SOAP LAKE — When it’s finished, folks won’t recognize the former clubhouse at the Lakeview Golf and Country Club. 

“It’s going to be a nice destination,” said Shanel Halley, who owns Par 71 with her husband Tanner. “When we get it all put together, we’ll have a nice restaurant with a nice golf course, and it’s going to be one of the places to come in Washington.” 

That opening date is kind of up in the air, Halley said. 

“We definitely are shooting for this year,” she said. “But there have been a lot of hangups and … sourcing of material issues. We’re still actually trying to source some kitchen items.” 

The kitchen will be the domain of head chef Jason Stortz, and it’s been custom-built to his specifications. Stortz, a veteran of Tendrils in Quincy and ENZO in Moses Lake, happened to be golfing at the club one day when he saw the construction going on and went to investigate. He met the Halleys and found his niche, he said. 

Besides planning the kitchen, Stortz has plans for the menu, which will be a far cry from the usual golf course clubhouse. 

“The menu here is steakhouse-oriented,” he said. “I’m hoping for a Saturday (and) Sunday brunch. Then the rest of the week we’ll do lunch from about 11 to probably three or four. The lunch menu would be hamburgers, wraps, sandwiches. I’m assuming, if you’re coming here for lunch, you're probably a golfer.” 

The dinner menu, he said, would be a different matter, the sort of thing people choose for special occasions, like anniversaries. 

“It’s going to have about five different steak items … from a $25 steak to a $105 tomahawk steak for two people, and everywhere in between,” he said. “Then we’ll have a salmon, a chicken dish, a vegetarian dish – about 10 entrees total. My favorite thing on the menu is going to be the duck. I do a killer duck.” 

The dining room is mostly finished, with a mid-century theme to it: low lights and classic furnishings. The building has been completely gutted and rebuilt, Halley said. It had previously served as the golf course’s clubhouse and needed a lot of work to turn it into a destination steakhouse. That process began a couple of years ago when some people from the golf club approached them for advice about what to do with the clubhouse. 

“The building was in really bad disrepair,” she said. “We could (have done) what we would call a Band-Aid: get it up to code, get the roof not leaking, redo some wiring, plumbing, clean it up a bit. (But) as we tore into it, we decided no, this is so much more involved, so we talked with the building department and came up with a plan on what we could do to actually make this a building that's going to last.” 

The Halleys were no strangers to a project like that; they previously owned a construction company specializing in tiny houses. They got into the restaurant business almost by accident, she said; they bought several local buildings and one of those was Twelve Hawks Bar and Grill in Ephrata. 

“We were doing a remodel, and we were just going to turn around and sell it, but as we did the remodel of that, they approached us about doing the remodel at the golf course,” she said. “We had just sold a … commercial flooring company (that) worked nationwide, and we were excited to have a project that was closer to home.” 

Owning and operating Twelve Hawks gave them the introduction to the food service business that they needed to do the Par 71 project properly, she said. 

The name Par 71 is apt, Stortz said, even if it’s not strictly accurate anymore. 

“This was a par 71 golf course, and then they took hole six and extended it another 100 yards to make it par 72, which is regulation standard,” he said. “But since it used to be a par 71, we thought it would be a nice reference to the old course … It’s a throwback, just like a little bit of everything in this building.” 

Par 71 at Lakeview Golf & Country Club
19547 Golf Club Road NW
Soap Lake, WA 98851 

    The décor at Par 71 has a mid-century chic vibe to it, with lots of understated wood and brass.
  

    The former clubhouse at Lakeview Golf and Country Club needed a lot of work to turn it into a destination steakhouse.