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 hot, it’s best to go for the covered patio, but on more temperate days there are plenty of choices.

Sharing a space with Oakshire Beer Hall, Biba serves everything from weekend oxtail soup to crispy lumpia to eat on the shared space’s large outdoor tented area. Plenty of Biba’s classic dishes, endemic to the Mariana Islands, are well-suited to summer dining, including the barbecue chicken fiesta plate and the kelaguen chicken, served spicy and cold; however, those looking for something else can also bring food from nearby Italian cart Sorbu or pizzeria Pizza Jerk under the tent.

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 shades 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 plenty of ventilation, allowing groups to feel safe while enjoying items like the brisket burnt ends in white curry and wild and flowery cocktails.

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 and covered but with plenty of open air, 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. But when dining on compressed watermelon aguachile or earthy quesadilla oaxaquena with salsa macha, 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 partially covered but still absorbs sun on hot days, easily enjoyed with a glass of Bichi pet nat or a mezcal cocktail.

At the moment, Portland’s beloved Peruvian restaurant Andina is closed. However, its more casual, street-food focused concept Chicha has opened outdoors on tiered, covered patio seating along the bustling, pedestrian-friendly 13th street in the Pearl. There, diners can crush pisco sours or limonadas along with soft-shell crab sandwiches, various anticuchos (meat skewers), empanadas, and rice bowls.

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. Glass tables sit on patterned rugs in a secluded, tree-lined space, covered and accompanied by heat lamps on cold nights. 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 shade from the sun while not obstructing air flow at all.

The famous Vietnamese restaurant Luc Lac used to be all about the late-night crowd, catering to off-work industry employees and post-bar crawl refueling with herb-laden noodle bowls and steaming bowls of aromatic pho. Its location downtown it was never much of a patio spot, but these days it has a stylish seating area with umbrella-shaded tables and a fenced deck. And while it’s not open until the wee-hours of the morning anymore, it is open until 10 p.m. each day for outdoor dining.

After more than a year closed, the eccentric cafe and hookah bar the Pied Cow is back, and with it one of Portland’s most treasured patios. While the (reportedly haunted) Victorian building is closed, its gravelly, tree-lined lawn and covered patio are open, with orders placed at the window. On assorted plastic chairs at wooden tables, Portlanders young and old gather for hookahs, coffee drinks, hummus platters, pie, carafes of wine, and the famous brownie boat. When people lament the loss of “Old Portland,” they can head to the Pied Cow for placation. 

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; 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.

Those looking to satisfy their cravings for European Alpine food can find sausages, fondue, and schnitzel at the patio at Olympia Provisions Public House. The famed local charcuterie and sausage shop has vastly expanded its patio seating, adding covered areas and more umbrella-clad picnic tables on which to enjoy the array of beers and sausages.

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.