Outdoor dining guide: 10 Sacramento-area restaurants with great patios and good food

Outdoor dining became a lifeline for cash-strapped restaurants and pent-up customers this summer. From a sea of expansions and road blockades, a few setups stand out.

These 10 Sacramento-area restaurants have developed or maintained hideaways from the outside world, transporting diners to lush groves and old-timey downtowns. One shows off a new capstone development along the Sacramento River, while another brings Palm Springs-style relaxation to a Fair Oaks shopping center.

They also all meet basic COVID-19 safety requirements such as well-distanced tables and appropriately masked staff. Many also go above and beyond with features like hands-free doors, QR code menus and time limits per table that simultaneously cap potential duration of exposure and help achieve higher customer volumes.

Several of these restaurants have since reopened for indoor dining at 25% capacity as well. I don’t feel comfortable eating indoors because of possible health risks to me, my family and restaurant employees. It’s also worth noting that Bee dining critic Kate Washington, a frequent collaborator on these kinds of lists, isn’t currently doing sit-down outdoor dining for the same reasons.

If you choose to dine out, follow these guidelines:

▪ WEAR. A. MASK. Wear it when you walk in the restaurant, wear it while you’re ordering, wear it while you’re walking to the bathroom, wear it when you’re paying. Wear it anytime you’re not actively eating or drinking. Wear it over your nostrils and wear it down to your chin. Masks significantly reduce asymptomatic coronavirus transmission, and all front-of-house employees should be wearing one to avoid passing the coronavirus to customers. Returning the courtesy is the humanitarian minimum.

▪ Tip well and cut slack. In the before times, an 18-20% tip was a good way to show appreciation for the hosts, servers, bartenders and even sometimes cooks hustling to put together your dining experience. Those jobs now come with extra safety requirements and the omnipresent risk of contracting COVID-19 through repeated exposure to customers (particularly those who don’t follow the advice above). Try to be understanding if these essential workers forget an order detail, and show your appreciation when the bill comes.

▪ Think with your head, not with your stomach. Though state reopening guidelines require restaurants to space tables at least 6 feet apart and mask all front-of-house employee, there are no routine inspections and enforcement only begins after several complaints and subsequent warnings. If customers seem bunched together, the server’s pearly whites are in view or anything else seems amiss, don’t hesitate to make the order to-go — or patronize a safer local restaurant.

Back Bistro

230 Palladio Pkwy., Folsom

A local-sourcing New American restaurant in the Palladio shopping center, Back Bistro doubled its seating by moving into the neighboring movie theater’s courtyard. With giant stone fire pits for the winter and misters for the summer, though, the bistro’s original wood-walled patio is still the preferred place for a date night or one-person business lunch, as a woman running a Zoom meeting two tables over proved on my visit. Goat cheese fritters topped with an herb aioli ($9) are essentially bite-sized mozzarella sticks that went to private school (or at least a farmers market). The simply dressed lamb burger ($17) benefits from its thick-cut, oven-roasted tomatoes, and strong beverage list remains true to the restaurant’s roots as the 875-square foot Back Wine Bar, which operated from 2008 to 2018 before the Backs expanded to the Palladio.

Mayahuel

1200 K St., Sacramento

Only in 2020 will your table jut up against a sign directing walkers to two theaters and a convention center — all of which happen to be closed. The downtown Mexican restaurant’s maintained hints of formality despite doubling its outdoor space and adding a jungle of potted trees to an already verdant patio. A creamy poblano purée ($6.75 for a half bowl or $10.25 for a whole) remains one of the best soups in Sacramento, and a 32-ingredient mole ($19.25) leaves a slow burn simmering on the back of the throat long after the initial richness has been swallowed. Bonus points for complementary mini tostadas, a vegan menu and a partnership with High Road Kitchens that provides 500 free dine-in meals for workers in other restaurants.

Shangri-la

7960 Winding Way, Fair Oaks

“It’s our little slice of paradise!” the hostess exclaimed as we walked through Shangri-la’s gates. Indeed, owner and Fair Oaks native Sommer Peterson’s succeed in bringing this former mortuary back to life with copius palm trees, plastic flamingos and a currently out-of-commission bocce court that all call to mind the comforts of a resort. “Elevated comfort” describes the food as well, as familiar dishes get a slight spin such as $12 caprese salad with deep-fried mozzarella balls or a $17 burger topped with Pliny the Elder beer cheese. All cocktails — even the boozy slushies — include some sort of fruit or plant, with the purple-topped $11 Incan Hunny (pisco, lavender honey and fresh lemon) a particular standout.

Read more: Restaurant review: Shangri-la brings elevated fare to longstanding suburb

Fabian’s Italian Bistro

11755 Fair Oaks Blvd, Fair Oaks

There’s a reason Fabian’s expanded patio is reservation-only. Lounging in wicker armchairs under umbrellas and olive trees, it’s hard to believe Almond Orchard shopping center’s parking lot is on the other side of the 6-foot-tall wood fence. Customers skew slightly older and executive chef Tom Patterson’s menu is a bit of a throwback as well, albeit with concessions like the obligatory fried chicken sandwich ($13, but make it Nashville-style for $2 more). Pastas are available in small or large portions during lunch, allowing customers to build create-your-own sampler platters of rigatoni bolognese ($14 for small, $21 for large), smoked bacon and garlic spaghetti ($14/21) and linguine scampi ($18/$27).

