Niagara College Daniel J. Patterson Campus: Rides for Visitors, Students and Diners

Niagara College's Daniel J. Patterson Campus in Niagara-on-the-Lake is at 135 Taylor Road, but it does not feel like the Niagara-on-the-Lake of postcards. It is in the Glendale area of the town, a short hop off the QEW, across the road from the Outlet Collection at Niagara and roughly halfway between St. Catharines and the Falls. Three kinds of people ask us to drive there: visitors who want to taste at Canada's first commercial teaching winery, diners booked for lunch at Benchmark, and students (or their parents) arriving from an airport with a term's worth of bags.

NiagaraFallsLimo.net handles all three. Below is what each visit involves and how the ride fits around it.

Where is the Daniel J. Patterson Campus in Niagara-on-the-Lake?

Niagara College describes the site as a 125-acre campus with a 40-acre vineyard, and notes that Niagara Falls is about ten minutes away by car. On our routing it is closer to fifteen from the Fallsview hotel strip once you count the city streets. The college's campus page lists the facilities: the Teaching Winery, Teaching Brewery and Teaching Distillery, the Benchmark restaurant, the Wine Visitor and Education Centre, a teaching greenhouse and a teaching spa.

One thing that surprises people: Old Town is farther from the campus than the Falls is. If you are staying on Queen Street and booked a Benchmark lunch, allow twenty minutes, not five.

For visitors: the NC Craft Beverage Centre

The college's tasting room and shop now trade as NC Craft, at the Wine Visitor and Education Centre. As of October 2026 the NC Craft visit page lists these hours: Sunday to Thursday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with "Friday Night Pints" on Friday evenings.

What you can book, according to that page:

• Wine flight: four wines from the Balance and Dean's List labels, $20 as of 2026, reservation required.
• Beer or cider flight: four pours from rotating taps, including student small-batch brews, $15 as of 2026, reservation required.
• Spirit flight: three spirits from the teaching distillery, $15 as of 2026, reservation required.
• Winery tour and tasting: a guided walk through the winery, brewery and distillery.

Private group bookings are available by arrangement with the college. What makes the stop unusual is that the bottles on the shelf were made by students learning the trade, so a flight here is a different conversation from a flight at an estate winery down the road. It pairs well with a couple of traditional estates on Niagara Stone Road; our Niagara-on-the-Lake wineries page covers them, and our craft breweries and distilleries guide puts the teaching brewery in its regional context.

For diners: lunch at Benchmark

Benchmark is the campus restaurant, run by culinary students under the guidance of college chefs. The Benchmark page currently lists lunch only, Tuesday to Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., with last seating at 1:30 p.m. There is an à la carte menu and a three-course table d'hôte that changes often ($55 as of June 2026). Reservations are "highly recommended" and are taken through OpenTable.

Two practical points:

• Parking needs paperwork. Free on-campus parking for diners requires a reservation, after which the college emails a "Guest Parking Form" link to complete. Arriving by car with a driver skips that step entirely.
• The schedule is a teaching schedule. Lunch service runs four days a week. Check the page before planning around it, especially near term breaks, which the page does not describe.

A Benchmark lunch slots neatly into a half-day: pickup at your hotel at 11 a.m., lunch at noon, a tasting flight across campus at 1:45 p.m., and a stop at the Outlet Collection across Taylor Road before heading back. That last stop is covered on our Outlet Collection at Niagara page.

Price a lunch-and-tasting afternoon

For students and families: arrival day and term trips

Students at this campus often come from outside Niagara, and some from outside Canada. Arrival day usually means a long-haul flight into Toronto Pearson and then the last 110 km with every possession in two large suitcases and a carry-on.

That is where vehicle choice matters:

Flight tracking means the chauffeur adjusts to a delayed arrival rather than leaving. Meet and greet with a name board inside arrivals is worth adding for a first-time arrival in Canada; our Pearson transfer page explains how it works.

During term, students mostly use transit. Niagara Region Transit runs regional buses that serve the campus, and the college has negotiated student fares. Check nrtransit.ca for current routes. A pre-booked car makes sense for the trips transit does not serve well: an early flight home at the end of term, a parents' visit, a late return from Toronto, or a group outing to a winery that is not on a bus line.

For train arrivals, the closest station is St. Catharines, about 12 minutes away, with Niagara Falls station about 20 minutes in the other direction. The train station transfers page covers both.

Pairing the Daniel J. Patterson Campus with nearby stops

Because the campus sits in Glendale rather than Old Town, it combines best with places on the same side of the town. Three pairings work well with a car on the "By the hour" mode:

• The Welland Canal. The St. Catharines Museum and Welland Canals Centre at Lock 3 is about 4 km away, six minutes by car. Ships are scheduled by the Seaway, usually no more than a day ahead, so a lockage is a bonus rather than a promise. Our Welland Canals Centre page has the details.
• St. Davids wineries. The estates around York Road and Four Mile Creek Road are fifteen minutes or so east, which turns a teaching-winery flight into a comparison with family-run producers.
• Old Town for dinner. Finish on Queen Street, about twenty minutes north, and let the car take you back to the Falls afterwards.

Mornings are the calmest time to start: tasting rooms are quieter before noon, and the QEW back toward Toronto is easier before the late-afternoon rush.

Chauffeur vs rideshare vs taxi for this trip

Verdict: for a student commuting to class, transit is the right tool and nobody should pretend otherwise. For a quick trip from the Falls to Benchmark and back with no tasting, a taxi or rideshare will do the job. A pre-booked car is the better choice for arrival day from Pearson, for a flight-and-tasting afternoon where nobody should drive, and for any group that wants to arrive together. Our guide to choosing between a chauffeur, taxi or rideshare sets out the trade-offs in more detail.

Booking it with NiagaraFallsLimo.net in 3 steps

1. Enter the trip. Use 135 Taylor Road, Niagara-on-the-Lake as the address in the online booker, add your pickup (hotel, terminal or station), the date, the time and any flight or train number.
2. Pick a vehicle. Each class shows its fixed all-in fare before you pay, so a sedan and an SUV can be compared side by side.
3. Add the details and pay. Passengers, bags, child seats, meet and greet, then secure payment and an email confirmation.

Book your campus ride

Who this suits

Individual visitors and couples who want to taste student-made wine, beer and spirits without anyone driving afterwards. Families moving a student in or out, with luggage and a long flight behind them. Small groups of classmates or alumni planning a reunion lunch at Benchmark. Parents visiting for a weekend, who can stack the campus, the Welland Canal and the wineries into one day. If you are on exchange in Toronto rather than enrolled here, our sibling post on a student weekend at Niagara Falls is a better starting point, and the comparison of a wine shuttle vs a private wine tour in NOTL helps if the teaching winery is one stop among several.