Although the owners of Pelican Brewing say the former LeRoy’s Blue Whale restaurant in Yachats had good bones, it has contractors working on almost all of the building that will become its sixth outlet on the Oregon coast. (Garret Jaros/Lincoln Chronicle)By GARRET JAROS/Lincoln Chronicle
YACHATS – Passersby of the remodeling work taking place on what will be the Pelican Pub Brewery’s newest location on the Oregon coast cannot help but notice that progress is moving at a feverish pace.
A cadre of workers have been buzzing around the exterior of the building on U.S. Highway 101 to finish new cedar-shake siding and expand the parking area to accommodate outdoor seating, while inside the final touches in preparation for filling the 3,000 square foot space are finishing up.
“We started work April 6 but were still pending permits, which we got about a month ago. And then we’ve been pretty much like a locomotive headed forward on it,” said Joe Werkheiser, construction superintendent with JHC Co. of Portland.
There have been anywhere from five to 20 people working on the building at a time, with some coming from Pacific City but most from the Portland area.
Drawing shows what Pelican Brewing’s new restaurant in Yachats will look like when finished this summer. (Garret Jaros/Lincoln Chronicle)The hope is to open for business by mid to late summer, said Pelican co-owner Jeff Schons. “As soon as we know we’ll let people know.”
“The building was completed in 1992 so it needed a few code updates,” Schons said. “But overall, it was a very solid building and very well constructed and designed. I think it’s going to work real well for us. It just needed what we call ‘Pelicanizing’ it, just a facelift to make it good for how we like to do business.”
It is the sixth coastal outlet for Pelican Brewing.
Schons and Mary Jones opened their first Pelican Brewing restaurant in Pacific City, where they’ve lived for the past 35 years, in 1996. They opened a production brewery along with a taproom and large patio in Tillamook in 2013. In 2016 they opened a location in Cannon Beach and in 2022 on Siletz Bay in Lincoln City. Last October they opened a smaller location in Rockaway Beach.
Pelican purchased the property from Crystall and Robert Morigeau, who closed their Whale’s Tail Diner & Pirate Pub in mid-March after operating it for a year. The Morigeaus had purchased LeRoy’s Blue Whale from Don and Angie Lindsley of Waldport, who had operated the restaurant for 45 years.
Werkheiser said there were no surprises or setbacks so the pace of work has been sailing along.
“It’s going to be pretty neat,” he said. “We’re going to have an outdoor 20-foot patio on the south side as well as one running along the west side. They’re wired for automatic awnings — but that’s in the near future and could change.”
Crews have installed 17 new, darker-colored windows that will have wood wraps on the inside. The south and northeast walls will have banquette seating, which are booth-backs with tables and chairs, while the west wall will be booths.
Although Pelican Brewing’s contractors are redoing the interior of the former LeRoy’s Blue Whale restaurant, it has kept the well-known blue whale mural on the outside of the kitchen wall. (Garret Jaros/Lincoln Chronicle)The new pub will also have a 17-foot steel-plated bar with a concrete countertop and a waterfall at the north end. It will have thin-brick decor on the front face and an overbar above with puck lighting.
And for those who knew the location as the longtime home of LeRoy’s Blue Whale might be wondering if the large mural of a blue whale inside the restaurant survived.
“We did save the whale,” Werkheiser said. “That has been a big topic since day one. And we’re going to end up picture-framing around it. And saving pretty much all of it.”
- Garret Jaros covers the communities of Yachats, Waldport, south Lincoln County and natural resources issues for Lincoln Chronicle and can be reached at [email protected]
