First Impressions: Farm to Table Restaurant and Cordwood Covers

An excellent local restaurant in town that specializes in farm to table cuisine uses a wood fired oven so they have a need to store split firewood for easy access.   In this case, the woodpile was placed adjacent to a door that accessed the kitchen.    It so happens the area that the woodpile was placed was next to the parking lot where customers parked.    After parking, the customer would walk past the woodpile on the way to the front door of the restaurant.    The restaurant burned approximately a cord a wood per week.  As a result, there was a lot of turn over of wood and efforts to keep the pile from being unsightly proved difficult.   Below is a picture of a typical pile after being "cleaned up".  Most of the time, it looked worse then this.

As you can see, the pile was unsightly and didn't match the image and experience the restaurant worked hard to achieve.     Also notice the wood skids below the pile that were used to elevate the wood off of the pavement.   There was also no good way to fasten the tarps to the woodpile so a gust of wind would blow the tarp off the woodpile and expose the firewood to rain and snow.  

In an effort to "clean up" the unsightly pile, a holz hausen was constructed with the help of a Cordwood Cover kit.  The woodpile that resulted contained approximately 2.2 cords of firewood.    It was placed close to the access to the kitchen reducing the amount of walking to the pile when gathering firewood for the day.   Firewood could be quickly accessed using the buckle straps and refastened to secure the cover in place against the wind.  

Customers now walked past a woodpile that aligned with the image and decor of the restaurant.  Their first impression of the restaurant was no longer an unsightly pile of wood with a ugly tarp strewn over a half stacked pile of wood.   t was a wood pile that both the employees and the owner could be proud us.    First impressions matter!