Keep Your Patio Full (Even When It’s Freezing)
Here is the reality: the second your patio gets chilly, you start losing money. When guests start shivering, they don’t linger over dessert or order that second bottle of wine. They pay the check and bolt. It kills your turnover and leaves half your seats empty just because the weather turned. We fix this with high-output infrared heaters. But these aren’t your typical space heaters. The trick is in how they work. Most heaters try to warm up the air. On a breezy patio, that’s a losing battle—the wind just blows the warmth away before it ever hits your guests. Infrared is different. It sends out waves that go straight through the air and warm up the people and objects they hit. It feels like sitting in the sun on a crisp October day. That’s the only way to actually keep a drafty outdoor space comfortable. We use high-wattage units because you need that heat to hit the customer before the wind can steal it. Where you put them matters. You can’t just slap one heater in the middle of the deck and call it a day. You’ll end up with one lucky table and ten freezing ones. You need a grid. We usually mount them about 2.5 to 3 meters up. This creates a “canopy” of warmth that overlaps. If you go too high, the heat just vanishes into the sky. Too low? You get those annoying “hot spots” where guests feel like they’re being grilled, so they start sliding their chairs around and messing up your floor plan. The bottom line (and the catch). The math is pretty simple. A warm patio means you can actually use 100% of your seating all winter. That’s a huge win for your bank account. But here is the part people forget: these heaters pull a lot of power. Before you start wiring everything in, please check your breaker panels. There is nothing worse than a packed Friday night dinner rush only for the power to trip because your electrical system can’t handle the load. It’s a nightmare that usually leads to expensive, last-minute panel upgrades. Get your electrical specs sorted first. Then, get your guests warm.