(West Okoboji)– A popular attraction in West Okoboji will see a new addition this upcoming season. Matt Mathiesen, owner of West O Beer, tells KUOO news they plan to expand their taproom to include an outdoor space. He says they came up with the idea following the flood last year…
“Of course after last summer we, you know, with all the flooding and everything we were looking to do something outside the box. One of the things that we started to talk about was more space, especially for families and kids and decided hey, let’s expand our parking to the north, then we’ll take that parking to the east of the building and create an outdoor open space which we’re going to call it The Terrace.”
Mathiesen says the name plays off the fact the brewery is located on Terrace Park Boulevard. He says the project will include some handicap parking and a number of other amenities…
“We’ve had those in the past and we’ve had to get rid of them for various reasons, so that’s going to be at the top of our list, is pouring those handicap accessible parking spaces. And then it’s going to be relatively easy. It’s going to be kind of generally a square area that’s going to have a fence all the way around. We’re going to plant some hop vines that are going to fill those in over the next few years. There will be string lights overhead. There will be a couple of large 17 by 17 shade structures. Of course we get a lot of shade in the afternoon up in that space too, from the building, so just to help that out a little bit. Then we’ll have some seating. We’ll have a small stage for some performances, musicians, and a small play area for children. We’ll also have some games in there, we’ll have, we talked about having a couple sets of bag boards out there, a couple of other things on our list that we’re going to refine yet before it opens middle to end of May.”
Mathiesen says the new space will encompass 2,500 square feet. He says information on a grand opening for the new outdoor area will be forthcoming.
