Successful restaurants have a few things in common: good food, good service, and good ambience. When diners gather around for a meal, the environment plays such an important role in creating a communal space where friends and families want to linger and connect.

Increasingly, those restaurant environments can be found outdoors.

The trend toward increased outdoor dining opportunities has been fueled by the pandemic but is likely here to stay.

In the early days of the pandemic, many restaurants implemented quick-fix solutions to create safer dining options – both indoors and out – while also expanding their take-out services. Now is the time to make some of those temporary modifications permanent or reconsider your entire restaurant footprint altogether.

Here are a few benefits of increasing your outdoor dining options:

• Adding outdoor dining means you can accommodate more diners. Depending on your restaurant’s footprint and new design plans, you may be able to increase your overall seating capacity. More seats means more diners means more money for you.

• Outdoor dining may still be preferred by some diners. By offering outdoor seating, you can encourage diners who may still be wary of eating indoors and welcome them to your restaurant.

• Outdoor dining offers environment and ambience opportunities. Regardless of your location, there’s a little je ne sais quoi about eating outdoors. Enhanced lighting in the evenings, floral arrangements and canopies during the day, and other outdoor elements add an intangible impact to the dining experience.

• Your air conditioning costs may be reduced. With more people outside and more indoor/outdoor flow in general, you may find that your AC costs go down as you do not have to keep the indoor space at such a cool temperature.

Restaurants throughout SoFla are embracing greater outdoor dining opportunities. If you are ready to transform your restaurant, we can help. Get in touch with our team at Seacoast Construction to schedule a free consultation.