Booking a restaurant table for June? You might have left it too late

You’ve ticked the haircut box, and purchased new summer clothes, and you’re really looking forward to a great night out at your favourite restaurant, now that outdoor dining is back on the menu from June 7th.

Not so fast. Outdoor-dining reservations, especially at venues that have invested in decent weatherproofing, are booking up quicker than you can say “Table for two, please”. At the Dublin restaurant Suesey Street, which will open seven days a week from June 7th, you won’t get a weekend table for two for the prime midevening dinner slot until the third week in July.

Once the announcement was made, our online bookings system went into meltdown. There is huge demand, with all Fridays and Saturdays full in June, and we are filling up fast for July

The restaurant is one of few that has an outdoor-dining space that can open in all weathers and guarantee comfort, and a dry table. “We are now full on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7pm, until July 24th,” says its general manager, John Healy.

The restaurant will operate its garden room at half-capacity, seating 20 people for sittings at noon, 2pm, 5pm, 7pm and 9pm. The time allowed at tables will vary between 90 and 105 minutes. “We will allow longer on tables when not required for a second sitting, or if the table is not rebooked. This happens a lot at lunch times. Dinner is normally very on point and strict,” Healy says. Reservations can be made for up to six people; the same group cannot book multiple tables.

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The Shelbourne, on St Stephen’s Green in Dublin, has expanded its outside-dining and -drinking options to include two terraces. One of these, the Champagne Terrace, with 50 seats, is booked out for Friday and Saturday nights until the end of June, according to Yvonne Donohue, the hotel’s director of sales and marketing. There will be five bookable sittings a day in this space, at noon, 2pm, 4pm, 6pm and 8pm, and reservations are by telephone only. A second space, Terrace 31, with a further 20 seats, will be open to walk-ins, depending on availability.

The restaurateur Paul Cadden invested in canopies and heaters for the outside-dining area at Saba, on Baggot Street, last summer. The Thai and Vietnamese restaurant and cocktail bar now has a space it calls the Secret Garden, which is already heavily booked for June.

“Once the announcement was made, our online bookings system went into meltdown. There is huge demand, with all Fridays and Saturdays full in June, and we are filling up fast for July,” Cadden says. The Secret Garden, which seats 40 diners, will open seven days a week from June 7th, from noon until late.

L’Gueuleton’s red-and-white candystripe awning and terrace tables on Fade Street, in Dublin 2, are a permanent fixture; the French bistro reopens for business on June 7th. The restaurant’s online reservations system shows no availability for the first day of reopening, nor for the Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the first week back in business.

The demand has not come as a surprise to head chef Ben Dineen, who also runs the kitchens at L’Gueuleton’s sister restaurants, No Name, which has a new dining terrace, and Luna, which will reopen later this year.

“We knew it would be mental. Everybody is desperate to get out. We’ve seen this a couple of times now, last summer and then again at Christmas. Everybody is really excited to get back out and see their friends, and have a meal that they haven’t cooked themselves,” he says. The terrace can accommodate 30 diners in weatherproofed surroundings, but additional walk-ins may be possible if the weather is good, Dineen says.

Advance bookings are also streaming in for the terrace at Asador in Dublin 4, according to Ewan McDonald, director of operations for Ellerman Hospitality, which also runs Prado in Clontarf and Lennan’s Yard, a 100-seat restaurant, pub and wine bar due to open on Dawson Street in central Dublin in September.

“We are reopening the terrace at Asador on June 9th, and will open Wednesday to Sunday to start,” McDonald says. The heated covered terrace can seat 25 diners for lunch and dinner. “We are delighted with the bookings so far. People are very keen to get back out and start to socialise again.” Already, Friday and Saturday evening availability is “limited”, he says.

Outside the capital, the Cliff group reports strong advance bookings at its Cliff House Hotel, in Ardmore, Co Waterford, and Cliff at Lyons, in Co Kildare, where terrace dining will be available for lunch and dinner. “We have seen a very high demand for bookings, as both terraces have magnificent views. Cliff House Hotel is sea-facing, with far-reaching views of Ardmore Bay, and Cliff at Lyons is situated beside the Mill Race waterfall of the Grand Canal,” a spokeswoman says.  Both properties still have availability for midweek and weekend bookings.

At the River Lee hotel in Cork city, online reservations will open on May 20th for its 35-seat riverside terrace, which will open for outdoor dining at noon on June 7th. “Interest has been huge through our social-media pages, and while we will take phone bookings, we anticipate sittings booking out quickly online,” a spokeswoman says.