This restaurant is the first in Wichita to announce plans for outdoor dining bubbles
By now, you’ve probably seen photos online of the inventive ways big-city restaurants and bars are getting customers who feel safer dining outdoors during COVID-19 to keep coming during cold-weather months.
Some have erected heated tents. Others have installed mini greenhouses. And some are installing little plastic domes that can cozily hold small groups of diners.
Becky and Dan Norton call them igloos, and early next month, they’ll have four of them ready to go at Nortons Brewing Company, 125 N. St. Francis.
Though many Wichita restaurants have been aggressively buying heaters and coming up with other ways to keep outdoor dining viable as the temperatures drop, the Nortons are the first in Wichita to announce plans for installing outdoor structures.
It was something Becky wanted to do even before anyone had heard of the coronavirus. She loves the brewery’s whimsical and large outdoor beer garden, and she’d always wanted to find a way to make it usable during the winter.
“I’ve had the idea since we opened and have been wanting to do it every winter. We just haven’t ever done it,” she said. “And now, it’s kind of a necessity.”
The couple has ordered four kits for the igloo frames, and Becky’s mother is working on assembling the clear, plastic covers that will enclose them. She and Dan plan to decorate the inside of each igloo and will install space heaters inside each one.
They’ll rent the igloos out to diners for hour-and-a-half blocks at a fee of $25. Up to six diners will be permitted inside each igloo at once. They’ll leave the bubbles vacant for half an hour between parties so they can clean and sanitize them.
The couple plans to install some type of window in each unit so that food and beer can be passed inside.
“It will be contactless, full service in your own sanitized, socially distanced bubble,” Dan said.
The Nortons also will be placing stand-up heaters around the beer garden, and there will still be room for non-igloo diners to be outside.
Dan said that business has been down during COVID-19 because of the reduced capacity inside the restaurant, which opened in April 2018. The igloos are one way he and Becky are “just rolling with the punches,” he said.
“We have our own little bubble of friends that we know are being safe outside of work,” he said. “So this will be perfect for people like us that feel safe around each other and want to go out and party together and be safe about it.”
The four igloos should be ready to go the first week of December, the Nortons said. If they’re a hit, they’ll get more and have determined they could fit another four or five in the beer garden.
I’ve arranged with the Nortons to test out one of the igloos once they’re installed, so stay tuned for a report from inside the bubble.
This story was originally published November 18, 2020 at 9:39 AM.
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