Slower business, delayed openings, and vacant patios: How the heat is curdling outdoor dining

While customers at La Esperanza Mexican restaurant can cool down with ice-cold margaritas during a heat wave, the kitchen staff endure 100-degree temperatures while standing over deep fryers, griddles, and boiling pots. Their reprieve often comes from stepping outside with a Gatorade.

But when outside temperatures looked like they would soar past 100 degrees again this week, owner Saul Cordova decided it wasn’t safe for his staff — many of whom are his sisters, nieces, and nephews — to stay open. Instead, he paid them to take the day off on Tuesday.

“This is the first time we’ve had to close due to heat,” said Cordova, whose restaurant in South Jersey has served the region for 22 years. “The reality is that there isn’t much we can do when it gets that hot. We’re constantly working in front of open flame, fryers, and griddles, and steam tables are always on. We have exhaust fans to take out a lot of the heat and smoke, but there’s only so much that you can do. The next step is to upgrade our A/C unit for the kitchen itself.”

Installing new A/C in a restaurant kitchen may be a necessary step during heat waves, but it’s no small order, costing thousands of dollars, Cordova said.

This is the reality for Philadelphia-area restaurant, bar, and outdoor venue owners during this summer’s heat waves. Last month was the fourth-warmest June in Philadelphia since official records began 150 years ago. Since then, near-record-breaking temperatures have reached above 100 degrees Fahrenheit on the hottest days with exceptionally warm overnight temps. Throughout the past week, Philadelphia has been under a heat health emergency.

Restaurants were dealt a similar blow last summer when heat, bad weather, and wildfire smoke led to a 50% decline in business for outdoor dining venues.

Owners tell The Inquirer that the nonstop weeks of heat since June have resulted in less revenue, shorter shifts and work hours for staff, and patios, rooftops, and outdoor beer gardens going unused. In extreme cases, like Cordova’s, whole days of revenue are lost due to closing entirely. For Laura Lacy, co-owner of Germantown’s Attic Brewing Co., the slowdown of business in the heat leads to such slim profit margins that it often feels like they’re losing money.

“We see people show up, they get excited about the beer garden when they’re in the air-conditioning inside the tap room, and then they’ll push open the door,” Lacy said. “We watch them go up to the beer garden and then immediately turn back around and say, ‘No, it’s just too hot.’”

The consistency of the heat is what’s turning an uncomfortable heat wave into weeks of tough business, Lacy says. While Attic’s outdoor beer garden is always open, Lacy doesn’t staff the outside bar during extreme heat to protect staff from overheating, dehydration, and exhaustion. Fewer people in beer gardens means less revenue for the business and fewer hours for staff, creating a stressful time when rent and bills are due. At the same time, Lacy said staff safety is paramount.

“When you’re cozy in your air-conditioning at home, it can be a bit harder to get people to go outside because you walk out the front door and get hit with a blast of hot air,” Lacy said.

Restaurants that don’t solely rely on summer sales, like Attic, are looking toward the fall for relief. Lacy is scheduling their big events for September and October, while in the meantime relocating weekend concerts in the beer garden inside the taproom, promoting the brewery’s indoor Phillies watch parties and Quizzo nights, and expanding the menu to include even more ice-cold cocktails.

At the heart of Center City SIPS, the district’s weekly summer happy hour, Uptown Beer Garden is weathering the heat waves thanks to infrastructure investments. Isabel Rosenberg, assistant director of Craft Concepts Group, which oversees pop-up venues like Uptown, points to the beer garden’s retractable pergola canopy that can be adjusted and extended throughout the large garden to provide shade during the daytime.

Additionally, pre-shift meetings with staff focus on hydrating throughout the shift, taking breaks in the air-conditioned storage rooms and bathrooms, and allowing staff to transfer Uptown’s logo onto cooler, more breathable clothing using their in-house T-shirt press.

“Center City SIPS usually sees a really high volume of people, and since it’s been hot the past two Wednesdays, we have been a tad less busy,” Rosenberg said. “People probably aren’t as willing to come out and bear the heat knowing a venue’s outside, but we do take that into consideration.”

Lindsey Scannapieco, managing partner of Scout, which redeveloped and manages the BOK building in South Philly, says safety is first when it comes to these decisions.

“The heat is not something we can control, so we try to make it more pleasant with misters, cold towels, kiddie pools, and ice for guests,” she said. “We have delayed our openings during heat advisories during the day for the safety of staff and guests.”

Instead of opening at 2 p.m. on weekends, Bok Bar will push back opening til 5 p.m. on these extremely hot days. FCM Hospitality’s outdoor venues, like Liberty Point, Walnut Garden, and the beloved “Parks On Tap” roaming beer garden, will push back opening an hour or two on hot days, “so we’re opening after the hottest parts of the day to make sure our staff isn’t sitting there suffering when no one’s coming in to see them,” said Hugh Garrity, regional manager for FCM Hospitality.

Garrity said this is the first summer that FCM has had to fully close locations for the day when temperatures reach 100 degrees or more with high humidity and no breeze.

“Last summer we had a lot of heavy rain and this summer is the exact opposite where we could actually use a little bit of rain to cool off a bit — I think we prayed too hard for the good weather and just got the heat,” he said. “Our team is up early in the morning looking at everything from temperature forecasts and heat indexes to whether or not it’s going to rain to inform staff and customers as early as possible so they can be informed and accommodated.”

When they make the call to close an outdoor location, FCM is able to relocate outdoor events to one of its indoor venues. “On Cinco de Mayo, we moved an event from Liberty Point to Concourse Dance Bar because we knew it would rain. Today we’re moving an event from Liberty Point over to Craft Hall where we have a big stage area to host private events,” he said. “If we do have to pivot to an indoor spot or switch dates, it’s just the kind of stuff we’re used to in this business.”

The consensus among outdoor venue owners is that Mother Nature’s scorching heat is simply out of their control, but this summer is having some owners think about the future of the business if June and July’s heat becomes the “new normal” for summer.

Scorching hot summer days aren’t new to outdoor venues in Philly either. Owners have had to close or adjust hours in years past due to the weather, but everyone agrees this consistently hot summer is one they’ve never experienced before. “Every summer there is some type of heat wave. I just think that this summer is the longest heat wave we’ve had, I feel like it’s been about two weeks,” Rosenberg said.

“This year definitely seems like the worst that we’ve seen so far and while we hope that it’s a one-off, I just think that we need to be more prepared,” Lacy said. “But preparing for that isn’t cheap, between investing money on brewing equipment, hiring more team members, or building shade in the beer garden, you’re kind of taking a chance on, ‘Will even building shade structures convince people to come out?’”

“I wish we could just build a pool back there,” she said. “At the least, a great way to cool down is with an ice cold beer.”