Patios remain key for restaurant sales, but owners say it's no longer a 'free lunch'

People dine on the patio of a pub in the ByWard Market in Ottawa, on Friday, June 23, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

If it weren’t for patios, Matthew Senecal-Junkeer says he wouldn’t be in business today.

He owns two restaurants in Vancouver through his company, the Birds & The Beets Food Group.

The Chinatown location had a small patio that was extended through the city’s street-side patio program in 2020. The program also allowed him to build a new patio at his Gastown location after years of trying, since city regulations before the pandemic had prevented it.

The new patio was a “game changer,” Senecal-Junkeer said. “It really was what allowed us to stay afloat.”

Patios are still a critical driver for restaurant revenue, six years after the COVID-19 pandemic drove demand for outdoor dining. However, restaurant operators say they are not as lucrative as they once were, as the extra seats are now being factored into higher rental costs.

Senecal-Junkeer said that the extra patio space means his business is roughly 40 per cent busier in the summer. He estimates that the increased traffic has translated to a 20 to 30 per cent sales bump.

“We almost don’t see the interior in the summer; everybody wants to be out on the patio,” he said.

Patio dining became newly popular during the pandemic as it allowed people to eat outdoors while being mindful of social distancing practices at a time when gathering inside was risky.

Restaurants can choose to set up patio spaces differently, with some looking to create a busy and fun atmosphere, while others opt for calmer and quieter spaces for their patrons. Some restaurants have been running their patios for years, while others more recently moved to capitalize on demand for outdoor dining.

Even when the weather doesn’t co-operate, Senecal-Junkeer said consumers come back with fiercer demand when the sun is back out.

When patios became more popular during the pandemic, he said it was essentially a “free lunch” for anyone who already had one in their existing lease structure. At least, for the first few years.

“Now, when landlords are leasing a space, they’re able to factor in what that patio opportunity is and price the rent of the space accordingly,” Senecal-Junkeer said.

When it was time to renew the lease on one of his restaurants in 2023, he said the patio was factored into the rental cost and drove up the price per square foot.

There are also other costs associated with running a patio. When extra space for outdoor dining means removing street parking spaces owned by the municipality, Senecal-Junkeer said restaurants often have to offset the lost revenue for the city.

“I commend the city; they committed to making it revenue neutral from their perspective. We still pay about $16,000 a year for the patio, which I’m more than happy to do,” he said.

Data from OpenTable released in May found that reservations for outdoor dining increased by 24 per cent year-over-year in Canada. July ranks as the most popular month to sit outside.

The findings were taken from online reservations for outdoor dining on the OpenTable platform in Canada between March 1, 2025, and Feb. 28, 2026.

Court Desautels, CEO of the Neighbourhood Group of Companies, said all five of the restaurants his group owns have patios, located across Guelph, Ont., and Kitchener, Ont.

Desautels said he estimates those patios increase sales during the summer months between 10 and 20 per cent. He also said they translate into an increase of up to 15 per cent in beverage sales.

“With our pub, for example ... we essentially increase our outdoor seating by about 50 per cent with the extended patio and those places are packed and we see our sales increase through the summer,” he said.

But many of the ingredients for a successful patio are beyond the control of owners.

Aisling Farrelly, owner of the George Street diner in Toronto, said she first opened the patio in 2020 to navigate the pandemic after opening the diner in 2007. She also said the patio helped save the restaurant during the pandemic and stay afloat in the years after.

While speaking on a hazy, smoke-filled July afternoon on Wednesday, the patio lay nearly empty as the city saw poor air quality due to forest fire smoke. Farrelly said she doesn’t expect the diner to recoup its investment in the nearly 45-person outdoor dining space this year.

The cost of operating the patio, Farrelly said, includes paying the City of Toronto about $4,000; separately around $9,000 is needed to rent patio infrastructure such as railings and furniture, as well as paying for extra staff.

The patio, which runs from May until mid-October, has seen about 25 per cent less traffic on weekends so far this year, she said. Part of the problem, according to Farrelly, is that the weather has been “too hot.”

“And not just the weather; FIFA has affected us an awful lot. We have not got the volume at all that anybody said we were going to get. We actually are quieter,” she said.

The World Cup kicked off in mid-June and ran through mid-July with Canada hosting matches in Toronto and Vancouver. A total of six matches were played in Toronto.

Farrelly said the tournament drove traffic to watch parties, fan zones and pubs.

Farrelly said that with the patio, she can double the size of her restaurant. During a good patio season, she said the extra seats can increase revenue, especially on the weekends.

Kelly Higginson, the president and CEO of Restaurants Canada, said that while there continues to be enthusiasm for patios, there are difficulties with sprawling patio spaces outside of restaurants.

“One of the things that we’re challenged with now is that fight between infrastructure and construction, but people still want to have their patio space and finding that balance,” she said.

“We’ve got different cities doing, whether it’s CaféTO in Toronto or different patio initiatives throughout the country, but how do we do it where we aren’t frustrating drivers and taking over certain bike lanes and all of these other issues?”

Overall, Higginson said patios remain an “all-important” piece for a restaurant’s overall bottom line.

“Every single opportunity to generate sales, especially in this economic environment, is critical,” she said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 19, 2026.

Daniel Johnson, The Canadian Press