Tasting the great outdoors – Fabric Architecture Magazine

Across the country, the coronavirus pandemic has forced many food service businesses to offer outdoor dining, and sometimes that means reimagining how to use their parking lots. The city of San Marcos, Calif., revamped its outdoor dining permit process for restaurants to offer outdoor dining. Rip Current Brewing was one of those businesses that quickly pivoted and set up an outside tasting room in the parking area. For shading and social distancing accommodations, Rip Current turned to Shazeebo, a neighboring business to transform its business.

Shazeebo, a full-service fabricator of shades and canopies, suggested a shade sail to make the outdoor tasting room appealing while providing relief from the sun. However, “the building owner would not allow the normal concrete footings to be installed,” says Robin DuBroy, Shazeebo director of design and installations. The client was worried about permanent damage to the parking surface, so Shazeebo’s solution was to use 250-gallon water tanks to provide the ballast required for the shade masts without any impact to the parking lot. “We set up a test sail in our parking lot first and made a few tweaks to the design.”

The navy blue shade sail was set up within a few weeks of the commission, and Rip Current Brewing customers returned to enjoying one of San Diego County’s best craft brews, despite a view of gray parking macadam.

Shazeebo used Commercial 95® from GALE Pacific shade cloth with standard stainless steel hardware. The four masts are made from doubled-up four-by-fours braced to wooden pallets anchored by the 250-gallon tanks. Lighting is attached to the shade sail perimeter using stainless steel tie wire, and cable fencing meets the barrier requirement of the site permit.