If you run a restaurant in Toronto, you already know the math. Your patio is your cheapest square footage — the seats out there often turn covers at two or three times the rate of the room inside. And yet every October, most patios in this city go dark while the guests are still willing to sit outside.
It doesn’t have to be that way. More and more Toronto restaurants, breweries, and hotel terraces are running their patios deep into fall — some straight through winter — with properly engineered infrared heating. Not the rattling mushroom heaters your servers wrestle with between tables. Real systems: mounted, wind-resistant, and designed to warm guests instead of the open air.
Here’s how commercial patio heating actually works, what it costs, and how to figure out what your space needs.
Why shoulder-season patios are where the money is
Toronto’s outdoor dining season isn’t really “May to September” anymore. Between CaféTO’s curb-lane patios, the city’s comfort with all-weather dining since 2020, and customers who genuinely prefer eating outside, the demand for patio seats stretches from April well into November — if the patio is warm.
The economics are straightforward. A heated patio doesn’t just add seats in July. It keeps your highest-revenue real estate producing through the two shoulder seasons that bookend summer — the weeks when every other restaurant on the block has packed it in. A patio that runs through late October while your competitors’ doesn’t is a patio that gets the reservation.
And in a climate like ours, heat is the only thing standing between you and that revenue. Shade covers summer. Heaters cover everything else.
Why mushroom heaters don’t cut it for a real patio
The propane mushroom heater is the default answer, and for most Toronto patios it’s the wrong one. Three reasons:
They heat air, not people. A mushroom heater warms the air around it, and that warm air immediately blows away. On a breezy October evening on King West or a rooftop in Yorkville, you’re paying to heat Lake Ontario’s breeze. Guests still wear their coats.
They cost more to run than people think. Between propane refills, the labour of shuffling heaters between tables, and units that fail after a season or two of commercial use, cheap heaters get expensive fast.
They look — and feel — temporary. A row of glowing mushroom cylinders says “we’re trying.” Guests notice. So does your Instagram traffic.
How infrared heating actually works
Infrared (radiant) heaters work like the sun: they send heat directly to people, tables, and surfaces instead of warming the air in between. That’s a physics cheat code for outdoor spaces, because you don’t have to fight the wind — the warmth arrives whether it’s breezy or not.
This is why Bromic Smart-Heat heaters have become the standard on serious commercial patios. They mount to walls, pergolas, or ceilings, put out directional radiant heat rated to cut through wind, and are built from commercial-grade stainless steel that survives Canadian winters instead of rusting out after two seasons.
For restaurants, the practical benefits are:
- Guests feel warmth within seconds of sitting down — no waiting for “the air to warm up”
- Heat goes where you point it: seat zones, bar rails, waiting areas
- No floor space consumed — nothing for servers to trip over or wheel around
- Instant on/off — no preheating, no wasted fuel between covers
Electric or gas: choosing for your space
At Canadian Shade we install two kinds of commercial infrared heaters, and the right choice depends mostly on your patio’s structure.
Electric infrared heaters are hardwired into your electrical and mount under any covered area — a pergola, an awning, a soffit, a ceiling. They’re silent, produce zero emissions (which matters for semi-enclosed spaces and rooftop bylaws), and cost pennies per hour to run. A 2,000W unit at Ontario commercial rates costs roughly 30 to 40 cents an hour to operate. If your patio has any overhead structure, electric is almost always the answer.
Gas infrared heaters run on natural gas or propane and put out serious directional heat — the 500-series units we install deliver 43,000 BTU/hr, enough for open, uncovered patios where an electrician’s wiring can’t reach. Portable gas units also give you flexibility to move heat where the night needs it.
Many restaurants end up with both: hardwired electric under the covered sections, gas for the open-air tables. Our team sizes and installs both, and we design the layout around your seating — not the other way around.
What a commercial patio heating system costs in the GTA
Every patio is different, but here’s honest ballparking so you can plan:
Individual Bromic heaters — electric or gas — generally run from the low four figures up to the low five figures per unit, depending on the series and mounting configuration. A typical restaurant installation — think four to six heaters covering a medium patio, plus mounting hardware, controls, and licensed electrical or gas work — usually lands in the $10,000 to $25,000 installed range.
If that number sounds big, run it against the patio: if heating adds even a dozen covers a night through a 10-week shoulder season at a modest average ticket, the system pays for itself in the first season or two — and then it’s simply profit every year after. Compare that to the annual cost of propane refills for mushroom heaters that need replacing every couple of years.
When you’re ready for real numbers, we do free on-site assessments across Toronto and the GTA.
Controls, safety, and the boring-but-important stuff
Commercial installations have a few requirements that a DIY approach tends to miss:
- Mounting height and clearances have to be engineered for the specific unit and surface — there’s a difference between “it’s attached” and “it’s installed to spec.”
- Electric units need a licensed electrician (and often a dedicated circuit); gas units need a licensed gas fitter.
- Controls matter more than you’d think. Zoning, timers, and dimming let you heat only the sections that are seated — which is the difference between a heating bill that makes sense and one that doesn’t.
- Insurance and bylaw compliance generally expect certified, professionally installed equipment on a commercial patio.
This is why we don’t drop-ship heaters and hope for the best. We size the system, handle the installation with licensed trades, and set up controls so your manager isn’t toggling six switches by hand every night.
Pairing heat with shade: the year-round patio
The best commercial patios treat heating as one half of a system. The same structures we install for shade — louvered pergolas, retractable awnings, glass and wind screens — are the mounting infrastructure for a heating system. A Bavona louvered pergola with integrated infrared heaters and screens is, functionally, an outdoor room you can run twelve months a year: shade and ventilation in July, radiant heat and wind protection in January.
If you’re planning a patio build or a refresh, design the shade and the heat together. Retrofitting is always possible, but planning them together costs less and looks better.
The bottom line
Toronto’s patio season is a choice now. The restaurants making the most of outdoor space are the ones with warm seats in October, and the ones guests remember in February when they’re booking winter events and spring patios.
If you’re weighing what a heated patio would take for your space — sizes, costs, gas vs. electric, what your building can support — contact Canadian Shade for a free consultation. We install Bromic commercial patio heating systems across Toronto, Mississauga, Oakville, Burlington, Hamilton and the GTA, and we’re happy to look at your patio and give you straight answers.
