Above, the new patio at Portside Pizza at Tri Lakes is a great place to have dinner or drinks with friends. At right, the outdoor cornhole game area provides an opportunity for after-dinner fun.

By Jennifer Zartman Romano for Talk of the Town,

a partner of Buscovoice.com in the Whitley News Network

After spending a day on the lake, those enjoying the summer at cottages or lake homes near Tri Lakes have new spots to enjoy dinner and drinks with friends this season – or relax with a late lunch perhaps.

The place most people will remember as Pirate’s Cove, which closed this spring as Timmy’s Nook, recently reopened as Lake Shore Tavern – featuring a new menu, crazy karaoke on Friday nights and a fun, happening, upbeat atmosphere. The new menu is very pocket friendly with most expensive meal on the list coming in under $10 – and most an even better value than that.

Just down the street, Portside Pizza, owned by Mike Mast and Matt “Turtle” Bunyan for the past four years, recently opened their new 300 square foot patio.

The patio, reminiscent of the porches you’ll find on restaurants near Lake Michigan’s lakeside eateries, features a vaulted ceiling, covered porch, spacious barstool seating for a gathering of friends around handmade tile tables, a water fountain, fire pit and cornhole game. If you want to keep tabs on a game, you’ll be able to do that two with several televisions mounted outdoors as well.

What a way to spend enjoy the lakeside summer nightlife in Whitley County!

For more Talk of the Town on what’s happening in Columbia City, click here.