Dining & events
Design around covers, service and changeovers.
Outdoor igloo dining for restaurants, rooftops and hotel terraces. A photogenic room still has to work for staff, guests and the local authority.
Start with the service model.
State seated covers, table format, service style, event frequency and seasonal operating hours.
Move from an idea to a visible configuration.
Choose by table and circulation.
- Round domes for intimate tables and tea rooms
- Larger round domes for group dining
- Oval domes for long tables and clearer service lanes
- Extended formats for events and multi-zone hospitality
Protect the guest and staff flow.
- Table footprint and chair pull-back space
- Server route and dish return
- Number and position of doors
- Queueing, accessible approach and emergency route
Treat heat as an occupancy problem as well as a weather problem.
Air conditioning is not required in many climates. First assess sun, covers, dwell time, air changes and shade. Where required, a client-supplied floor-standing unit may be planned for larger domes.
Local professionals retain life-safety decisions.
- Fire strategy, occupant load and egress need local approval
- Cooking equipment and open flame require separate review
- Foundations, utilities and interior fit-out are project scope
- Accessories are included only when listed in the quotation
Use references to test layouts, not promise revenue.
Reference installations can show spatial approaches. Capacity, climate and operating results must be verified for the actual project.
Work the payback before the diameter.
A 4.0 m dome seats 8–10 and starts at US$1,341 EX-WORKS. Replace every figure below with your own; the point is the shape of the calculation, not our numbers.
| Your input | Worked example |
|---|---|
| Covers added per service | 6 |
| Trading nights per month | 20 |
| Average spend per cover | US$35 |
| Gross margin | 70% |
| Gross profit per month | US$2,940 |
Illustrative arithmetic, not a forecast. Freight, foundation, fit-out and local approvals sit outside the EX-WORKS price and belong in the same calculation. Send us the covers and the destination port and we will put a landed figure against it.
The nights you currently give away.
- Rain — an outdoor table under a solid polycarbonate shell keeps trading. Awnings and umbrellas send guests home.
- Winter — the shell is rated from −40 °C to 120 °C, so the terrace stops being a summer-only asset.
- Wind — rated to grade 14, which is the difference between clearing the terrace and serving it.
- Private hire — a transparent room with a door sells as a private table on a minimum spend, a booking fee or a package, at a rate an open terrace seat never reaches.
A room that photographs itself.
A lit transparent room at dusk is the most photographable table in most venues: a clean silhouette, warm light inside and open sky above it. Guests post it because it looks like somewhere worth being — and that is reach you did not buy.
- Light the interior for the photograph as well as the meal — warm, low and indirect.
- Keep the sightline out of the dome clean. The view is the decoration.
- Name the domes and let guests book them by name. A bookable object gets shared more than a seating area does.
Igloo dining, dining pods, event domes.
Restaurants search for a restaurant igloo, venues for an event dome, hotels for a dining pod. It is one product: a solid polycarbonate shell with about 91% light transmission, rated level 14 for wind and B1 for fire, that keeps guests seated outdoors in weather that would otherwise close the terrace.
- Outdoor dining igloo. The 4.0–5.0 m sizes carry 8–16 covers — the range that pays for itself fastest.
- Winter dining pod. Usable from −40 °C; the covers you currently lose to cold are the ones this recovers.
- Clear dome for events. Weddings and launches book the room for the photographs as much as for the shelter.
- Dining dome turnover. Curtains draw back for cleaning between sittings; nothing is dismantled.
Costs by size, and the four costs outside the shell price, are in the 2026 price guide.