Setting the Table | No. 10 - Outdoor Burgers

The outdoor burger table is the easiest one all summer. The new Virginia striped tablecloth is already on the table with the blue enamelware tumblers. The burgers are coming off the grill, the avocado salad is out, the beers are cold, and a Texas sheet cake is waiting on the counter inside. Nobody is trying hard. Everyone is happy.

This is week 10 of Setting the Table. Here is everything on the outdoor burger table.

The Table

The Virginia Green Striped Tablecloth, in rectangle and round, sets the tone for a table that isn't trying to be anything other than easy. White dinner plates and bamboo flatware alongside, simple and unfussy, made for a night outside.

The blue short floral enamelware tumblers and the blue poppy enamelware pitcher do the heavy lifting here, sturdy enough for outdoors and pretty enough that it doesn't feel like an afterthought. The Asheville vase, on sale now, finishes the table without asking too much of it.

The Menu

This is a menu built for a grill night, which means most of it can be ready before anyone sits down and the rest takes care of itself.

Ina Garten's onion dip with chips. Make it ahead, set it out, and let people start snacking the second they arrive.

Fake Shake Shack burgers with all the toppings. This is the whole point of the night. Someone is at the grill, everyone else is at the table, and the burgers get better the longer people stand around waiting for them.

French fries alongside, because a burger without fries isn't really a burger dinner.

Avocado salad, fresh and a little rich, the thing that keeps the plate from being all one note. Cold beer to drink, the only pairing that makes sense here.

Sheet cake to finish, made ahead and cut into big, easy squares. This is the dessert for a night when nobody wants dessert to be complicated.

The Outfit

The outfits for an outdoor burger night are the kind you're already half wearing by the time the grill gets going, comfortable enough for a day that started at the beach and easy enough to still look pulled together at the table.

First option: a white t-shirt, Levi's, and slip-on sandals. The end of a beach day outfit that still looks pulled together at a beautiful table.

Second option: a matching top and shorts with sneakers. Easy and effortless, the kind of thing you grab when you walk in from the beach and want to feel like yourself again.

Everything from this post is linked in my ShopMy collection.

More at the Table

Every week this year I am setting a new table and sharing the full guide here on the blog. Follow along on Instagram at @shoptrudie and on my Substack, At the Table with Megan, where I write about the table and everything that happens around it.