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Dining options in the park proper are limited to Bryce Canyon Lodge; the nearby Ruby's Inn complex is your best eating bet before you pay to enter the park. The restaurants in nearby locales tend to be of the meat-and-potatoes variety. Utah's drinking laws can be confusing, so ask your server what is available: beer is more common than wine and spirits.
A quick and casual 40-seat eatery across the parking lot from the Lodge at Bryce Canyon, this pizzeria and coffee shop is a good bet for an inexpensive meal, especially when the lodge dining room is too crowded. Coffee shop choices include an espresso bar, house-made pastries, and fresh fruit, or kick back on the tranquil patio in the evening and enjoy fresh pizza or salad.
With a high-beam ceiling, tall windows, and a massive stone fireplace, the dining room at this historic lodge set among towering pines abounds with rustic western charm. The kitchen serves three meals a day (reservations aren't accepted, so be prepared for a wait), and the dishes—highlights of which include elk chili, buffalo sirloin steak, pineapple-glazed roasted pork tenderloin, and almond-and-panko-crusted trout—feature organic or sustainable ingredients whenever possible. Several vegetarian options are offered, too.
With sweeping panoramas toward Bryce Canyon from the back deck, an art-filled dining room with a stone fireplace, and some of the most accomplished modern American fare within an hour's drive of the park, this refined yet unpretentious restaurant on the outskirts of tiny Tropic is well worth a splurge. Favorites here include the salad of citrus-roasted carrots with avocado and coconut cream, the bone-in grilled pork chops with cheddar-potato fondue, and several preparations of local grass-fed steaks.
Inside the Bryce Canyon Pines Lodge motel, about 5 miles northwest of Bryce Canyon City, this down-home, family-friendly roadhouse decorated with Old West photos and memorabilia serves reliably good stick-to-your-ribs breakfasts, hefty elk burgers, rib-eye steaks, and Utah rainbow trout. But the top draw here is homemade pie, which comes in a vast assortment of flavors, from banana-blueberry cream to boysenberry.
Order at the window and snag an outdoor table at this laid-back burger joint in a little red barn near Panguitch Lake, a great option en route to Cedar Breaks National Monument or Cedar City. The one-third-pound Black Angus steak burgers here come with a variety of toppings (bacon, onion rings), and the menu also has barbecue choices, such as pulled pork or beef brisket sandwiches, fish-and-chips, sweet-potato fries, and shakes and ice cream. A funky little general store is next door.
