'How-to' Dine Outdoors with Your Dog

 With the weather warming up in Chicago, all the restaurants are starting to pull out their chairs for outdoor dining. So in the spirit of our "How-to" week, here is what we learned about dogs and outdoor dining (complete with cameo from former foster dog Bella!).
And having a dog in Chicago, I had always thought dining outdoors with your dog was a given. But I was wrong. Just because you have a dog, doesn't mean that they will know how to sit nicely at the outdoor cafe.
Especially when your dog is as weird as Miss M:

With tables packed closely together, the potential for food on the ground, passing dogs, and food on the table, bringing a dog to an outdoor cafe can be a struggle. Though we did have a successful experience bringing all 3 dogs out on a recent outing. What worked:

Choosing a table in the corner:

 This way the pooches could have room off to the side, and they wouldn't have problems with passing dogs. We've found that as we're walking by cafes we normally can't see the dining dogs and sometimes they'll pop out from under the area surprising both us and our dogs. By keeping our dogs in the corner, our dogs won't be tempted to play, and other dogs won't disturb our dogs.

Doing a Pre-walk and Practicing 'Down Stays'
Instead of just going out to eat immediately, we made sure to go on a longer walk before sitting down. Since the pooches were more tired, they were able to stay still longer. That, combined with their continual practicing of down-stays around the city, allowed the pooches to be calm and well-behaved. Miss M was even falling asleep in front of the water bowl.

Going to a Dog-Friendly Restaurant

The city passed an ordinance allowed all dogs to be able to sit with their owners, but dogs aren't always as well-received in certain restaurants. We absolutely love going to Five Star which is not only dog-friendly, but super pit-friendly. The restaurant keeps a huge water bowl, always filled with fresh water and ice, outside for passing dogs. We've also met so many nice servers and staff who come running out to meet the pooches when we walk by. When we dine there the pooches are so well-received they get their own well-filled water dish and people are always coming out to see them. I think this is going to become our summer mainstay.
And as we were sipping our drinks and enjoying some food above, this is what the pooches were seeing below:
Does anyone else have tips for outdoor dining with dogs?