Halifax Restaurants Brace For The End Of Patio Season
HALIFAX — It’s a clear, late-October day in Halifax. The sun is out and the air is a crisp 9°C. Can you picture yourself sitting on a patio, beneath a heater or under a blanket, munching on a burger and fries?
The city’s restauranteurs very much hope you can.
In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, few Nova Scotia businesses were hit harder than restaurants and cafés. Initially forced to close completely, restaurants are now operating under social distancing rules that strictly limit the number of patrons they can seat.
Profit margins in the industry are already thin, and with limited capacity, most are barely surviving. In the midst of a bleak year, however, one ray of hope for restaurants has been their patios.
“This summer patios were a bright light because people were more comfortable eating out in a patio setting outdoors,” said Kevin Murphy, the president and CEO of Murphy’s Hospitality Group.
Paul MacKinnon, the CEO of the Downtown Halifax Business Commission, adds that patios also provided crucial extra seating to make up for restaurants’ stunted indoor capacity.
“If you talked to most restaurants that have a patio what they would tell you it has kind of become their restaurant. They’re seeing very few customers inside and all the customers are on the patio,” he says.
But as temperatures begin to slide patio dining becomes less attractive. That’s left many restaurant owners extremely anxious.
“As the weather starts to cool a bit there’s no question the ability for restaurants to do business will be hurt,” Murphy said.
A large swath of Nova Scotians say they’re nervous about eating inside a restaurant. Many restaurant owners worry that, once patios close, people will simply choose to stay home rather than eat out.
“People’s habits right across the world have changed. Some people will not come inside a restaurant. There’s a fear there,” Joe McGuinness, one of the owners of Halifax’s Legendary Hospitality Group, says.
To deal with that potential problem, some in the industry are holding out hope they can convince customers to weather the weather once colder temperatures set in.
Winter patios are more common in other parts of the world, and Gordon Stewart of the Restaurant Association of Nova Scotia says they could break into Nova Scotia.
“If you went to, for example, Quebec City or Montreal or Toronto, in the middle of winter, even in snowstorms, you see people outside sitting drinking their coffee or a glass of wine. That’s the kind of thing we want to see here,” Stewart says.
Most patios in Halifax will be allowed to stay open until the end of October. With that in mind, many restaurants are investing in heaters and blankets to try and make their patios more comfortable cold-weather options.
Some Halifax restaurants are even set up to provide outdoor seating throughout the entire winter.
MacKinnon says businesses in places with permanent patio infrastructure, like on Argyle Street, could set the stage for outdoor dining this winter.
“I think [Argyle] will be the test case. It will be pretty easy for those businesses to invest in heaters or open up even on warmer days,” he says. “It will be interesting to see whether people want to take advantage of that or not.”
While December dining is a comforting thought for some owners, most accept that patio season will eventually end in Halifax. When that happens, it will be up to operators to make wary diners feel comfortable eating inside.
Stewart points out that restaurants are probably some of the cleanest places these days, thanks to the stringent sanitization procedures they are required to follow.
“We as operators need to identify to the public that we’re doing everything that we possibly can to mitigate any potential exposure. And to reassure them that it is OK to go out and dine,” McGuinness said.
Even for a big player like Legendary, surviving the winter is no guarantee if they can’t convince customers to come inside.
“People are trying to remain optimistic but there’s certainly a lot of concern about the viability of a lot of restaurants,” MacKinnon says.
“Certainly it is a concern of ours. We’re building up a nest egg to be able to carry us through because we don’t know,” McGuinness adds. “We’re all Covid virgins, we don’t know. But we need to be nimble, we need to be flexible, and our focus is on maintaining our businesses and keep our people employed as much as we can.”