St. Louis restaurant and bar owners plan for colder days ahead during the pandemic

As temperatures dip, local business owners are making preparations with patio pivots, indoor air filtration systems, seasonal pop-up concepts, and more.

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How would you like to eat dinner in an igloo? Or how about grabbing drinks around an outdoor double-sided fireplace? What about dining inside a restaurant where 70 percent of the air is cycled in from outside? As the seasons change, so does the outlook for restaurants and customers during the pandemic, leading many local owners to get creative.

Tents & Outdoor Heaters

“I think the whole world is trying to make that pivot right now, at least in areas where it’s getting cold,” says Kye Pietoso, co-owner of Cafe Napoli. Pietoso is considering domed transparent tents on the patio, which would allow guests to dine outdoors while safely distanced and separated from other parties. The tents are proving difficult to source, though; Pietoso says his restaurant group has been in touch with a company in Canada about sourcing one to test out, and even that has been a challenge. “But that’s our goal; we’re going to have eight to 10 out there, and they can [each] seat up to eight to 10 people,” Pietoso says. “They’re insulated and have portable heaters to heat the igloos up and let people have meals outside.”

The heated igloos will be familiar to locals who attended Winterfest in Kiener Plaza last year, where people could rent two-hour seatings with meals provided by the Sugarfire Winterfest Cafe. During the pandemic, restaurants across the country have explored similar “dome dining,” including in Chicago and San Francisco.

If the igloos work for Cafe Napoli, Pietoso says guests can expect to see them by November 1. Otherwise, he and his team will explore tenting the patios. Until then, he says his restaurant patios will have outdoor heaters to keep guests toasty. “We’re exploring every option right now," he adds. "I’d put them out next year, too—it could be a cool addition to the restaurant in the winter.”

If the igloos do pan out, Pietoso is excited to see them arranged around the 22-foot Christmas tree that Cafe Napoli sets up on its patio in Clayton during the holiday season. “We’re going to try to make it as vibrant as we possibly can and give people something where they feel safe and look forward to going out,” Pietoso says.

For some of the largest and most visible patios in town, tents with outdoor heaters are proving to be a possible answer to year-round patio dining. Mike McManus, general manager of Joey B’s, says plans are being developed to tent and heat the restaurant’s three locations (in South County, Manchester, and on The Hill). The patios are draws at all three locations, with the small family-owned chain regularly winning "Best Patio" awards around town. Plexiglass dividers have also been installed inside the restaurants.

McManus adds that while the tents will likely come down next spring, the new natural-gas heaters will be permanent fixtures. “We’re absorbing the cost to install them and keep them,” McManus says. “At the Manchester location, they’re above all of the booths, and we already have fire pits and heaters installed. We’re just trying to keep up with the times and make everybody comfortable.”

Another highly visible and beloved local patio has received the tent treatment as well. As of October 1, guests at Herbie’s in Clayton will be able to dine alfresco under the comfort of a large heated tent, covering most of the north facing patio, but leaving the giant 15-foot fire feature in the middle of the space exposed. “That will cause a nice barrier of heat,” Teitelbaum says of the fire feature. “The space will be heated with propane-forced heat as well. We're planning on doing this for the next five or six months.

Tenting the patio is just the latest investment Teitelbaum has made to Herbie’s during the pandemic. Earlier this year, as dining rooms reopened for service around town, Teitelbaum quickly adopted rigorous sanitization measures—including using medical-grade electrolyzed water for sanitizing—and a social distancing policy. Newer measures have included plans to install plexiglass shields in the dining room (the bar area has featured such shields for months). Air purifiers will also be running inside the restaurant as yet another safety precaution. Teitelbaum says the modifications have required a significant investment, yet they’re all worth it for the safety of his customers and staff.

“It's not inexpensive for sure, but we have to do what we can do to try and create some buzz and keep going through the winter season,” Teitelbaum says. “Overall we've spent tens of thousands of dollars making our restaurants safe and putting systems in place, including adding things like the 20-by-30-foot tent. Our conversations aren't even about making money; it's about just hoping to break even and making customers feel safe and still produce an experience that we’re proud of.”