Boiling Avenue

943 Howe Ave., Sacramento

Six tables in a parking lot off a busy Arden Arcade intersection doesn’t sound like much. With overturned pallets, Edison bulb string lights and a garden of faux plants, though, new owner Lily Zhou’s budget-friendly renovation succeeds in shielding customers from concrete outside. Diners can instead focus on Boiling Avenue’s menu of pan-Asian, one-person hot pot such as the sesame tonkatsu (pork belly, mussels, imitation crab, rice and yam cakes, fish balls and quail eggs) or Szechuan spicy (Spam, beef, clams, meatballs, tempura, tofu, taro and pumpkin), both $16.99. Homey rice bowls, mason jars of bubble tea and a steady playlist of late 90s/early 2000s pop hits round out a flavorful, unpretentious dining experience.

Drake’s: The Barn

985 Riverfront St., West Sacramento

Social distancing is easy with 8,000 square feet of outdoor space along the Sacramento River. Even so, The Barn’s done a commendable job of eliminating contact with online-only payment, plexiglass barriers, compostable dishware and more. Beer is clearly the priority here, with more than 30 house brews on tap, but some of the pizzeria’s offerings stack up as well. The Farm pizza ($16) features squash, pickled bell peppers and jalapenos and cilantro from Yolo County’s Center for Land-Based Learning, and additional red pepper flakes cut through the Elote Pizza’s ($17) richness to provide some needed kick. If not dining with polite company, the chunky garlic dip is well worth the extra $2.

Paragary’s

1401 28th St., Sacramento

Does Paragary Restaurant Group have a crystal ball? Randy and Stacy Paragary and Kurt Spataro spent more than $1 million on renovations while closing their flagship bistro for 15 months from 2014-15. The patio was elevated from very good to arguably Sacramento’s best as a result, an investment that has proved invaluable this year. A clearly visible silverware sanitation station takes nothing away from the manmade waterfalls and floor-to-canvas-roof greenery, nor a delicious Middle Eastern-inspired harissa grilled chicken with figs, saffron couscous and punctuating bites of almond ($28). Beef and burrata found their way onto much of chef de cuisine David Feldman’s menu, including oversized ravioli filled with juicy short rib and topped with a creamy dollop ($26). A crunchy yet moist polenta cake with strawberries and ricotta whipped cream ($10.50) provided a summer-y exclamation point as dessert.

Read more: You Gotta Try This: Paragary’s mushroom salad remains a classic 36 years later

Beast + Bounty

1701 R St., Sacramento

Like the restaurant version of ditching dress pants for joggers, Beast + Bounty adapted to the closure of its highly Instagrammable dining room by going simple. Handcrafted, unfinished wood tables and chairs now fill 17th Street, all dishware and utensils are compostable and customers place orders (which now include a 15% gratuity described by the bartender as “our COVID tax”) at a shack on the south end. Dinner and weekend brunch menus are slightly more casual as well, and still manage to highlight the region’s meat and produce. A none-too-sweet chia bowl ($13) with almond butter, peaches and granola feels like legitimate health food. Mushroom-avocado tacos ($18) come slathered in surprisingly complex achiote sauce. And the benedict pizza ($21) topped with bacon, potatoes, eggs and hollandaise … it’s ideal hangover food.

Buckhorn Steakhouse

2 E. Main St., Winters

“At the Horn, we tell corona to buck off,” read the t-shirts and koozies in the window at Winters’ preeminent restaurant. While the virus has hamstrung Buckhorn’s catering and dining room operations, it’s also allowed the 40-year-old steakhouse to take over the Yolo County farm town’s Main Street with well-distanced picnic tables and strings of Tibetan prayer flags overhead. Customers can bring over bottles from two neighboring wineries, and our table got a kick out of the bats flying out of a crack in sister restaurant Putah Creek Cafe at sundown. The menu is mostly meat, and while most steaks have been replaced by more casual options such as tri-tip tot-chos ($11) and Kansas City-style ribs ($14 for four), butcher Joe Bristow’s expertise is still obvious. As my dining companion exclaimed upon his first bite of the house burger ($16), “man, they really know how to do beef.”

Read more: Buckhorn’s beef has set regional standard for decades

The Jungle Bird

2516 J St., Sacramento

The Jungle Bird’s back lot might be unrecognizable were it not for the parking curbs poking out from under the Astroturf. Painted picnic tables, nautical paraphernalia, and bamboo-wrapped everything have helped transform the last 800 square feet of this midtown tiki bar’s property. Fruity drinks are still served in gaudy glasses and dishes are still inspired by a variety of archipelagos, with one highlight being sticky, spicy Filipino barbecued chicken skewers called inihaw na manok ($6). If you like Costco hot dogs but wish they came with a million more Hawaiian-ish toppings, the Mahina Doggy ($9) has the same taste plus bacon, mango relish, slaw, jalapenos, pickled onion, wasabi and sriracha aioli.

This story was originally published October 12, 2020 at 9:13 AM.