Downtown Corvallis Got a Living Room This Year, and It's in the Old JC Penney

"They like having a place where they're not being asked to leave their table because restaurants, for example, have to turn tables." That's how Lee Eckroth explained to KLCC why he and business partner Tony Pappas built The Plaza the way they did.

Most downtown restaurants count on turning tables over. Eckroth's building counts on people staying. That idea also runs through several other places that opened downtown in 2026. As the farmers' markets head into their last weeks and the evenings get darker and wetter, downtown Corvallis is filling up with places you can stay in for a while.

A building that doesn't need your table back

The Plaza took over the former JC Penney at 425 SW Madison Ave. The Daily Barometer photographed customers inside on Feb. 20, so it was open by then. KLCC's August report describes three levels with cafes, seating areas of different sizes, rental event spaces, art studios and offices. Small libraries of books sit around the building, and shelves of board games are free to use.

Here's the food lineup listed on The Plaza's website right now:

• Coffee Culture, open Monday through Saturday 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Everbowl
• Tacos El Machín
• 4 Waffles Luxe
• Birdie's Pizza, the newest arrival

Those Coffee Culture times are the café's own hours. The Plaza hasn't posted building-wide hours, so check before planning an early-morning work session around them.

The rooms are what make the no-table-turning idea concrete. The Plaza lists four free, reservable spaces: the Gathering Room, Mezzanine One, Mezzanine Two, and a shared space in the basement. Community groups are already booking them. When KLCC visited, Eckroth pointed to an elementary school holding a teacher day in the building and said the range of uses was more than he and Pappas had imagined. By August, he told the Daily Barometer that The Plaza had stayed busy and become a community go-to.

How a Philomath pizza ended up on Madison Avenue

When The Commuter toured The Plaza in March, Nouveau Poke Co. was one of the food counters. The Daily Barometer reported in August that Nouveau Poke had closed and the space would soon get a new restaurant. The tenant turned out to be Birdie's Pizza, which already had a location in Philomath.

The Commuter covered how it happened. Word of Birdie's reached Eckroth through a mutual friend. He tried it, liked it, and messaged Willcockson on Instagram, and Willcockson said things "flowed very quickly" from there. He told the paper Corvallis is a bigger market than Philomath, but that The Plaza itself was part of the draw.

The reveal fit the building. The Commuter described free popcorn and a round of bingo, where the winner took home a vintage rock poster donated by PashCo, one of the building's own tenants. Then the plastic came off a lit BIRDIE'S sign, and the owners brought out 25 pizzas made in Philomath. Birdie's officially opened Sept. 2.

Birdie's makes two styles. Willcockson developed the New York style himself after years of making wood-fired pizza. The Detroit style comes from one of the other two owners, who grew up there. The New York dough ferments in the fridge for three to four days and the Detroit dough for two to three, and then both bake on a hot stone in a deck oven.

The prices suit a place where people come in groups. The Commuter put slices at $4.50 to $6, so a two-slice lunch runs about $9 to $12. An 18-inch whole pie costs $26 to $34 and feeds about three people, which works out to the same $9 to $12 each. Sharing a whole pie doesn't save money, but it doesn't cost extra either. When Birdie's signed on, The Plaza also added six new, oversized tables, because, as The Commuter put it, pizza is meant to be shared.

Below the food court, people come for a whole evening

A pizza counter and a coffee bar can bring people in. The basement gives them a reason to stay longer. Eckroth calls the lower level the Creative Underground. He told KLCC it holds about 15 art studios and rehearsal spaces, including "multiple artists, music teachers, tattoo artists, tattoo removal."

The Plaza's website names many of the tenants:

Music lessons bring families in on weeknights. Upstairs, KLCC counted four office-based businesses, with more space available to rent. The building's one recurring public event is Music Bingo every Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m.

The Commuter also noticed a 1950s jukebox in the community room. Eckroth roller-skated to it as a kid in his family's basement in North Dakota, and it later went to his uncle. Eckroth got it back when The Plaza came together. It's waiting on a full restoration, and he told the paper he wants to give it another hundred years.

Two blocks north, a bar kept small on purpose

The same thinking turns up at 420 NW Third St. That's where McMenamins put The Wheel, a micro-bar next door to the McMenamins Corvallis Pub, in a round building on the corner that had sat empty for years. The Gazette-Times gave Oct. 7 as its opening date.

Dan McMenamin told the paper that his father and uncle, who founded McMenamins in Portland in the 1980s, both went to Oregon State. His team designed the bar around the building's octagonal shape. Stained glass fills six of the walls, eight beams run across the ceiling, and salvaged wood is used throughout. A spiral staircase behind the bar leads down to a basement with more seating and event space.

He was clear that the small size is the point. McMenamins runs several pint-sized satellite bars, and he said limited capacity makes for a more intimate room. "It brings people close together," he told the Gazette-Times. "It's a human feeling. You go into a really big space, it's not as comfortable."

The Plaza made a big building feel welcoming by splitting it into rooms people can book and stay in. The Wheel took a different route to the same place, choosing a small room on purpose.

Smaller rooms on Second and Fifth

Two downtown openings from the late summer follow the same scale.

Revenir, a wine bar and bottle shop at 208 SW Second St., is run by Kevin Zhang and Cleo Song, who also own Bluebird Hill Cellars. The Corvallis Inquirer reported private soft-opening dates of Aug. 8 and 9. Because it's both a bar and a shop, you can sit down for a glass or pick up a bottle to take home.

Fray Vintage opened Aug. 22 at 202 SW Fifth St., in the space that used to be the Lint vintage store. Owner Lydia Fricke moved her online vintage business into the storefront, according to the Corvallis Inquirer. The same report said Studio Lumos Tattoo was moving from Jefferson Avenue to 126 SW First St. It also said Sew Sisters Fabric Shoppe expected to open downtown in October, though no location had been announced as of that Aug. 25 report.

The last outdoor weeks, then the indoor season

Indoor spaces matter more once the outdoor season ends, and downtown's biggest outdoor routine has about six weeks left. Here's what's still ahead as of Oct. 11:

The Whiteside and Halloween listings come from Visit Corvallis, which says it's still adding events, so details may change. On Halloween, Downtown Trick or Treat includes activities along the waterfront along with participating stores.

The market at First and Jackson is about four blocks from The Plaza's Madison Avenue entrance. On its final Saturday, Nov. 21, it closes at 1 p.m., and Coffee Culture stays open until 6 p.m.

Susan Lee and the Lee Realty Group team keep track of downtown Corvallis openings like The Plaza and The Wheel. If you'd like to talk about what they mean for your part of town, Let's Connect.