Overlooking the white sand beaches and emerald waters of southern Alabama, just a mile west of the Florida border, COASTAL Orange Beach is an expansive outdoor dining venue designed to accommodate up to 1,200 guests at a time.
“On average, during season, we see somewhere between 4,000 and 7,000 covers a day in an a la carte setting,“ says Christopher Dickens, Corporate Executive Chef with hospitality management firm Island Entertainment. “We had to think, how are we going to pull this off? It's a monumental task.“
Nate McGinnis, assistant general manager at COASTAL, says, “When you’re in a concept that’s this massive, and this big, that’s a huge load on a kitchen that most places don’t get to see.“
McGinnis joined the original team at COASTAL in 2022, ahead of the restaurant’s January 2023 opening. “I have to admit, I had never heard of RATIONAL before,“ he says, but a visit to the Atlanta test kitchens – and a firsthand look at the iCombi and iVario – quickly won him over.



