McMenamins Grand Lodge

My sister and I enjoyed a soak in the outdoor soaking pool and a yummy dinner for President's day. The pool was deliciously warm and the company great. After soaking we went to the main restaurant in the lodge and shared the flat bread with goat cheese and figs and the Truffle fries. Yummy!

What a fantastic compound! This beautiful old former Masonic retirement home is filled with amazing architectural details and amenity delights! We only had time for lunch and a walkabout, but I’d love to come back and stay here someday! Movie theater and soaking pool on the premises. Nice wee gift shop, lovely gardens. Gracious exterior hidden away from the main drag/highway. Enchanting!

As much as I love McMenamins and what they have done to revitalize old buildings, I cannot recommend the Grand Lodge. They put us in a basement room that was wedged between two bars, one in the hallway just outside our door and the other, across the hall. The band played until about 10:30 p.m. the first night but the yakking went on until 1 a.m. At various times, the bar patrons sat on the sofa outside our door talking loudly (to be heard over the band). Another time, someone tried to get in our room. Apparently, seeing a door marking the "Jerry Garcia" room was too intriguing to pass by without trying. The room itself was dark and cold. The window was dirty and what little view there might have been was obscured by debris and foliage. While we knew the bathroom was shared, (it had never been a problem at other places we've stayed), we didn't expect we'd have to walk through the bar in our pajamas to use it. Of the five bathrooms serving a large number of rooms, two were out of order for the entire three days we were there. The bathrooms lacked surface areas for us to put clothing on while showing. Before we left we looked over some of the upstairs rooms and they were vastly better than ours. No comparison. If you have any interest in staying here, I suggest you speak to someone while you are making your reservation and pick out your room in advance. I had no inkling when I made our reservation that we would be staying in the building's armpit. These rooms should be reserved for drunks who can't drive home and wouldn't mind the noise and lack of privacy. (BTW, we are not new to the funky fun of McMenamins. We stayed in the Elks Temple in Tacoma and had a blast. It was a much different experience.)

Foodies beware . Very neat experience. Cool theme lots of nostalgia. Nice hot pool outback. However! The food was egregious. Disgusting. It’s expensive and it’s just terrible. I ordered fish and chips for $22 and it was 2 pieces half cooked frozen fish fillets. Just trash. Same for my husbands food and my kids. We literally spent over $100 on food worse than gas station food. So bring your own snacks when you come stay here :) I’d order a pizza or something and sit with it someplace on the property. Don’t waste your money at the many restaurants on site.