When Outdoor Igloo Dining Took Off (And Why It Matters)
The image of dining outdoors in a heated, transparent dome or “igloo” may feel novel, but its surge as a mainstream restaurant offering owes much to the pandemic and the shift toward outdoor-centric dining. This trend blends the charm of al fresco experience with the privacy and year-round usability of indoor settings – and it began gathering serious momentum in 2020.
Pre-pandemic context
Before the pandemic, outdoor dining was common in temperate months, but structures like individual transparent domes or igloos were relatively rare. Restaurants primarily added patios, sidewalk cafés, or curbside seating, but very few had embraced fully enclosed pods designed for winter or colder-weather use.
The acceleration in 2020
With indoor dining restrictions imposed across cities, many restaurants looked for ways to keep serving patrons safely. Outdoor structures – including greenhouses, heated tents, and igloo-style domes – became a critical lifeline. For example:
- In Fulton Market, Chicago, an initiative launched in October 2020 installed about 21 pods along the block between Green and Peoria Streets to support multiple restaurants.
- A Seattle restaurant, San Fermo, ordered transparent igloos and limited them to two people per pod, treating each as a self-contained outdoor “bubble.”
- According to a national overview, by winter 2020 a broad swath of restaurants across the U.S. had adopted yurts, greenhouses, igloos and pop-up domes as part of outdoor seating strategies.
How many restaurants adopted igloo/dome-style outdoor dining in 2020?
Exact numbers are hard to pin down. Few sources give a nationwide count that isolates “igloo/dome pods” specifically (versus general outdoor dining expansion). However, we can estimate based on indirect data:
- One survey noted that over 40% of full-service restaurants reported they added outdoor seating since the start of the pandemic (March 2020).
- A report mentions that more than 10,000 restaurants in New York City alone leveraged the city’s Open Restaurants program by mid-2020 – many of which included elaborate outdoor structures.
- Given these figures and considering some fraction of those would have adopted igloo or dome-style setups, a reasonable back-of-the-envelope estimate is that thousands of restaurants in the U.S. installed one or more igloo/dome-style outdoor dining units during 2020 (likely in the low‐to‐mid thousands, rather than tens of thousands).
So while the number may not have reached a tens-of-thousands scale for pods alone, the trend was widespread enough that igloo-style outdoor dining became a recognizable feature of pandemic-era dining.
Why the igloo/dome format appealed
Several factors made the igloo/dome model especially attractive during this period:
- Extended seasonal outdoor dining: In colder climates, traditional outdoor patios become impractical in late fall/winter. Transparent domes allowed restaurants to offer “outdoor” service even in cold weather.
- Social-distancing & safety optics: With indoor dining limited or banned, offering self-contained “bubbles” gave patrons and regulators a sense of safer, discrete dining units.
- Novelty and experience economy: The pods had Instagram-friendly appeal (“dinner in a dome”), which helped restaurants market they were open and safe.
- Regulatory flexibility: Many cities loosened rules on outdoor dining, curb-side walkouts, street closures, and temporary structures — enabling restaurants to deploy pods more easily.
- Revenue preservation: For operators facing steep indoor capacity limits or closures, domes/pods became one of the few ways to keep pace with demand and maintain seat count.
The outdoor igloo-dining trend is less about novelty and more about adaptation. A once-niche option became a strategic necessity in 2020 when indoor dining shut down, climates turned cold, and restaurants needed creative ways to stay open. While we don’t have a precise count of how many restaurants adopted igloo-style pods, the evidence clearly shows the format evolved rapidly – becoming a visible part of the dining landscape. As we move beyond the height of the pandemic, many restaurants continue to keep outdoor pods, suggesting the trend may outlast its origin moment. Friedman Hospitality Group has 5 restaurants that provide igloo dining.
Our igloo season begins November 1st – make your igloo reservation here!