Chicago, Boston, or New York, but because of Coronavirus people will.

nine_k 6y ago
Food trucks operate year round. Restaurants could take a page from their book.
- munificent 6y ago
  Restaurants are already doing take-out. Most people don't eat the food truck, and certainly not when it's cold out, so I don't know what else restaurants would learn from them.
  - nine_k 6y ago
    I meant the kinds of food,and its packaging maybe, that is known to work well in the cold. Wrapping things, serving things excessively hot, etc.
    - jjulius 6y ago
      There are multiple points in the article we are discussing that touch on how restaurants are pivoting how they serve dishes in order to keep them warm.
- jjulius 6y ago
  You're talking about two fundamentally different operations. With food trucks, first and foremost, people don't "hang out" for as long as they might at a restaurant. It's more akin to fast food - get your food, wolf it down, get out. The process is also different - people approach a window, order their food, and then eat it wherever they want. They have the option of eating it near the truck, but the convenience of taking your food to a different area of your choosing (say, your warm and cozy house) is also there. In addition, in places where food trucks are hugely popular like Portland and Austin, there are "food truck parks" where multiple trucks congregate around a shared communal eating area that is often covered and heated. That space is often operated by an entity other than the food truck so the truck operators don't have to worry about it. Restaurants, on the other hand, are places where people like to hang out at for extended periods of time. Whereas at a food truck you might order all of your food at once, at a restaurant you're ordering your first drink, then an appetizer or two, then another round of drinks and your entree, then more drinks and your dessert. That process lasts a lot longer than your time at a food truck. There also isn't a convenient "communal area" like at a food truck park that is in the center of a block of restaurants that restaurants can send people to - restaurants must figure out how to build their own seating areas and provide ample warmth. Food trucks don't care about people being comfortable because that's not in their business model - you order your food and where you eat it is your problem. In order for restaurants to maintain business, they need to cater to the comfort and warmth of their customers.
nprz 6y ago
I doubt they will. Especially once temps hit near freezing, plus with wind and precipitation... If I owned a restaurant I would just make ordering take out as quick and convenient as possible.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  There's plenty of people who eat and drink (mostly drink, usually from cans) outside once every week or two in nearly zero (freedom degrees) temperatures. Often they also light a pile of pallets (and maybe even a fiberglass boat if the wind is right) on fire for warmth. It just so happens that people inclined to do these things have mostly all been driven out of major urban areas where the restaurants are and if they weren't they would mostly still not go downtown for overpriced beer.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

echelon 6y ago

No restaurant that I can think of has outdoor dining in the winter. I live in Georgia, and our winters are fairly mild compared to northern states. Even so, outdoor dining in the wintertime is very uncomfortable. Winter is going to be very difficult for restaurants. If they don't adapt to serving meals outdoors, they may not survive. They're going to have to change a lot to create a comfortable environment for patrons. Fire pits, heaters, warm dishes: soups, stews, ramen, pho, pastas. Warm drinks and heated cocktails. All of this while maintaining safe social distancing. I've already seen a number of restaurants and bars make the attempt. It's pretty ingenuitive.

yakz 6y ago
I found outdoor seating at bars to be comfortable in the winter before the pandemic; the heaters work pretty well, and the fresh air is still much better than the crowded interior. I think it could work just fine, but might require an adjustment period. The pandemic will probably be over in a year, though, so at least in the USA, I don't see a great future in the near-term for mid-40Fs outdoor dining.
munificent 6y ago
> No restaurant that I can think of has outdoor dining in the winter. I live in Georgia, and our winters are fairly mild compared to northern states. I grew up in the South and live in the Pacific Northwest now. I think you see a lot less outdoor dining in the South not because of the winters but because of the summers. It's so hot that eating outside is miserable half the year, so restaurants aren't physically designed for outdoor dining during the couple of spring and fall months when it would be nice.
- echelon 6y ago
  > It's so hot that eating outside is miserable half the year This is wrong in my experience. There are hundreds of restaurants equipped for summer dining [1]. Lots of restaurants have open rooftops, patio seating, open-air "fireman"-style garage door walls, etc. Pretty much every BBQ joint and taqueria is outdoors. Outdoor eating is very popular in the Georgia summer. [1] https://www.gafollowers.com/13-rooftop-bars-atlanta/ https://www.gafollowers.com/13-rooftop-bars-atlanta/

rsynnott 6y ago

Up until today (when they were all closed) every restaurant near my house had a crowd of people eating outside in temperatures of around 8 degrees C. That’s not at all normal; they’d normally have abandoned outdoor seating by now. It’s a consequence of COVID regulations.

ryandrake 6y ago
Seems pretty crazy! I’m from the northeast and I can’t imagine people doing outdoor dining through the winter! Half the point of restaurant dining is the comfortable no-stress environment. Why would people go when they will be shivering outside under a little heater?
- rsynnott 6y ago
  Indoor restaurants aren’t allowed at the moment, so if people want to go out... I can’t see it continuing all the way through the winter, though; while it doesn’t get very cold here (minimum of about 0 C usually) it does get very windy. And all restaurants, even outdoors, are banned for the next six weeks, anyway.
  - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
    Yeah, my wife and I have been eating outside (in Ireland) since restaurants re-opened. To be fair, we used to be smokers, so were used to this before. Around September, everyone else stopped eating outside, and the staff often looked at us funny when we continued.

smitty1110 6y ago

Here id DC, eating outside in the winter sucks. Wind makes the outdoors miserable, and we have a tendency to get just-above-freezing rain. Outdoor seating just packs up for 4 months.

prawn 6y ago

Read the article (paywalled for me) and see who is mentioned. That is likely who paid for the PR. They're just making something normal into something topical.