How a Staffordshire pub turned underused outdoor seating into a popular winter hospitality area — starting with a seasonal hire before investing in a bespoke stretch tent.

Outdoor Seating Is Only Valuable When Customers Use It

For many pubs and restaurants across the UK, outdoor seating represents a significant investment. Beer gardens, terraces and courtyards provide valuable additional capacity during the warmer months.

But what happens when autumn arrives?

As temperatures drop and the British weather becomes less predictable, outdoor seating areas often become underused. Tables and chairs remain in place, but customers naturally gravitate towards the warmth and comfort of indoor spaces.

For pub operators, this presents an interesting commercial challenge.

The opportunity isn't necessarily to create more seating. It's to make existing seating usable for more months of the year.

At Tentickle Stretch Tents UK, we help hospitality venues achieve exactly that through bespoke stretch tent covers, seasonal installations, heating and lighting.

One particularly successful example is The Plough in Shenstone, Staffordshire.

The Plough, Shenstone: A Practical Solution to a Familiar Problem

The Plough already had an established outdoor seating area. During summer, the space was an attractive part of the venue, but its usefulness declined significantly during the colder months.

Like many British pubs, outdoor seating in autumn and winter was largely limited to occasional customers stepping outside, including smokers.

The challenge wasn't a lack of tables or chairs. It was the absence of a comfortable, sheltered environment where customers would choose to spend time.

Rather than immediately investing in a permanent structure, The Plough decided to explore a more flexible solution.

First Winter: Testing the Concept with Long-Term Stretch Tent Hire

For the first winter season, Tentickle supplied a stretch tent from our existing stock on a long-term hire agreement.

The structure covered approximately half of the pub's outdoor seating area, providing shelter from rain and creating a more welcoming space during colder weather.

To enhance the experience, we also supplied festoon lighting and patio heaters.

The combination made a significant difference:

Stretch tent cover provided shelter from rain and created a defined outdoor hospitality area
Patio heaters helped maintain a more comfortable environment during colder evenings
Warm festoon lighting created an inviting atmosphere, particularly during darker autumn and winter afternoons
Existing tables and chairs could be used more regularly without the need to construct additional seating areas

The result was a covered outdoor space that customers were happy to use during months when the seating would otherwise have been largely empty.

Importantly, the pub could experience the benefits of the installation without committing to purchasing a structure from the outset.

A Successful First Winter Led to a Bigger Decision

Following the success of the first winter installation, the stretch tent was dismantled in spring, returning the outdoor area to its open-air summer layout.

But The Plough had discovered something valuable.

Its existing outdoor seating could play a much greater role in the business during autumn and winter when customers were provided with suitable shelter, heating and lighting.

Rather than simply hiring the same tent again, the venue decided to invest in a bespoke stretch tent designed specifically for its outdoor seating area.

This was an important step forward.

The original hired tent had covered only approximately half of the available seating space. The new purchased structure was customised to follow the unusual shape of the outdoor area, creating a much more tailored installation.

It demonstrated the difference between using a standard tent to test an idea and developing a purpose-designed solution once the commercial benefits had become clear.

Bespoke Design: Making Better Use of an Unusual Outdoor Space

Not every pub garden is rectangular, level or straightforward to cover.

Outdoor hospitality areas often contain irregular boundaries, existing buildings, different ground surfaces and architectural features that make conventional marquee installations difficult.

The Plough's outdoor seating area presented its own distinctive shape, requiring a customised solution.

Tentickle designed a bespoke stretch tent configuration to better accommodate the available space.

Unlike conventional rectangular marquees, stretch tents offer considerable design flexibility. Their adaptable shapes and installation methods allow us to create solutions for sites where standard structures may not be suitable.

For The Plough, the customised installation provided a more effective way of covering the outdoor seating area while maintaining the character of the venue.

full house with full winter cover and cosy lights

Ownership Without the Seasonal Installation Headache

Purchasing a stretch tent doesn't mean a pub operator needs to become responsible for installing, dismantling and maintaining it.

