When on the job, we run across many great dining tips and tricks. We’re sometimes tempted to keep them to ourselves for fear of increasing competition over services or places already in high demand.

Serving the greater good always prevails, however, and we would be remiss if we didn’t share. Here are our favorite Twin Cities dining secrets:

SCORING A RESERVATION

With patio season just around the corner, one of the hottest spots to score a seat has long been at W.A. Frost (374 Selby Ave., St. Paul; 651-224-5715; wafrost.com) with its elegant garden landscapes and multiple seating areas. There are two areas on the patio, a bar and lounge area and a dining area. Not all places allow patio reservations, but W.A. Frost takes them for its outdoor dining area. Two things to note when reserving for al fresco dining: They’re working on changing this, but reservations for the patio currently can’t be made online, so call the restaurant directly. Secondly, if it’s raining that day, your patio reservation isn’t transferable to an indoor spot. So if you need to cancel your patio seats, you still need to call to see if your group can be accommodated inside. As for the bar and lounge area, that’s on a first-come, first-serve basis, and getting a seat is often up to sheer luck. It opens at 3:30 p.m. If you’re heading over for happy hour, be there by 4:15 p.m. to assure yourself a seat.

Reservations might be hard to come by at The Lexington (1096 Grand Ave., St. Paul; 651-289-4990; thelexmn.com), which reopened with new owners and a new chef about six weeks ago after an extensive refurbish. But if you’re dying to get a taste of James Beard-nominee Jack Riebel’s menu, there’s still hope. The restaurant opens at 3 p.m. daily for a “social hour,” which basically means they’re not serving food just yet, but you can come have a few libations. We snuck in at 4:30 p.m. on a recent weeknight (The Lex starts serving food at 5 p.m.) and ordered some drinks and waited until the full menu was available. At 5 p.m., we ordered a full meal, and it was worth the extra trouble.

Speaking of one of the hottest places in town for nabbing a reservation, the 2½-year-old Spoon & Stable, from James Beard Award-winning chef Gavin Kaysen (211 N 1st St, Minneapolis; 612-224-9850; spoonandstable.com), continues to book out weeks, sometime months, according to general manager Catherine Yoo. Reservations are taken 60 days in advance, and the prime time for seating is from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. She recommends coming in to the bar and lounge area, which is on a first-come, first-serve basis. There are 17 bar seats and a handful of lounge seats. The full dinner menu and bar menu are available. If you’re determined to have your meal in the dining room, then Sunday and Monday nights tend to be slower.

SCORING A MEAL

Revival (525 Selby Ave., St. Paul; 651-340-2355; revivalfriedchicken.com) serves ribs, but because chef Thomas Boemer is committed to the whole snout-to-tail cookery thing, there aren’t enough of them to go around. Instead of serving just a few racks a night, Boemer limits the offering to Fridays starting at lunchtime. But be warned, they go quickly. We have yet to score a rack, which are given a dry rub and then drizzled with butter, a technique Boemer calls “butter glazing.” One Friday, when getting our friends out of the door was like herding cats, we arrived at 6 p.m. only to find that the table next to us scored the last rack. We were left to drool and plot our next visit.

Since opening in August 2015, the duck bacon quiche at The Grateful Table (2804 Fairview Ave. N., Roseville; 651-808-1553; facebook.com/TheGreatfulTable) has become a hot commodity. We don’t want to create more of a demand for fear they might run out next time we dine there, but we just can’t help but tell you about one of our favorite dishes. Thick, Applewood smoked Maple Leaf Farms duck bacon and feta cheese are a winning combo in this quiche creation. The dish ($8.95) comes with a side salad. The spot opens at 7 a.m. and can run out in the early part of the lunch rush. So get there early.

While ramen is only on the lunch menu at Sakura (Sakura: 350 St. Peter St.; 651-224-0185; sakurastpaul.com), you can still get your ramen fix during dinner hours. Just know to ask for it, and the kitchen will be happy to oblige. Same goes for other popular dishes listed only on the lunch menu, including the tempura udon. “It will be a little bit of a different price (ramen $10 lunch; $11.50 dinner),” said owner Miyoko Omori. “We’ll make it as long as it’s not busy.”

At The Nook and Shamrock’s (The Nook, 492 S. Hamline Ave., St. Paul; 651-698-4347; Shamrock’s, 995 W. Seventh St. St. Paul; 651-228-9925; crshamrocks.com), we are really in love with the flavors in the Nookie Supreme, but the portion size of the double-decker burger is really just too much for us, not to mention the logistics of taking a bite of the behemoth. We have a hack, though. Order a cheeseburger with lettuce and special sauce, and behold: A single-patty Nookie Supreme. You’re welcome.

SCORING A DEAL

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Here’s your list of 20+ places offering State Fair food & drinks in lieu of the Fair On Fridays, Lunds & Byerlys features a “six buck cluck” deal.There are already times when we’ve swung by a Lunds or Byerlys on a Friday for the $6 rotisserie chicken special and they’ve already run out. So while we worry that it will make it even harder to score one, we can’t just help but pass along one of the best grocery store buys available. Your dollar goes far: Slice up pieces of the chicken to serve with dinner. Make a chicken salad with the leftovers for later lunches. And after the meat is shaved off the bone, take the carcass and make chicken broth.

When it comes to deals on baked goods, a favorite discount basket we like to raid is the one at St. Paul Bagelry (1702 Lexington Ave. N., Roseville; 651-488-1700; stpaulbagelry.com). While the fresh, made daily, New York-style bagels are already worth every penny, there are even greater deals to be had. A basket gets filled with bagels that didn’t sell the day before. Prices are half off (half a dozen, $2.75; a dozen, $5.50). Race you to the counter.

Staff writer Jess Fleming contributed to this report.