Summer is the best time for outdoor dining. Pull up your seat under a shady umbrella or soak up the sun directly if that is more your style. Here is a list of our favorite restaurant patios for al fresco dining.
Sidewalk Dining
These urban restaurants provide the perfect seats for watching the world go by as you get a comfortable dose of vitamin D. Feel the buzz of the street, people watch and sip your craft beverage.
Pouring beer at The Bier Stein
The Bier Stein
A convivial meeting place in Eugene's midtown, The Bier Stein offers outside sidewalk seating. Enjoy favorites such as their "Bier Cheese" soup, Bavarian soft pretzel and their "Chicken & Doughnuts". Tables are available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Stock up on beer to go from their extensive international and local selections from the indoor bottleshop.
More private than sidewalk dining, these outside dining spaces are often gardens set back off the street, quiet corners out back behind the restaurant, or comfortable interiors open to the sky. Enjoy the separation from the street and the action to instead focus your attention on the cheerful hum of the courtyard or the quiet peace of the shady patio.
beergarden.
This family-friendly, tented beer garden is flanked by four food trucks: Bounty Meat & Cheese, Lani Moku, Moi Poki and Once Famous Grill and Coffeegarden. Along with beergarden's 42 taps and hundreds of bottled beer, order off all the menus through a contactless system (no cash). Seating is based on first-come, first-serve. Please be prepared to wait on evenings and weekends.
Prime outdoor dining with seating overlooking the Willamette River, these restaurants offer an embrace of nature as well as the comfort of dining out. Watch cyclists whiz by on the riverbank path at McMenamins North Bank or observe kayakers and anglers in the water from Roaring Rapids Pizza Company. Please note that the popular riverfront at Sweetwaters at Valley River Inn is currently closed due to hotel renovation (2023).
Dine above it all, under the stars at one of these rooftop restaurants. Overlook downtown Eugene from Carlita's Rooftop Bar balcony in The Gordon Hotel. Exclusive to 21 years and older, enjoy margaritas and housemade chips and salsa in the evening twilight.
The Sky Bar at Hyatt Place in Oakway Center offers a posh outdoor setting. Sparkling with twinkle lights and glowing with the gas grills, Sky Bar offers a sophisticated outdoor lounge experience.
Taj Barnhart Morgan is the Director of Content Strategy for Travel Lane County. A journalism graduate from the University of Oregon, Taj has two decades of special event management and hospitality marketing experience in San Diego, CA and Maui, HI. Passionate about mothering, and back to her Oregon roots, she is discovering the Eugene, Cascades & Coast region all over again through the eyes of her daughter.
