In the absence of the usual summer event schedule, Collingwood’s marketing team has turned its attention to one of the summer pastimes still allowed during the pandemic: patio dining.
Collingwood’s economic development department has teamed up with local businesses to launch Patiolicious, which is a marketing campaign to promote local restaurant and cafe patios.
According to the town’s director of marketing and economic development, Martin Rydlo, the campaign is an extension of the town’s new patio policy.
Due to the pandemic restrictions limiting indoor dining, the town has allowed local restaurants to expand their patios into street parking spaces to offer more outdoor seating.
“Businesses jumped on it,” said Rydlo. He pointed to the second patio set up at Black Bellows called the “apocalypse patio,” which is surrounded in chainlink fence and a post-apocalyptic motif.
“Collingwood has embraced that patio opportunity,” said Rydlo. “We thought, ‘why not make that something we promote as a major cornerstone of what’s happening in Collingwood?’”
He said the town has taken the marketing budget it usually applies to Sidelaunch Days (a harbour and waterfront festival in the summer) and applied it to Patiolicious this year instead. Sidelaunch Days was cancelled for 2020.
Patiolicious includes a website (patiolicious.com) listing participating restaurants and their feature dishes created for the campaign.
There are 16 patios listed as participants so far, with more to come, according to Rydlo.
So far the Patiolicious patios include 1858 Caesar Bar, Espresso Post, Espresso Post Petit, Gustav Chophouse and Bar, Sol Kitchen, Black Bellows Brewing Co, Heavenly Cafe, The Curly Willow, BRGRZ, Lakeside Seafood and Grill, The Huron Club, Fig and Feta, Collingwood Brewery, Georgian Bay Family Restaurant, Low Down, and The Iron Skillet.
“We’ve seen a neat growth of Collingwood becoming a hub for great food,” said Rydlo. “Five-to-10 years ago we may not have been that top choice.”
Any restaurant, cafe, or brewery in Collingwood with a patio and a social media channel can apply to be part of the Patiolicious promotional campaign. Soon, the website will also include contests for diners to participate in as well as a mapping tool showing the patios and special dishes or drinks.
Patiolicious launched yesterday (Aug. 17), and runs through to Sept. 30.
