Roca Byron Bay

Roca brings Peruvian and Latin American cooking to Lawson Street, a short walk from the centre of Byron Bay, trading from early breakfast through to dinner seven days a week. It is listed as dog-friendly with open-air outdoor seating, which makes it one of the more flexible tables in town for anyone travelling with a dog: an early ceviche lunch and a beach walk, or a late-afternoon Pisco Sour while the dog settles at your feet.

The dog setup

Dogs are welcome in the outdoor seating, on lead and settled beside the table. The setup is casual and open-air, so there is room for a dog to lie down without anyone squeezing past. Indoors is off limits, as it is at any NSW food premises. Staff are relaxed about dogs, but the safest move is to bring your own collapsible water bowl rather than assume one will be sitting out.

Worth knowing

The kitchen leans Peruvian: ceviche and a raw bar, chargrilled anticuchos, empanadas and lomo saltado, with pancakes and breakfast plates through the morning and a Latin cocktail list with a house Pisco Sour. Hours are 7am to 11:30am for breakfast service on most days, with lunch and dinner across the rest of the week, though the daily breakfast window and Wednesday closures are worth confirming when you book. Because it opens early, the quietest dog-friendly slot is a weekday breakfast before Lawson Street fills up.

Getting there and parking

Lawson Street runs through the middle of town, so walking in from central Byron is easy and often faster than driving. Street parking in the centre is competitive; the public car parks a couple of streets back are the reliable fallback, and both leave a short flat walk to the restaurant.

Close by with the dogs

Main Beach and the beachside parklands sit at the bottom of Lawson Street for an on-lead leg-stretch before or after a meal, and the Belongil Beach South dog exercise area is a short drive west if you want an off-lead run. For other tables, The Roadhouse on Bangalow Road has a big outdoor terrace, and Miss Margarita keeps the Latin theme going with its own dog-friendly courtyard.

More dog-friendly eating across the state is on the New South Wales restaurants list and the Byron Bay destination guide.

Max: Ceviche for them, the water bowl by the table leg for me. Fair trade.