Takeout Stakeout: Carson Avenue in downtown Las Vegas

Today’s Pick: Carson Avenue and Seventh Street

Over the past few years, the Carson Avenue stroll from Las Vegas Boulevard to Eighth Street has been challenging Fremont Street to the north as the neighborhood’s culinary epicenter. While several of its best-known restaurants are temporarily closed, these three, near the intersection of Carson and Seventh, are all going strong.

Among these three restaurants, you’ll find light breakfast choices, sandwiches and flatbreads, snacks, serious dinner entrees, desserts, and a wide variety of plant-based dishes from one of the valley’s most respected vegan kitchens. To wash it down, you can choose from a variety of coffees, hot and iced teas, smoothies and assorted adult beverages. And while many of the customers are locals who prefer to walk, there’s a shared lot on Seventh Street between Fremont and Carson where you can park, pop your trunk and await your orders from all three.

7th & Carson: In addition to an abbreviated food menu with 18 items from its original menu, this American restaurant with a little Irish flair is offering the neighborhood some much-needed grocery service during this crisis. So beyond its breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack selections, you can pick up eggs, milk, frozen foods, rice, toilet paper, bottles of booze and more, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. If you’re in a position to help, they’ve also made it possible to buy meals, or supplies, for the homeless. The menu is available on the website. You can order and pay there, or phone it in and settle up when you arrive. A table set up outside of the Seventh Street patio is for for pickups and walk-up ordering, but your order can also be brought to your car if you call when you arrive. 7thandcarson.com, 702-868-3355

Downtown Terrace: While it’s located in Downtown Container Park, Downtown Terrace has an entrance on Seventh Street, just off the Carson Avenue corner. From that entrance, customers can pick up selections from a slightly abbreviated menu, as well as bottles of beer, wine and liquor, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. The elevated comfort food ranges from breakfast sandwiches, carne asada fries and chicken fingers to crab rangoon flatbread and steak frites with chimichurri sauce. Find the menu on their website, and place your orders through the Explore DTLV app (where you’ll earn points) or on the phone. Customers must call when they arrive to have their order brought to them, either on the street or in the lot just across Seventh. Downtown Container Park, 707 Fremont St., downtownterracelv.com, order.exploredtlv.com/order, 702-553-2542.

VegeNation: This pioneering downtown spot, which just celebrated its fifth anniversary, is offering most of its normal plant-based menu for curbside pickup, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. That includes lunch, dinner and dessert options, with brunch choices on the weekend, and a wide variety of both all-ages and adult beverages. While it’s a natural go-to for the vegan in the family, you don’t have to be a true believer in that cause to enjoy the food here. And if there’s a gluten-free diner in your group, make sure to look into the cauliflower-crust pizzas. The menu is available on the restaurant’s website, but you’ll need to call in orders. Call again when you get there, and they’ll bring your order to the entrance on Carson Avenue, or the parking lot on Seventh Street. They’re also allowing a limited number of guests inside to pick up or place orders. 616 E. Carson Ave., vegenationlv.com, 702-366-8515

Know a strip mall or shopping complex with three or more great restaurants you can hit in one stop? Email Al Mancini at amancini@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlManciniVegas on Twitter.