Designing Year-Round Outdoor Dining In Hotel Restaurant Terraces

Hotel restaurants are usually more constrained than standalone venues. Your guests are already checking in to the hotel, and during busy meal periods, guests want to dine in a pleasant setting to enjoy a breakfast or an evening meal, without going offsite. With thoughtful design and proper weather protection, what might seem like limited summer terrace seating can add a valuable functionality to the hotel, allowing terraces to support food and beverage service year-round.

The key to hotel operational success, while ensuring positive customer experience, is to design an outdoor dining space that feels special and a destination, to encourage attracting both hotel guests and passing trade.

Adapting Terraces to Varying Meal Services

Hotels have a number of meal service periods, and each meal service has a different set of terrace requirements. Breakfast terraces require not too much passive solar gain to retain comfortable warmth during the early and chilly morning hours, and protection from cool winds. Guests don’t want to experience sharp winds. A glass veranda gives guests the breakfast experience outdoors, without discomfort from the unpredictable weather.

Dining in the evening presents a different major design challenge to master. Your terrace design needs to add appropriate atmospheric lighting that is also functional. Heating is an important consideration too. Guests expect outdoor dining to be comfortable, otherwise, they won’t want to book the space in February, or other cold months. Heated outdoor spaces require adequate luxury blankets.

Lunch services attract non-residents and hotel customers in business centers and tourist regions. Your terrace becomes extra income beyond room rentals is dependent on customers being certain that they will have access to seating. With a covering on your terrace, you can take reservations without warning customers that seating is dependent on the weather.

Guest Expectation Are Higher

Hotel guests review your outdoor dining and terrace differently than restaurant customers would. With outdoor dining spaces, hotel guests are
comparing your dining and outdoor patios to terraces and patios they’ve dined at
during their travels. Expectations are far greater. Feedback and
recommendation is more vital. Integrated heating and weather protection is
almost mandatory to not have an outdoor dining space seen as an
underwhelming letdown.

When compared to more permanent and durable themed outdoor enclosures, fabric awnings are a letdown. They show more investment in the space, and they contain more weather and wind protection. First impressions count. They are the most visible to hotel customers who will see the outdoor dining area from their room and to restaurant reviewers.

The dining experience should closely align with the overall experience and standard your hotel provides. It is not what you want to achieve. If the glass is broken, there will be mismatched furniture or lame weather protection. Verandas and glass-walled enclosures integrate with the hotel architecture. They combine to enclose an outdoor area and make it feel like a real part of the restaurant, not just an afterthought.

Understanding Operational Challenges

Hotels have lots going on at once, so you must make sure terrace additions won’t make things more stressful for the team. When it comes to having glass roofs, we recommend going with fixed options, as having to operate, retract, and monitor a roof is more tedious and difficult. Housekeeping won’t need a chore added to their daily tasks of managing and monitoring roof activities.

You’ll want to remember that easy cleaning access is important. Glass requires regular cleaning, and we all know that hotel standards are much higher than normal. Use a design that allows easy access for maintenance without disturbing hotel guests. No one wants to see ladders, buckets and other cleaning supplies left on tables during breakfast service.

Clearly, the relationship between the kitchen and the terrace is important. Inverted service situations with the kitchen far from the outdoor seating slow service and cause the meal to be served at an unappetizing temperature. If your layout makes it difficult for counter service from the terrace, staff will be annoyed and you will lose covers.

Weather Protection That Protects

Hotels cannot afford to have terrace seating unusable. Because of the high demand and limited spaces, glass allows for other activities to take place without having to protect the console. Positive glass coverage allows for additional bookings to be made.

Hotel terraces encounter several more problems originated by the wind than by the rain. Being partially sheltered from the rain is good, but if the wind makes sitting outside uncomfortable, the guests will not bother. Freestanding glass walls or windbreaks make it possible to create sheltered spaces that are convenient even if the wind is blowing

Heating increases the duration of the usage. Panels and underfloor heating make it possible to have glassed-in dining spaces much more profitable, and the investment is paid back by having more months of economically favorable glass pouring than when the unheated outside spaces are sitting empty.

Design for Your Location

Coastal hotels need glass and other materials that are not corroded by strong winds and salt air. Urban hotels appreciate and need glass enclosures that absorb and mitigate traffic noise while keeping all the benefits of the outside along with the views. Country house hotels are well positioned to provide large terraces with sweeping views, also making this the main feature of the offer.

Your terrace should also suit the style of your building. Simple, modern glass structures will suit contemporary hotels, while more traditional properties will appreciate wooden or metal beams arranged in a style that harmonizes with the rest of the building.

If a year-round hotel terrace is well designed, it is an asset that is not merely a seasonal seating option. It also provides the guests with an additional reason to select your hotel and gives you more reliable additional covers for your restaurant.