At The Plough, Tentickle continues to provide a seasonal installation and maintenance service.

At the end of the winter season, our team dismantles the stretch tent and associated lighting, allowing the pub to enjoy its open-air seating during summer.

The customer stores the tent during the warmer months.

Where necessary, Tentickle also arranges cleaning before the structure is returned to service.

In autumn, our installation team returns to reinstall the stretch tent and festoon lighting, preparing the covered area for another winter trading season.

This arrangement gives The Plough the advantages of owning its bespoke structure while retaining access to professional installation and seasonal support.

For hospitality operators, this can be an attractive alternative to managing temporary structures themselves.

The Commercial Opportunity: More Usable Seating, Not Necessarily More Seats

The experience at The Plough highlights an important distinction.

A pub may already have 40, 60 or even 100 outdoor seats, but if those seats remain empty throughout much of autumn and winter, their commercial potential is limited.

A well-designed covered area can encourage customers to use those existing seats more frequently.

Consider a simple illustrative example:

A pub has 40 outdoor seats that are rarely used during colder months.

If a covered, heated area attracts just 20 additional customers per day, spending an average of £20 each, over four trading days per week, that represents:

£1,600 in potential additional weekly sales.

Across a 20-week autumn and winter period, that could represent £32,000 in additional gross sales.

These figures are illustrative rather than The Plough's actual trading results. They assume the customers and spending are genuinely additional, rather than transferred from indoor seating, and do not account for VAT, staffing, energy, installation or other operating costs.

Nevertheless, they demonstrate why improving the usability of existing outdoor seating can be commercially attractive.

For many hospitality venues, the question isn't simply how much a stretch tent costs.

It's how much additional trading opportunity the covered space could create.

Long-Term Hire or Purchase: Which Is Right for Your Pub?

The Plough's experience illustrates why both options can make commercial sense.

Long-Term Stretch Tent Hire

Seasonal hire allows pub operators to test the concept before making a larger financial commitment.

It can be particularly suitable for venues that want to assess customer demand, experiment with outdoor layouts or introduce winter covers without purchasing a structure.

Bespoke Stretch Tent Purchase

Once a venue has established that covered outdoor seating works for its business, purchasing a customised stretch tent may become the preferred long-term solution.

A bespoke structure can be designed around the site's dimensions, layout and operational requirements.

With seasonal installation, dismantling and maintenance services available from Tentickle, ownership doesn't have to mean taking on the practical work yourself.

More Than Just a Tent

A successful winter hospitality space involves more than providing a waterproof roof.

At Tentickle, we consider the complete installation, including:

Stretch tent design and site-specific installation
Commercial festoon lighting
Outdoor patio heaters
Seasonal installation and dismantling
Cleaning and maintenance where required
Long-term hire and purchase options

By combining these elements, pubs and restaurants can create outdoor spaces that customers actively want to use.

Suitable heating arrangements, ventilation, safe clearances and weather-related operating procedures must always be considered as part of the installation.

Could Your Pub Benefit from a Similar Solution?

The Plough's journey from a standard winter hire to a customised purchased stretch tent demonstrates the value of trying a practical solution before committing to a longer-term investment.

The pub didn't need to add more seating.

It needed to make better use of the seating it already had.

With the right combination of shelter, heating, lighting and professional installation, outdoor areas can become valuable hospitality spaces well beyond the traditional summer season.

At Tentickle Stretch Tents UK, we work with independent pubs, restaurants and national hospitality operators to develop practical solutions for outdoor trading areas.

Whether you're considering a seasonal hire, a bespoke purchased structure or simply exploring the possibilities for your venue, we'd be pleased to discuss your requirements.

Turn your outdoor space into a greater commercial opportunity.

Contact Tentickle Stretch Tents UK to arrange a site assessment or discuss your options.

www.tentickle-stretchtents.co.uk

pubs@tentickle-stretchtents.co.uk

From Empty Beer Garden to Winter Trading Space: The Plough, Shenstone