Are you a bar, cafe or restaurant looking to enhance your outdoor dining area in a COVID-Safe way?
We are the industry leaders in providing weather-proof shading solutions to the hospitality industry, with over 25 years experience. In these challenging times rest assured our professional advice will help you ascertain the most cost effective way of covering your patrons.
Our wide range of shade solutions includes:
- Café / Market umbrellas that can be safely used on specially designed heavy bases or flat bases with sand bags. These are lightweight and can be easily packed up at the end of each day’s trade
- Heavy duty giant umbrellas perfect for covering larger areas. No pack up at the end of each day required. Normally these need to be permanently installed, but we also have very heavy bases for these that double as seating (refer image below).
- Café Barriers that can be used to fence and screen off areas.
- Marquees that can be set up over an entire dining area – contact us for hire and purchase options.
- All products can be branded with your venue logos or sponsors.
Where do I Start? Good question. Read on…
I’m in Victoria. Are there Government grants available to help fund enhancing my outdoor area and making it COVID-Safe?
Being a Melbourne-based business ourselves we know the pain that local business is feeling due to the restrictions. We are here to help make the process as easy as possible for you.
The Victorian Government will once again provide support to bars, cafes and restaurants, as our communities re-open with streamlined council permits. This builds on last years Outdoor Eating and Entertainment Package, and has been re-named the Outdoor Economy Package to support street trading and provide necessary infrastructure.
The COVIDSafe Outdoor Activation Voucher Program will provide Victorian businesses with $2,000 grants to use towards outdoor hospitality and entertainment. The vouchers are valid towards hiring and purchasing marquees, screens and outdoor umbrellas, outdoor furniture, and planter boxes. This grant will enable councils to transform more outdoor areas and is allocated on the level of business activity.
The City of Melbourne will be supported separately through the $100 million Melbourne City Recovery Fund and the $200 million Melbourne City Revitalisation Fund.
GRANT APPLICATIONS ARE NOW LIVE
If you are located in the City of Melbourne, click here.
For other localities, click here.
I’m not in Victoria, can you still help me?
We sure can, all our products are professionally packaged for safe and secure shipping to anywhere in Australia.
I need shade ASAP to cover my customers, do you have stock available?
Yes! Our Café Umbrellas are in stock for immediate delivery in our standard colours of Black, White or Natural, in 4 different sizes.
Custom branding or specific colours are made-to-order and would be ready in approx. 4-5 weeks. Don’t worry, we’ve still got you covered, and can hire you umbrellas while your custom ones are being produced (Melbourne only).
What type of umbrella do I need?
2m Square or 2.8m Octagonal Cafe Series umbrellas are perfect for footpath trading and small courtyards.
Larger 3m Square or 4.2m Octagonal Café Series umbrellas are ideal for larger open areas and big courtyards/streetscapes.
Our heavy duty Nova HD umbrellas are available in giant sizes like 4m and 5m Square. These will cover many tables and chairs and patrons. We even have an integrated lighting solution for these umbrellas so they can be used day and night.
My area gets pretty windy, how do I stop the umbrellas from blowing over?
Our heavy duty steel base plates and weighted PVC sandbags keep smaller umbrellas secure and can be easily moved an removed at end of trade if required.
For larger umbrellas we have a unique heavy base system that doubles as seating for customers:
We also have more permanent installation options and expert installers available to get them fitted properly.
Can’t I just buy a cheap umbrella from the local hardware store?
We wouldn’t recommend it. Our umbrellas are commercial grade and engineer certified. Many councils require a Certificate of Compliance Design for umbrellas to ensure they meet Australian standards. Some councils also have rules about how umbrellas must be secured to make sure they don’t fall over or blow away. We can help you meet all these requirements.
What about my staff, how do I protect them from the weather?
As well as umbrellas, we also manufacture “instant” or “pop-up” marquees that are perfect for covering service areas, entry points and point of sale equipment. Our marquees are available in stock in black or white in a range of sizes or can be customized in other colours and with branding.
Marquees can also be used as an alternative to umbrellas to cover patrons. The advantage with marquees is that side panels can be attached to fully enclose the space.
6x3m marquees can seat up to 6-12 people. Multiple marquees can be joined with velcro-on gutters to fill a large outdoor space and keep the punters shaded and dry.
We can also supply more permanent structural marquees in very large sizes (eg. 6m x 9m, 6m x 12m, 6m x 18m etc.).
