The patio list

Eight months of the year the outside is the point. The other four it's the only place you can sit.

The list. The Hyatt terrace, on the marina. The view: ship channel, sunset, the plants lighting up across the water like a city that isn't there in daytime. A drink, not a meal, unless you move inside to Anchor & Hearth. Not a hotel-guest thing; nobody asks. Best hour: the forty minutes either side of sunset. Best seat: the rail.

Thompson's Fish Camp, Simms Road. Picnic tables on the water, shrimp by the pound, boats at the dock, gulls with intentions. The patio is the restaurant. Bring a hat in summer and a jacket in January; there's no inside worth sitting in, and that's the charm.

Yepez Vineyard. Tables under the trees between the vines, a glass of something local, live music on the weekends when they book it. The Sunday-afternoon patio, and the one you bring out-of-town people to so they stop saying "Baytown?" like that.

Luna's, West Cedar Bayou-Lynchburg Road. The late patio — open till eleven on Friday, the kitchen still going when everyone else's has closed. Not downtown, but the one place in Baytown where you can sit outside at ten on a Friday with a plate.

Bayland Marina. Less a patio than a shoreline with a bench, but the sunset comes straight down the bay at you, the boats are coming in, and the locals with folding chairs know something. Bring your own; there's nothing to buy.

Black Bayou's lot. Not a patio. On the list because in crawfish season everyone eats in the parking lot off the tailgate, and it's the best outdoor dining in town for two months. See the crawfish guide.

The Chute's back. If they've opened it up — check the page — the yard behind the bar is the live-music patio, and the reason a Friday there runs late.

The rules. - Mosquitoes from April to October; the good patios have fans, the great ones have a breeze off the water. - Summer patio hours are 7 to 10 in the morning and after 7 at night; don't fight it. - October is the month all of these are perfect at once. March is the second. - A norther in January makes the Hyatt terrace the best seat in Harris County for about two hours. Wear the jacket.

En español. Los patios de Baytown: la terraza del Hyatt al atardecer, las mesas de Thompson's sobre el agua, el viñedo Yepez el domingo, y Luna's, en Cedar Bayou-Lynchburg Road, hasta las once los viernes. En verano, solo temprano o de noche.