"They like having a place where they're not being asked to leave their table because restaurants, for example, have to turn tables," Lee Eckroth told OPB and KLCC this summer. Eckroth and his business partner Tony Pappas own The Plaza, the former 1955 JC Penney at 425 SW Madison Ave.
That one sentence explains most of what goes on inside. In a normal restaurant the table belongs to the kitchen, and the kitchen needs it back. At The Plaza the seating belongs to the building, and several separate food counters share it. That arrangement shapes the board games, the free group rooms, the music teachers in the basement, and how the vendors have moved around the floor this year.
The Tables Belong to the Building
The Plaza has three levels and seating sized for different groups. Small libraries of books sit around the building, and shelves of board games are free to use, according to KLCC's reporting. When Visit Corvallis wrote about the building in February, it described students studying, teachers meeting between classes, and neighbors catching up at Coffee Culture.
The groups using it have gone well past coffee dates. On the day KLCC visited in late August, Eckroth said an elementary school was holding its teacher day there. He told the station the community use was more than he and Pappas could have imagined. A staff in-service usually means a borrowed library room or a catering order. Here it means everyone walks up to whichever counter they like.
Five Counters, One Set of Tables
Shared seating only matters if there's a real choice of food around it. The Plaza's own site now lists five food businesses.
| Counter | What it serves | Posted hours |
|---|---|---|
| 4 Waffles Luxe | Sweet and savory waffles and waffle paninis, all gluten-free and dairy-free | Sun–Wed 9 a.m.–7 p.m., Thu–Sat 9 a.m.–8 p.m. |
| Coffee Culture | Coffee and fresh baked goods | Mon–Sat 6 a.m.–6 p.m., Sun 7 a.m.–5 p.m. |
| Everbowl | Açaí bowls, fruit bowls and smoothies | Check the Everbowl Corvallis page |
| Tacos El Machín | Street-style tacos and other Mexican dishes | Check the Tacos El Machín Facebook page |
| Birdie's Pizza | New York and Detroit-style pizza | 11 a.m.–9 p.m. daily, per its ordering site |
The building has no single set of hours, so the early counters set the morning. Coffee Culture opens at 6 a.m. on weekdays, three hours before the waffle counter. Birdie's runs latest, until 9 p.m. Coffee Culture has been in Corvallis since 1993, and The Plaza is its fourth location in town.
Birdie's is the newest name on the list. The pizza shop comes from three friends who say they source organic and local ingredients when they can. Corvallis Now covered its announcement party at The Plaza in August. Its online ordering page now lists the 425 SW Madison Ave store as one you can order from.
How They Got Here
Most of these businesses arrived from somewhere else, and the building changed what some of them cook.
Tacos El Machín used to be at the corner of Southwest Fourth Street and Western Boulevard. That spot had no indoor kitchen, so the tacos came out of a food truck parked outside. The Commuter reported that the truck kept a steady crowd despite the weather. When that building sold, The Plaza offered the business a kitchen with a roof over the line.
4 Waffles Luxe moved within the building. It started on The Plaza's basement floor as 4 Chicken and Waffles. The Daily Barometer reported that the move upstairs came with rules against deep fryers, so the chicken left the menu and the waffles stayed. Co-owner Teshala Whipple explained the name to the Barometer. "It started because there's four of us in our family, but it has a bigger meaning of 'For the love of community, for the love of good food, for the love of good friends.'" She runs the business with Mario Paradiso.
The lineup has also changed since winter. In February and March, Visit Corvallis and The Commuter both listed Nouveau Poke Co. among the counters. The Plaza's current vendor list has Birdie's Pizza and no poke counter. If you haven't stopped in since spring, the counters may not be the ones you remember.
Bringing a Group Without a Reservation Fee
The shared-table idea goes furthest in the private rooms. The Plaza offers four free gathering spaces you can reserve.
- The Gathering Room, with flexible tables and chairs, a monitor and a whiteboard, holds roughly 10 to 25 people depending on the setup.
- Mezzanine One sits above the main floor.
- Mezzanine Two also overlooks the main floor.
- A shared space in the Creative Underground is on the lower level.
Food from the counters is welcome in all of them. The Plaza puts it plainly: one person wants tacos, someone wants a smoothie, someone wants waffles, and everyone eats in the same room. That's the answer to the familiar problem of a book club, team lunch or birthday where nobody agrees on a restaurant. A baby grand piano can also be reserved. Every reservation needs The Plaza's approval first, and requests go through the contact form on The Plaza's website.
Downstairs, the Creative Underground
Eckroth told KLCC the lower level holds 15 art studios and rehearsal spaces. He calls it the Creative Underground, "home to multiple artists, music teachers, tattoo artists, tattoo removal." The Plaza's directory lists these tenants:
- Art and craft: Painting Poetic with Cathy Boggs, Bill Biondi Fine Art, Underground Arts and Crafts with Jen Hernandez, PashCo
- Music lessons: Peter Benjamin Music Workshop, guitar instructor Jacob Ripley, piano instructor Bethany Schamp
- Tattoo: Brae Tattoo and No Regerts
- Shops and more: The Fae Realm Shoppe, Soil Circus, CRV Science, Fitzpatrick Painting
This is where the long-sit design pays off for families. A kid's guitar lesson downstairs can mean a parent upstairs with a coffee and a book from the shelves, in a seat nobody needs back. The upstairs level holds four professional offices, with more space available.
Thursday Nights Run Late
The Plaza runs Music Bingo every Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m. It promises games, prizes, popcorn and dancing, and posts weekly details on its Facebook page. An AllEvents listing bills it as Music Bingo plus trivia and lists it as free. Thursday is also when 4 Waffles Luxe stays open until 8 p.m. instead of 7, so the waffle counter now lasts the whole game.
Same Owners, Same Corner
Inside, the building's mid-century bones are still on purpose. The Plaza says it is working to preserve the 1955 architecture. The work was supported in part by a $324,000 Oregon Main Street Revitalization Grant through the Oregon State Historic Preservation Office and Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, with leadership from the Downtown Corvallis organization. "We worked hard to keep the original feel of Mr. Penney's vision," Eckroth told The Commuter. Pappas called it "still a work in progress."
The Commuter reported that Eckroth and Pappas also redid the two buildings at Third Street and Madison Avenue with the new lights along the rooflines. Koriander restaurant and Runway Fashion Exchange are on the south side of Madison, with Guardian Games and Grassroots across the street. That puts a game store a block from a building full of free board games, along a stretch of Madison where the same two owners have reworked three buildings.
If The Plaza has become part of your week, I'd love to hear which counter you order from and what your group books the rooms for. Whether you're thinking about life near downtown Corvallis or just want a local who keeps up with what's changing on Madison Avenue, Vanessa Corder is happy to talk. Let's Connect.