At avenue restaurant, also in Clayton, Bryan and Diane Carr converted an alleyway into a heated, covered, and super cozy side patio, complete with a chalkboard wall for doodles and messages. Avenue's sidewalk patio tables are first come-first serve, but the Apple Patio is reservable for 7 to 12 people.

For restaurant owners like Travis Parfait, enclosing the patio isn’t an issue—it’s finding new ways to heat it during colder months. At his eatery, Sister Cities Cajun in the Marine Villa neighborhood, Parfait is currently exploring how to heat his covered patio from below deck.

“Our patio gets a ridiculous amount of sun—so much so that it's uncomfortable in the afternoon—so we covered it early on, just so we could see people out here rather than inside,” Parfait says. “I’ve got one of those standup vertical patio heaters, from last year. We have clear 'walls' coming next Thursday that will allow a gap above them for air circulation. We also ran a forced air heater under the deck which worked very well. The patio should be seatable down to the 40s by next weekend."

Parfait says he’s hopeful that by walling in the patio and heating it from under the deck, that customers will continue to feel comfortable dining in the spacious space well into fall and winter. When customers step onto the patio, they’ll find two pergolas “walled in” with clear vinyl. The new configuration will allow Parfait to add four tables to the space. With the dining room still only open at 25 percent capacity, the outdoor area adds about 30 seats to the 30 inside.

At Frida’s and Diego’s, in University City, patrons can keep warm on the patio under the glow of infrared tower heaters. Owner Natasha Kwan recently ordered a few “test heaters,” as she’s not yet sure which model she’ll choose; one type is oscillating, almost like a “heated fan,” she says. Tables will remain spaced 6 feet apart; as of yet, Kwan isn’t sure how many heaters she’ll need. “Are you going to have one heater per person or per table?” she ponders. “We’ll be testing that out.” Whatever the final model or configuration, Kwan says the heaters will complement the fire pits already dotting the patio.

Shawls, Fire Pits, and Fireplaces

At Cinder Bar, the rooftop outdoor bar and dining space atop the Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis, sweeping views of the Mississippi River and the Gateway Arch help draw customers. Cinder Bar is an extension of Cinder House, where James Beard Award–winning chef Gerard Craft serves a menu featuring Brazilian-inspired food and drink. Cinder Bar opened last spring and debuted a more casual menu of its own this past March. Throughout the pandemic, Cinder Bar has offered limited dine-in service and curbside pickup.

The rooftop bar already featured built-in heating and a large outdoor fire pit, but this autumn, it will be offering guests warming shawls to stay extra bundled up outside. Although the built-in heating wasn’t added in response to the pandemic, it is new as of the past year or so. On the portion of the patio dedicated to outdoor seating for the restaurant, guests will also find heat lamps overhead along the windows.

“Our setup kind of naturally leads to extending the patio season in general, because we have the indoor and outdoor bars—although obviously we are using the outdoor bar a lot more than ever before,” says Chloe Caylor, director of public relations and communications at Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis. “We’re excited to have those heaters going into the season; last year, we didn’t really use them. We're also providing guests with shawls, so on cooler nights, when we need a little extra layer, shawls will be available for guests.”

Caylor adds that the patio is typically open through November, weather dependent, but this year Cinder Bar is hoping to stay open through mid-December to best serve its customers during the pandemic. 

“We’ve found that when you're seated anywhere for a while, your temperature tends to drop because you're not moving around; it's such a beautiful space, guests typically get up there and don't want to leave,” Caylor says. “We're just finding [ways for guests] to get more comfortable, so they can stay and hang out.”

Investing resources into a new patio is exactly how Bob Brazell has spent the past nine months. In January, Brazell announced that Tamm Avenue Bar, which he co-owns with an ownership group, would debut a new outdoor space this spring. When the pandemic hit, Brazell and his partners had to shift gears. They worked with Missouri Custom Builders to change some design elements to ensure the patio could be used during the pandemic. “When it's all done, it'll be totally enclosed and heated, so we can use it year-round to serve booze, and [Nomad] can serve food year-round,” Brazell says.

