You lounge here on couches or church pews or chairs the color of a smiley face. But no words quite describe Le Clos, the cave’s adjacent patio room, an outdoor-indoor space which is carpeted, hilariously, in Astroturf, floor to bar. Les Caves, Portland's splendid underground wine cave, feels like a bohemian rock club. The new lunch menu has its own fun, including an only-in-Portland red curried sloppy joe on a streamed bao shaped like a hot dog bun. Nightly dinners take inspiration from Bangkok’s energy and Phuket’s seafood, peanut brittle-topped ceviche to whole fresh pompano bundled in lettuce wrappers with peanuts, limes, and chiles. The drink of the moment is called Resting Clown Face, a punchy play on a whiskey sour shaken with rye, allspice, amaro, lemons, and, for good measure, coconut caramel. Steps away, a string of window counter seats peek into the restaurant’s bustling inside bar. It shows what streetside eating can look like – architectural, with mood lighting and colorful personality. You can’t miss it: the bold red and pink trim, the big open windows, the compact pistachio-colored booths.

On an ordinary street, in a natty, residential Northwest hood, Phuket Café has boldly reimagined the dining car on a Thai train, outdoors.

It even has its own bartender to shake up house cocktails and inventive slushies, with booze or without, one boasting a lime leaf-sumac-chile salt rim. The backyard bar, open only for dinner, adds to the party vibe, gleaming with rhinestone tile. (Just saying the words “Filet-O- Fishball” out loud can make you grin). The Filet-O-Fishball sandwich is a Singaporean spin on McDonald’s and pretty genius at that. Lunch adds its own excitements, including a char siu pork sandwich layered with kaya jam and a hash brown patty. Eclectic? This is where sticky fried ribs soaked in fish sauce caramel shares space with holy crow char sui pork, longan fruit chimichurri, one of the city’s best burgers, and landmark salted egg yolk curry fries. More tables abound on a deck out back, along with rugs and twinkling lights, as vintage psychedelic tunes bump all around. Outdoor tables, spread with vibrant, floral-patterned oil cloths, line the sidewalk at this jolly restaurant, with spirited Malaysian-Chinese-ish food to match.

But a wave of outdoor dining auteurs are rethinking food and mood, the Portland way-full of personal touches, unconventional food, and fun. Some are bare-bones operations built by the Dude School of Architecture. Outdoor tables, once a special find, are now a way of life, year-round. Who has an outdoor table? For years, the question seemed down-right Biblical every summer, as sun-deprived Portlanders hunted for open-air tables like Indiana Jones tracking down the Holy Grail.

Vibe health bar