First element of Jacobson Plaza brings more dining to Falls Park this week

You’ll be able to get a burger, a beverage and begin to see how Jacobson Plaza will take shape at Falls Park starting this week.

The Lodge, which is the food and beverage venue serving the area, opens Wednesday at 800 N. Phillips Ave.

It’s managed by Washington Pavilion Management Inc. and offers a full bar along with indoor and outdoor seating. The area will fill in this summer with the city’s largest playground, the city’s largest splash pad and dog park, while an ice ribbon will open later this year.

“We think of this as being a restaurant, not a concession area,” said Mike McGreevey, whose longtime restaurant career most recently included a leadership role with Glacier Restaurant Group, which owns MacKenzie River Pizza, Grill & Pub.

McGreevey became general manager of food and beverage for Washington Pavilion Management late last year, which includes the Pavilion, Orpheum Theater Center and The Lodge.

“We needed to design a menu to accommodate a smaller kitchen space, and we did an excellent job doing that,” he said. “Obviously, we are here to serve the park facility, the splash pad, dog park and ice ribbon, but also our menu is such that it’s going to be a great place to go … to get an economic meal. A great burger and a great beer at a great price.”

The menu features small bites — including chislic — a half-dozen smashburgers, several other sandwiches and kids meals.

Jacobson Plaza is a public-private partnership made possible with donations from the Garry and Dianne Jacobson family, the Craig and Pat Lloyd family and Denny Sanford.

The Milt’s Classic burger is named for Dianne Jacobson’s father and is a double patty with house-smoked American cheese, onion, pickle and “fancy sauce” for $10, served with crinkle-cut fries

For a link to the full menu, click here.

The drink menu includes a mix of signature cocktails and mocktails.

There will be pre-packaged ice cream by the scoop from Parlour, which also is part of the Washington Pavilion.

Hours to start will be 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday but could be adjusted as the area gets busier, McGreevey said.

“We have a fantastic GM in place, a chef and a bar manager in place and nine hourly employees, so we’ve got what we need to open, and applications are rolling in,” he said.

Reservations for the facility also will be managed by The Lodge.

The dining room is connected to the plaza’s warming house, which is where skates will be rented for the ice ribbon and the city Parks & Recreation Department has started to host programs.

There’s an event room set up for small meetings or parties, which also can flow into a larger area within the warming house. A high school reunion has booked the space for later this year, and there has been interest in hosting birthday parties there, McGreevey said.

The plan is to open the playground, splash pad and dog park by late June or early July.

Turf is in for the dog park and fencing is going up, while shade structures are in for the playground.

“And then they’ll start working on the bigger features, and that will run right up to the end of June, too, as it’s a super-large playground structure,” park development specialist Tory Miedema said.

There’s also a small turf area outside The Lodge designed for yard games.

The goal is to open everything outside at once because of the challenges involved with having some portions open with construction on others, Miedema said.

“What we’re pushing is the ice ribbon,” he added. “We have three pours left on the actual ribbon, and then they’re working on some piping in the mechanical room to finish up the system, so that’ll be basically the next two months there.”

Lloyd Construction is the contractor for Jacobson Plaza.

The parks department likely will put out a programming schedule for The Lodge in the coming weeks. While ice skating won’t come to the plaza until late this year, “we’re going to do some programming on the ice ribbon,” Miedema said. “We have some bumper cars and some inline skating but just kind of kicking around all ideas for that because it’s a nice big area.”