The transitional outdoor space allows for open-air drinking and dining, yet it’s covered, keeping guests dry from rain and snow. Brazell says the finished space is set to debut in the next two to three weeks. The patio has stayed open during construction Wednesday through Sunday, with work ending in the late afternoon. When it’s complete, Brazell says the space will be heated with “two huge heaters,” not heat lamps or radiant heat. It will also feature ceiling fans to cool the space during warmer weather.

“It has some pretty crazy elements—I don't do anything normal,” Brazell says with a laugh. “I got these huge steel beams shipped in from Chicago [for the roof] that are custom to our specs, and then it's a mix of metal, concrete and Missouri oak. It'll have a double-sided fireplace. There'll be trees, lighting, TVs—the whole nine.”

Walk-Up Windows

The patio features a large open-air bar and, soon, a food pick-up window that will connect to Nomad, the sandwich shop that chef Tommy Andrew opened just weeks before the pandemic hit St. Louis. Guests can currently order food online and pick up orders curbside or in the shop (face masks required inside) or order inside. At present, guests on the patio can call in and pay for orders over the phone, and then a server delivers the food outside. That process will become even more contactless when the new back patio window opens. “It has a deli-counter system and an intercom, so if you're sitting on the patio, you'll hear, ‘Table 17,’ and you pick up your food right from a window,” Brazell says.

Nomad isn’t the first St. Louis restaurant to invest in a walk-up window during the pandemic, of course, and it won’t be the last. In anticipation of fall and winter, Mowgli and Craig Rivard recently installed two walk-up windows at their restaurant, Little Fox, in Fox Park. The restaurant will likely use one of the windows for taking orders and the others for pickup, Mowgli says. The windows, facing California Avenue, will allow the Rivards to continue serving customers, especially those who aren’t comfortable with indoor dining, year-round. “We’ll transition to those windows and move to takeout, most likely, in January, only,” Mowgli says. “We’ll have dinner, and then I think we’ll eventually add a lunch takeout as well.”

Seasonal Pop-Up Concepts

The takeout windows are only one pivot that the Rivards are making as temperatures drop. Mowgli says guests can also expect to see the restaurant’s outdoor pop-up concept, Little Fox Summer, located just across the street from the restaurant, change with the seasons as well. The more casual dining experience, which debuted under a tent in July, will be updated with a more fall-friendly menu in the coming weeks and outfitted with heaters to keep guests warm. Mowgli says they're are also discussing adding firepits to the space. (The pop-up concept is separate from Little Fox’s patio, which serves its full-service menu and is only available by reservation.)

“We’ve gone back and forth, calling it Little Fox Seasonal or Endless Summer,” she says of the revised pop-up concept. “The vibe of it is going to start to change, and we’ll also be doing some special events. Some of the ideas we had were a Beaujolais Nouveau party with a French onion soup and French-style sausages. Then another one we were thinking of doing was mulled wine with hot toddies with raclette [cheese] and cassoulet. And we’re playing with a Tiki event; the food with that would be grilled house-made Spam and pineapple skewers and pork belly steamed buns.”

Like the Rivards, The Royale's Steve Smith is hoping to attract more customers to the patio at his beloved South City bar with themed pop-up events, including for Halloween and Christmas. One of his employees, Tara Phelan, a set designer for The Muny and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, is helping transform the patio into a spooky scene for Halloween, with the goal of opening the pop-up beginning October 1. “We’re going to do a pretty intense haunted Royale courtyard that’s being built right now,” Smith says. “It’s going to debut the first weekend of October, and I’m putting it on par with when people do those pop-up-type bars seasonally, except it’s all going to be outside.”

Smith adds that he’s put a lot of work into the bar’s garden, which has been in the works for the past three years. “It's really starting to come in,” Smith says. “I have several pergolas that will be covered, and I have a couple of bids out for heating the outdoor patio with various strategies.” Those heating strategies, Smith says, include possible pendant heaters that will heat the outdoor area from overhead using natural gas. As in years past, The Royale’s patio will also keep guests warm with its natural gas fire pit. 

