Sunnyside Resort and Lodge

A Marina, a Deck, and Twenty-Three Rooms Above It

Most Lake Tahoe hotels are set back from the water by a road, a parking lot, or both. Sunnyside isn’t: the lodge sits directly on the west shore in Tahoe City, its own marina docked out front and, wrapped around the restaurant behind it, the largest lakefront dining deck on the lake. The twenty-three rooms sit above that restaurant rather than beside it, which means every guest’s walk to dinner is a walk downstairs, not a drive along West Lake Boulevard. It’s a small property built around one very good piece of shoreline, and it doesn’t pretend to be anything larger than that.

Why It Works

We chose this address because the restaurant underneath it has spent decades becoming a West Shore institution in its own right — Friday night live music, a Hula Pie dessert regulars ask for by name, appetizers built around fried zucchini — and a room here comes with a reservation downstairs already solved. The marina adds a second reason: guests arriving by boat are as normal here as guests arriving by car, which is unusual on a lake where most lodging turns its back on the water. Twenty-three rooms keeps the whole thing intimate rather than institutional, even with a restaurant this well known attached to it.

Why This Location

West Lake Boulevard threads the string of small communities along Tahoe’s west shore, and Sunnyside sits right on the water side of it in Tahoe City, closer to the lake’s quieter north end than to the casino strip at Stateline. Boaters can tie up at the property’s own marina instead of hunting for a public slip; drivers get a shoreline address without the crowds of the south shore. It trades proximity to Heavenly’s lifts for proximity to the water itself — the right trade for a stay built around the lake rather than the mountain.

Fast Facts

• Price: €€€, lakefront lodge tier

• Vibe: lake house, unpretentious, restaurant-forward

• Rooms: 23 total, lakefront lodge rooms above the restaurant

• Best For: couples and boaters who want the lake at the front door

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: the marina out front, for guests who arrive by boat as easily as by car

• Dining: the on-site restaurant, known for its lakefront deck, Hula Pie and Friday live music

• Amenities: private marina, the lake’s largest dining deck, ski storage for winter visits

• Attractions: Lake Tahoe’s west shore beaches (steps away), Tahoe City’s shops and marina (short drive), Homewood and Palisades Tahoe ski areas (nearby)

Rooms Kept Simple on Purpose

The lodge rooms don’t try to compete with the view or the restaurant below them, and that restraint is deliberate: lake-facing windows, simple furnishings, nothing that would distract from the water outside. It’s a smaller, quieter counterpart to the bigger resorts further south, built for a guest who wants to fall asleep to the lake and wake up to the same view rather than a room that’s trying to be the destination in its own right. Twenty-three rooms also means the property never feels like it’s managing a crowd, even on the restaurant’s busiest nights downstairs.

The Deck, the Pie and Friday Nights

The dining deck is the property’s real centerpiece, sized to hold the kind of lakefront dinner crowd that most West Shore restaurants can only seat a fraction of, and it’s worth booking a table even for guests staying elsewhere. Friday nights bring live music from five to eight, timed for a sunset dinner rather than a late one, and the Hula Pie has built its own following separate from the hotel’s. None of it requires leaving the building: a guest can walk down from a lake-facing room, eat on the water, and be back upstairs before the last boats leave the marina.