Outdoor dining is heating up this winter with igloos and domes, approved by Gov. Phil Murphy last week as a way to shield outdoor diners from the fall and winter’s inevitable cold weather while also maintaining social distancing as the pandemic rages on.
The problem? With restaurants across the northeast all getting the same idea, igloos and domes are increasingly harder to find.
Asbury Festhalle & Biergarten in Asbury Park has had PVC igloos set up for cold weather dining on its rooftop for five years running. Each winter, its igloos have attracted people from all over the northeast looking for a unique outdoor dining experience. In pre-pandemic times, it was a novelty; now, general manager Nick Falco says they’re a necessity for the restaurant to stay profitable while indoor dining remains limited to 25% capacity and a new 10 p.m. curfew.
ASBURY FESTHALLE & BIERGARTEN
Asbury Festhalle & Biergarten currently has 16 geodesic igloos for diners to rent for two hours per group. Falco re-cently tried to order more from manufacturer GardenIgloo USA to find out that they’re on six to eight week backorder. He also found that the company increased the price by $400 per unit to $1,449.
Gardenigloo USA did not respond to a request for comment via email, but an outgoing voicemail message noted that the company is currently received 40 to 50 calls a day. The mailbox was full.
“We have had multiple calls from other business asking us where we got them” from folks also experiencing the same wait times, Falco said.
Retailers on eBay are capitalizing on the lack of availability by putting the geodesic igloos up at higher prices. User aaakitchenstuff retails the domes for $3,495 each with a promise of fast and free shipping out of Pompano Beach, Fla. User lifestyle-store retails them for $2,700 with promise of delivery within four to six weeks.
PVC dome manufacturer Alvantor, based in Santa Monica, Calif., also has its 10×10 domes on pre-order, though the website doesn’t say when they will be available. While the 10×10 domes retail for $459.99, the 12×12 and 15×15 domes retail for $629.99 and $789.99 respectively. The latter two are currently available, according to the website. As of Nov. 12, Amazon showed 16 10×10 Alvantor plastic domes were still available.
[The pandemic] is going to hit us hard again, but the igloos are the only positive. It’s at least a time people can get a place for themselves and enjoy it
– Nick Falco, general manager
For businesses that are able to procure them, the domes do draw in business. On Thursday night, Falco was in the process of calling 95 people back to confirm reservations. At the Biergarten, groups of between four and eight must spend $300 on food and beverage to reserve an igloo for two hours. All present must be at least 21 years old, except on Saturdays and Sundays before 5 p.m. Reservations are on the books through Feb. 27. For those interested in booking, there’s still plenty of space on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, Falco said, and on Saturdays further out.
To heat the domes, the biergarten uses small electric heaters placed under the tables, but Falco recommends that people still dress for the winter because wind slips through the cracks in some spots. Bringing your own blanket is encouraged. The restaurant keeps extra dome covers, which can be bought separately from the manufacturer, on hand if one of the covers gets damaged. If a zipper tears, Falco sends it to Canvas Shop of Avon down the street to repair.
How deep into the winter domes and igloos will be comfortable will depend on New Jersey’s fickle weather. “We had them up during one of those artic blasts, and we had to close because the heaters did very little inside. You can’t ask the servers to stay up there in that weather. They can’t take care of someone if it’s that cold,” he said. And this year, the restaurant had to take the PVC covers off the geodesic frame the week they put them up -nobody expected a 75 degree day in November.
Cleaning the domes is easy, but time consuming. A heavy scrub between seatings takes about 20 minutes per dome with the use of alcohol-based cleaner.On the safety of the igloos, Rutgers University School of Nursing Director of the Clinical Systems Project Dr. Aline Holmes said she would “prefer to have a window in there or air circulating,” and that “if there’s a window or an opening to get fresh air, I’d feel better about it.”
Holmes said she doesn’t plan on eating out at restaurants in igloos or domes anytime soon, but that she knows “people really want to get out and everyone’s kind of tired of the whole virus thing.”
Back at the biergarten, Falco expressed the importance of the domes for business both this winter and in previous winters.
“It’s almost a 9,000 sq. ft. area – if we didn’t have these during the winter, it’s unmanned real estate that’s just sitting there,” Falco said. “[The pandemic] is going to hit us hard again, but the igloos are the only positive. It’s at least a time people can get a place for themselves and enjoy it.”
