Spaces
Durable Umbrellas for Cafes
Afro Joes, on the Southside of Chicago, is a community hub where residents come to enjoy coffee, tea and atmosphere. Like any cafe patio, Afro Joes had a requirement for durable umbrellas that can withstand the rigors of everyday use.
“We're located on the south side of Chicago in the Beverly neighborhood. It's really family oriented. You have a lot of young families. So everybody is kind of in the same stage of life raising kids, working. You know, just trying to get through the day, every day. So it's a really cool area. We love the area so much that we actually moved. We bought a house in the area about a year ago.”
Create Spaces to Bring People Together
Afro Joes is a community space as much as it is a cafe, by creating a location where people can come and enjoy the space and feel a sense of pride in their community, the team at Afro Joes is a step above.
"We have a free book library that when kids come in, they can grab a free, brand new book free of charge. We do live music every Saturday to support our “Supporting Living Artists” initiative. If you look at the Art on the wall, that's an up and coming Chicago artist. Every 60 days, we support new up and coming artists."
Designing outdoor patios at cafes is an important aspect of successful outdoor spaces. The outdoor patio at cafes is always the first space to fill up. Using shade to transform spaces is key. Consider the style of furniture you already have or would like to have, and setup zones where customers can choose their preference.
“So with our patio area, it's nice and big. We've got different seating's from the high-boys to the couches to the dining tables. The one thing, though, is it's always when as soon as the sun is out it's like, blast the patio. So if you don't have any shade, cover, it's basically useless. So, that's why the umbrellas were so critical for us because it's so sunny on the patio. And people can really enjoy the patio with umbrellas in the summer.”
Easy to Use Durable Umbrellas
Cafes as community centres are a great way to bring people together to spend time and be comfortable. The Shadowspec Oasis™ Commercial Market Umbrella is the perfect umbrella for durability and style. Designed by our in-house team and tested for all day, everyday use. There’s often a tendency to look for the quick, cheap option but those umbrellas are a disposable purchase you need to make each year, they break down, fade and break with consistency.
"To give you a background on our umbrella history. Every season, we've had to buy new umbrellas just because, what we found is that the umbrellas that we purchased in the past didn't have the durability. The colors would fade. The wind would blow them over. They would break. They were hard to put up and down."
Shadowspec Oasis™ Commercial Marketing Umbrella
The redesigned opening system for the Shadowspec Oasis is perfect for hospitality, cafes and restaurants need to find as many time savings as possible and by creating an umbrella that can open without the rope, with a nice easy up and down push not too dissimilar from a rain umbrella. By speeding up the deployment and retraction of the umbrellas, staff can be redeployed to look after customers and drive retention.
"The structure of the frame is really, I think, the key to success, because they're really easy to lift up and down. They're really light. But they're really strong. We haven't had any incidents of umbrellas blowing over this summer. So this was the first time that that's ever happened. It's a fantastic product. Literally, it takes about five seconds per umbrella. Like, it's literally just pushing it up. It snaps into place. So, you know, it's all the way up. And then when you go to release it, at the end of the day, you just hit the button and it kind of drops down. We strap it, close and we're done for the day. So it's, from a functionality and efficiency standpoint, it's great."
Transform Outdoor Spaces with Umbrellas
The Shadowspec just added an entire new dimension to Afro Joe's coffee and Tea. By providing shade for our guests when they come in. It's kind of like a dream come true for us because they're really easy to handle, put up and put down. The color that we had, since the beginning of the summer. And the color stayed vibrant. So we'll be able to reuse them again.
Umbrellas transform spaces, they look great and shade customers from the sun. When it’s hot out, that’s when umbrellas come into their own. By creating shade that looks after customers whilst also looking stunning. The choice of an orange canopy to match the brand is a great choice and one that is perfect for umbrellas.
"Tons of our customers ask like, hey, where did you get these from? Because they see how easy they are to put up and put down. You can see from the frame, when you look at it, that it's different from your typical umbrella, just how it's built with the aluminum frame. It's really lightweight. And then, of course, the shade, this summer, it was like 90 degrees every day in Chicago. So people were still able to enjoy themselves outside because they were protected from the sun with umbrellas."
Don't take our word for it.
Creating outdoor spaces that are inviting, comfortable and useful is the key to a successful hospitality business. You can keep people coming back or, you can encourage them to stay longer and spend their time with you.
If you’ve got a space that need shade and style - our team is here to help - but don’t take our word for it, take Afro Joes:
"I would say to other coffee shop owners or other cafe owners, don't waste your time. Just get a shadow speck. They're just really durable. They're really efficient. You're going to use them for more than one season. They stand up to the weather, to the wind. It's just kind of set it and forget it. You don't have to worry about anything."
