Start from 23 curated places around Yellow Springs, OH, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Sunrise Cafe
The most-loved breakfast spot in town — walls covered floor-to-ceiling in original painted artwork, a menu built on whole-grain and locally sourced ingredients, and a line out the door most weekend mornings that moves faster than it looks. The chocolate bread French toast and savory grain bowls bring people back on return trips. The room is tight and neighborly, which is exactly right for a village breakfast joint.
Winds Cafe
Yellow Springs' destination dinner restaurant — a seasonally rotating menu that draws on Ohio farms and presents American cooking with European technique in a warmly lit, intimate room. The wine list is deeper than a village this size has any obligation to provide, and the staff knows it well enough to guide without being precious about it. This is the place for a proper dinner when you want to linger.
Trails & outdoors
The Grotto via Oak Triangle, School Forest, and Birch Creek Loop
The best all-in-one introduction to Glen Helen — a 4.1-mile loop through old-growth hardwood forest, crossing Birch Creek multiple times before arriving at the Grotto, a mossy limestone shelter where a small waterfall drips into a pool. It earns its moderate rating with rooted terrain and creek crossings, but rewards every bit of effort with constantly changing scenery. The signature hike in this corner of Ohio.
John Bryan State Park South Gorge Trail Loop
The premier trail in John Bryan State Park — a loop that follows the Little Miami River through a narrow limestone gorge, past massive boulders, hemlock groves, and waterfalls, before climbing to the North Rim for canyon views. Connecting into Clifton Gorge extends it to a 5.5-mile round-trip through two adjacent preserves with completely different terrain on each leg.
Things to do
Little Art Theatre
A 180-seat single-screen movie house that's been on Xenia Avenue since the late 1920s, programming the films you won't find at the multiplex — independent releases, foreign films, documentaries, and occasional classics screenings. You can bring in a beer or wine from the lobby, the seats are comfortable, and the crowd actually watches the film. One of the more quietly civilized ways to spend an evening in Yellow Springs.
Yellow Springs Brewery
The town's craft brewery and de facto community hub — a TV-free taproom with rotating taps, a dog-friendly patio alongside the Little Miami Scenic Trail, and rotating gallery work from local artists on the walls. The smash burgers are better than most taproom food, and the patio is one of the more pleasant outdoor spots in town on a warm evening. A natural endpoint for cyclists and hikers coming off the trail.
Landmarks & sights
Glen Helen Nature Preserve
A 1,000-acre old-growth forest preserve owned by Antioch College, with 20-plus miles of trails past limestone cliffs, 400-year-old trees, and the iron-rich mineral spring that gave the town its name. The Grotto — a mossy rock overhang above Birch Creek where a waterfall drips into a shallow pool — is the emotional center of the place. More than 100,000 visitors come each year, but weekday mornings make it feel like yours alone.
Clifton Gorge State Nature Preserve
One of Ohio's most dramatic geological features — a narrow dolomite gorge carved by the Little Miami River, with exposed bedrock ledges, hemlocks clinging to cliff faces, and a rim trail that puts you right at the edge above 80-foot walls. It connects directly to John Bryan State Park, making a longer loop possible without backtracking. The gorge-bottom path along the river and the rim trail offer entirely different perspectives on the same landscape.