One of the city’s top Italian restaurants for its heaping bowls of silky noodles and crispy polenta dishes, Gabagool offers takeout and outdoor dining out on its patio. Diners have a few options: There’s the covered patio area with bench seating and free-standing tables, and there’s a few free-standing tables out on the sidewalk with umbrellas. When the weather is gets really bad, it’s best to go for the covered patio, but on more temperate days there are plenty of choices.

Chef Johnny Nunn has moved his cozy French restaurant up the street to his more casual cafe space, Daisy. On the covered, paved patio diners can find the same high quality three-course meals (and à la carte options), plus wine, beer, and cocktails. A cover keeps the rain off and heaters keep things warm for diners during happy hour, when they can find $1 oysters and discounted wine.

The fabulous Thai barbecue restaurant Eem has gone through a number of pivots during the pandemic, offering everything from family meals for takeout to delivering cocktails. For limited onsite dining, it offers a number of booths made of wood and corrugate plastic for individual groups. Each has individual fire pits, allowing groups to stay warm while enjoying items like the brisket burnt ends in white curry and wild and flowery cocktails.

Combining Thai flavors with others from around the globe — like duck ravioli in red curry sauce, green papaya salad, and panko and quinoa crusted King salmon with cilantro — Pat Jeung’s Chameleon has been an oft-overlooked mainstay of the Hollywood area for decades. Its back patio is a lush garden filled with outdoor seating, and now a new rooftop cover and heaters so that diners can sample Jeung’s global cuisine all year-round. 

Gado Gado was quick to set up outside dining on its parking lot in Hollywood after COVID-19 struck, and even after facing numerous crises including break-ins and snow storms, it’s still going strong. Plant-filled, covered, and heated with standing heat lanterns, it’s a lovely and cozy place to dine on the restaurant’s signature Indonesian and Chinese curries, dumplings, and salads.

A Mexican cafe by day and a tasting menu spot by night, República is easily one of the most exciting new restaurants in Portland. When dining on earthy quesadilla oaxaquena with salsa macha or enfrijolada with uni, it’s best to sit on the cafe’s gorgeous outdoor patio, positioned between the brick facade of the building and the lush plants that serve as a barrier between the dining area and the parking lot. It’s fully covered in winter, with heaters, so combined with a mezcal cocktail, winter will feel a world away.

One of the few dedicated deep-dish pizzerias in town, the sprawling Star in the Pearl has a spacious but cozy patio out front. A number of tables —including some standing room cocktail tables — are warmed by numerous heat lamps, while a roof keeps the rain out. It’s best enjoyed with a hot and cheesy deep dish pizza and a glass or two of red wine to ward off autumn’s chills.

Part of the appeal of this long-celebrated steakhouse is its moody, old-school interiors, with its table-side lamps and fireplaces. But as a pandemic necessity, Ringside decided to design its own outdoor dining space, and it’s a beauty. Tables draped in the same white tablecloths as the inside fill the secluded, tree-lined space, covered and accompanied by heat lamps. The restaurant takes reservations for dinners of dry-aged steaks and James Beard’s favorite onion rings.

Lyf Gildersleeve’s sustainable fish market and restaurant Flying Fish Co. has built a charming little patio where diners can enjoy the seafood and wine of the market in relative comfort. Short, bright-toned hardwood walls, blue umbrellas, and bamboo offer protection from the rain, while heaters keep things warm.

Bretonic seafood restaurant Normandie has accepted vaccinated diners inside for a while now, but those who still feel more safe dining al fresco will be comfortable on the erected wooden sidewalk patio. It’s now fully enclosed, save for one side, and decorated with assorted plants. Tables are heated by individual gas heaters, so even when the skies are gray and full of rain, it’s still a pleasant environment to enjoy some savory cocktails and charred octopus or gochujang pork lettuce wraps.

At the Belmont location of Earl Ninsom and Alan Akwai’s Southern Thai fried chicken restaurant, diners can order the crispy, shallot dusted chicken, buttery roti, and rich curry sauce to enjoy out on the well-lit wooden patio. Corrugated steel protects customers from the rain while gas lanterns keep them warm. There are also assorted tables under the overhanging roof, for those who want a bit more of an open space. 

SE Division cocktail bar and restaurant Double Dragon has always had a nice patio. However, during the pandemic the team has poured time, money, and effort into bolstering the sprawling sidewalk patio, adding roofs, low fences, heat lamps, and umbrellas for shade. Order a couple of the bar’s tropical cocktails and a thick pork belly or tofu sandwich, and pretend like it’s summer.

From the team behind Gado Gado, Oma’s Hideaway has taken over the spot previously home to the Whiskey Soda Lounge. For a while it operated as takeout only with a different concept, but it has reopened its spacious back patio for dining, arrayed with umbrella-shaded tables and heaters; toward the front, diners can sit in partitioned outdoor dining “booths” along the perimeter of the restaurant, festooned by brilliantly patterned tablecloths. In either space, diners can feast on the Malaysian and Chinese cooking, as well as an exceptional cheeseburger served with crinkle fries.

One branch of the Sesame Collective restaurant group, Multnomah Village’s Yalla features a menu of Mediterranean dishes like meze platters, pastrami, kebabs, and a pretty excellent fried chicken with harissa honey and pickled cauliflower. Opening in the summer of 2020 meant patio seating was essentially required, so the team went all out. In front, diners can find individual picnic pods, covered and partially walled, complete with cherry-red bussing trays. In back, a covered wooden deck with heat lamps and white metal seating provides for small groups. 

A new food hall in nearby Happy Valley, Valley Public House offers thick square slabs of Ranch pizza and enchiladas and moles from Tamale Boy. The bar keeps a slate of beverages on tap, from beers to cocktails to kombuchas, with two outdoor patios — one family-friendly and another 21+ — sporting stone fireplaces and cushioned chairs. Order takeout food from any of the businesses, grab a few drinks, and nab one of the outdoor seats for dinner or weekend brunch.