Air Filtration Systems

At The Royale, Smith has also started investigating potential modifications inside the bar. He recently started researching changes to the HVAC system. “I don’t think we’re going to do inside [service] for a while at least, but when we do, I just want to make sure that we have it as safe as possible,” he says.

Early during the pandemic, restaurants across the country researched HVAC system air filters that were most effective in preventing viral spread. The higher the Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value, the industry standard for rating filters, the more microparticles—including viruses—the filter will capture from the air passing through it. Air filters rated MERV 13 and higher are recommended to help prevent viral spread. This doesn’t mean that HVAC systems using these filters eliminate the risk of viral spread, but that it may reduce the risk, especially in well-ventilated spaces with optimized airflow.

At the newly relocated Olive + Oak in Webster Groves (which also houses a large event space and a second location of Perennial Artisan Ales), owner Mark Hinkle worked with Hoffmann Brothers to install 13 Aerus ultraviolet air scrubbers throughout the space, as well as MERV 13 air filters in the upgraded HVAC system. “That's definitely one of the biggest things that we've done to this point,” Hinkle says. “And there's a super high filtration system that also is supposed to sanitize surfaces as well. It's pretty cool technology.”  Hinkle has plans to upgrade O+O Pizza with air scrubbers and MERV 13 air filters in the near future, too.

Soon, guests dining on the new Olive + Oak patio will find heaters to keep them warm outside, Hinkle adds. “We’re loading up on heaters like everyone else,” he laughs. “A couple of weeks ago, it was clear there would be a run on them. Hopefully, the heater industry saw this coming and is prepared for the demand this fall.”

With outdoor heaters and heat lamps in high demand, restaurant owners are finding innovative ways to warm up patios. That’s the sort of approach Frank Romano is taking at his Webster Groves restaurant, The Parkmoor Drive-In, although Romano wants to wait before sharing too many details because it’s not yet finalized. “Right now, [we’re using propane] patio heaters as the temperatures drop,” Romano says, "but we're working on another option with our landlord."

Inside the restaurant, Romano has installed two new measures to help prevent viral spread. The first is an Air Guard antibacterial disinfectant fog system, which is used to clean the restaurant twice a day. “When people have issues and they think somebody had COVID-19 in their space, they hire companies to come in and use this fog machine,” Romano says. “So we bought one of those machines. We use it in the morning, and then we use it in the evening.”

The second measure involved upgrading the ductwork with ultraviolet sanitizing lights. “We also have HEPA filters on our return ducts,” Romano adds. “And then in our building, you can blend fresh air with return air, and we have the fresh air ductwork wide open. So we're pulling outside air in—it's a 70:30 blend, so we're pulling in 70 percent outside air right now.”

These sorts of “winterizing” measures are meant to make customers feel safer dining indoors during the pandemic, but because they are invisible to the average guest, it can be difficult to promote. Romano says he’s shared updates about the changes on the Parkmoor’s social media accounts, and so far he’s heard positive feedback from guests. “It’s something that you won’t see, but it’s working for you,” Romano says. “We want our customers to feel like they're in a normal dining room, in a normal restaurant, but we're working hard for you behind the scenes, filtering the air and doing measures that are for everybody's safety.”

Keeping everybody safe—customers and staff—has also been top-of-mind for Kwan at Frida’s and Diego’s, slated to open next month. Earlier this month, she installed ultraviolet air scrubbers inside the U. City restaurants. “All the air that is put into the restaurant through the HVAC system flows over a UV light, and that light sanitizes the air,” Kwan says. “And then we also have [air] filters in place, as well, to catch anything.”

She’s hopeful that these new air filtration and sanitizing systems will create a safe environment to reopen her dining rooms in the future. (At press time, the restaurants only offered patio dining.) As an added precaution, she is installing dividers to create physical barriers between customers in both restaurants.

“I’m hoping these solutions work,” Kwan says. “It’s really hard for all of us. I don’t know if there’s going to be that comfort level, but we’ll still continue to do curbside pickup for those people who are uncomfortable going indoors. We’re just taking it two weeks at a time to see what we’re comfortable with, as safety is our No. 1 priority.”

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