(Credit: Elizabeth MacLeod)
Gorgeous weather and outdoor patio seating was a boon for uptown restaurants emerging from the COVID-19 lockdown.
“In uptown Saint John we see, especially on the boardwalk, a lot tourism which was just completely devastated,” said Ale House group owner Jesse Vergen. “Where we would start with cruise ship season and having cruise ships in and people driving in from New England, Ontario Quebec, we just didn’t have that there this year.”
Outdoor patios used by gastropub Cask and Kettle and the Saint John Ale House helped keep business steady during the summer.
“It helped immensely, even when it wasn’t that nice out, when it was cold or drizzled. It was full most all summer – people feel a little bit safer sitting outdoors.” said Cask and Kettle owner Shawn Verner.
Vergen said the Saint John Ale House’s outdoor patio, which is one of the largest in the city, was its biggest strength.
“It’s hard to say if people were just gravitating to that because of COVID or it was a perfect storm of a beautiful summer where we could utilize that,” he said, adding they expanded their patio off of McGill’s to accommodate outdoor dining for Toro Taco and Barred Rock quick service restaurants.
Saint John Ale House’s expanded patio (Credit: Elizabeth MacLeod)
Ale House Group also implemented a QR code ordering system where people could order from one’s table on the boardwalk and have their food delivered to them.
“Everybody on the roster was able to be rehired back and then, because we were behind the curve of this whole thing, trying to figure everything out, we had to rehire our summer staff,” he said.
Vergen explained the Ale House’s large size, with the majority of the group’s restaurants having booth seating, was an initial advantage in creating social distancing.
“There was a simple application of putting plexiglass up, spacing out our patio, and working with the city of Saint John to implement putting our patios out further into the boardwalk to space of the tables,” he said, along with following COVID cleaning procedures, screening employees, wearing masks and utilizing contact tracing for their guests.
Meanwhile the Cask and Kettle took the opportunity to renovate during lockdown, setting up plexiglass barriers and reorganizing seating, and expanded into the space they had next door.
Cask and Kettle’s patio with human and canine guests enjoying the fall afternoon (Credit: Elizabeth MacLeod)
“We decided to go a different direction and try to think how we can maximize it because you don’t know how many people are going to want to come out,” owner Shawn Verner said. “We’re not actually down that much, we can get almost the same capacity as we had before,” he said, sharing Cask and Kettle remained busy enough that they could bring all of their staff back when they reopened.
However, the increasingly chilly weather and changing seasons means the days of patio dining are numbered. Verner adds Cask and Kettle plans to take down its outdoor patio in a few weeks.
“We have such wet and difficult winters here, to do it outdoors you’d have to really spend a lot of money to try to cover,” he said. “In Atlantic Canada or Canada in general it gets cold and I can’t imagine people sitting out there, even in November.”
Vergen shares he is looking into fall outdoor dining options for his restaurants. “We usually have nice falls – on a Friday night, where we can space people out and maybe people want to be outside,” he said. “But the reality of it is once the winter hits there’s definitely going to be some struggles there.”
Dining habits are also being impacted by the second wave spreading across Canada. Verner said it doesn’t bode well for the restaurant industry when people will probably stay home more that usual this winter, a traditionally slower time for the industry.
“We’re just hoping there’ll be a big push on the vaccination front, a big push on our province keeping our area safe, and hopefully we will get through this thing and come out stronger on the other side,” said Vergen.
