Great places for patio dining

With springtime weather comes the desire for outdoor dining. Each week, 225 Dine will suggest some local restaurants with top-notch patios and courtyards, such as La Carretta, The Chimes East and Juban’s.

La Carretta – This Government Street eatery reopened its doors recently after renovating the interior and constructing a patio area in the back. Happy hour includes $5 top-shelf margaritas and $1.75 Dorada import beer. You may even run into local celebrities such as state Rep. Michael Jackson dining on the shiny new patio with friends. If you swing by April 10, you can hang out with the Honeybees as the New Orleans Hornets plays Dallas on the flat-screen TVs. Salud! (Photo by Rebecca Breeden)

The Chimes East – If those of you in the suburbs wait long enough for a landmark restaurant to open in your area, chances are it will. That’s what The Chimes did for suburbanites on the eastern side of the city—and better than the original LSU location is The Chimes East’s outdoor patio. Enjoy oysters on the half shell and endless import beers on tap. (Photo by David Gallent)

Juban’s – The New Orleans-style courtyard atrium at Juban’s is known as the “gathering spot” for social butterflies with a taste for Creole and a Sazerac. Like 225 wrote in 2006 when Juban’s was voted Best Overall Restaurant, “It’s like Cheers, but Cliff and Norm are wearing Armani suits and discussing stock options.” (File photo)

One of the best views of the city is—you guessed it—the Shaw Center rooftop at Tsunami. With the gorgeous “sky painting” embracing the Mighty Mississippi, Tsunami is 225 Dine’s patio dining choice this week. And it may help to know the new happy hour is no longer limited to Tuesdays. The great spring weather has inspired generosity from owner Leah Simon, who now offers 25% off selected sushi rolls and half off domestic beer, well drinks and house wines. Every day from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. (Photo by David Gallent)

Perkins Rowe makes an art out of patio dining, and now the lifestyle center just raised the bar on patio dining with its “Grand Afternoons” on Sundays through the end of May from 12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Enjoy live music, artists and entertainment from a great patio seat of one of several restaurants, such as California Pizza Kitchen, The Grape or Texas de Brazil.

One of the more casual outdoor dining spots downtown, Capital City Grill is the kind of place you can truly sit down and people watch, as kids run screaming through the fountains, ladies all dolled up strolling to the doors of the Shaw Center and the city’s forgotten citizens roaming around the downtown playground. Weekdays from 3 to 7 p.m., just about every house drink (wine, beer, liquor) behind the bar is two for one. Add a hand-patted Kobe burger or chunky crabcakes, and you’ve got a patio dining experience that gives you plenty to put in your journal. (Photo by Rebecca Breeden)