People have been eating indoors since before there were doors.
But it wasn’t until people started growing their food, rather than chasing it down or looking for it in the wild, that they started building homes with actual doors inside which they regularly ate. It was more comfortable, safer and, well, civilized.
But the urge to eat outdoors never entirely went away. Perhaps that’s because being civilized wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. So middle class people — tired of the formality of dining rooms — started to each outdoors again.
Bear Creek Winery offers an abundance of green space where patrons can enjoy some fresh air.
Contributed / Eric Daeuber
Leave it to the Italians to give it a name. Al fresco. It means “in the fresh air.” My Italian friends tell me that term isn’t used much in Italy anymore where it has come to be slang for “spending time in jail”, either as a play on words for the English “cool your heals” or just for the irony. Anyway, they still eat outdoors a lot in Italy, and we still us the term “al fresco” here.
When I first moved to the Fargo-Moorhead area almost 40 years ago, there wasn’t much available in the way of outdoor dining. It’s hard to know why, exactly. In some parts of the world it has long been a staple of social life. I imagine it has something to do with the short summers here and the possibility that winter could show up before you got to dessert.
The Moorhead Dairy Queen offers no indoor dining and is an icon of summer in the area.
Contributed / Eric Daeuber
I do remember the Dairy Queen in Moorhead where there wasn’t, and still isn’t, indoor dining. But today, the Moorhead Dairy Queen is an icon of summer life and home to tables with umbrellas, often full and always host to as complete a cross section of middle America as you‘ll find anywhere in the country.
Because the one thing you can say about the outdoors is that it’s full of a lot of people who are, in many ways, wildly different from each other. For that reason alone, it might be a good idea to eat there. Sharing space is something we’ve not been good at lately.
After grabbing a taco at Soul Taco, enjoy the green space at Broadway Square.
Contributed / Eric Daeuber
Today, most every block downtown, and great many restaurants all over the metro, include some sort of patio or at least a few tables on the street. It’s been suggested that some of this might have come from the pandemic where it was, contrary to a few thousand years ago, safer. Now it’s just pleasant.
For Euopean-style garden patios, it’s hard to beat the space in front of the Cork and Cleaver. And it’s hard to beat the appetizer menu. Traditional spinach dip and a trio of prime rib sliders goes well with a wheat beer or a glass of something white and light.
At the far end of the cozy spectrum, you’ll find the park-like setting of Bear Creek Winery in south Fargo. Pick up a glass of wine indoors and take it out to a table or just the lawn. The food offering changes depending on the special event posted on their website.
Local bars and grills have always been at the forefront of outdoor entertainment. And, while we haven’t quite made it as far as the British pub, where a patio is half office space and half living room, outdoor patios at local bars in the area have become a good deal larger, more open and more welcoming to friends and dogs alike. Legends in south Moorhead sits right on a makeshift lake and shares the view with families of Canada geese.
And if there aren’t enough tables downtown, or the establishment has inexplicably closed their outdoor seating, the Soul Taco on Broadway square can get you a taco for less than $10 and you have your pick of a table on the largest patio in town.
The history of al fresco dining is a history of people who won’t be separated from each other but who won’t be confined either. It’s the kind of contradiction that Americans have applied to customs from all over the world.
From the pre-revolution pleasure gardens of the soon-to-be American middle class to the plastic igloos of the 2020s, we’ve huddled together outdoors in an attempt to reclaim our place in nature at the picnic table on the top of the food chain with a glass of white wine or a Dilly Bar in hand.
Bear Creek Winery is located in south Fargo.
Contributed / Eric Daeuber
8800 25th St. S. Fargo
701-306-4709
https://www.bearcreeknd.com/
The appetizer menu at Cork’n Cleaver offers many delicious options.
Contributed / Eric Daeuber
3301 S. University Dr. Farg
701-237 6790
https://www.corkfargo.com/
In south Moorhead, Legends is on a lake and offers a unique view within city limits.
Contributed / Eric Daeuber
Legends Sports Bar & Grill
803 Belsly Blvd. Suite 100
Moorhead
218-477-1010
The opening of the Moorhead Dairy Queen is a signal that summer is about to begin.
Contributed / Eric Daeuber
24 Eighth St. S.
Moorhead
218-233-3221
Soul Taco is parked near Broadway Square in downtown Fargo.
Contributed / Eric Daeuber
Broadway Square in downtown Fargo
201 Broadway North
Eric Daueber has been reviewing the culinary arts for the Forum since 2004. A seasoned traveler, he has eaten roast suckling pig and sebadas in Sardinia, schnitzel and kaiserschmarrn in Vienna, bangers and mash in London, dumplings in Shanghai, and Peking duck in Peking, to name a few. Eric was raised in a culinary household; his father was a baker and his mother a cook who emigrated from Austria after WWII. Both grew up and worked in the heart of Austrian culinary art’s in Styria. He can be reached at food@daeuber.com.