Valley Venue and Summit Room, 115 Depot St., opened during the ribbon cutting ceremony on Friday, May 12, 2023.

LA GRANDE — If you have ever wanted to host a small gathering for family, friends or co-workers, but you could not find the right space, then you’ll be happy to know that your “small venue” options have just expanded.

Chef Merlyn Baker of Merlyn’s Catering of La Grande is now offering two community gathering rooms designed just for smaller, more intimate gatherings. He calls them the Valley Venue and Summit Room, 115 Depot St., La Grande.

“The intention here is to provide a facility that is fully functional for the community on the smaller level,” Baker said.

Merlyn’s Catering will continue to produce meals out of the kitchen at the Presbyterian Friendship Center. That won’t change, but what has changed is that Merlyn’s Catering is leasing the Depot Street building from owner James Challis and will be offering these two rooms and the kitchen for rent to the public.

“Clients don’t need to use Merlyn’s Catering (to rent it), but we will apply a discount on the room rent if Merlyn’s Catering is involved,” he said. “We can do catering onsite or just deliver food, if that’s what they want. We can supplement what they have, or if they want us to drop certain things off, we can do that.”

The Valley Venue dining room on the ground level can seat about 30 people and offers a great atmosphere and the Summit Room on the second floor has 777 square feet of floor space and can seat a group between 40 and 80.

“These rooms can be used for anything the client wants,” Baker said. “That could be a family reunion, to a bereavement gathering, to a sewing bee, a contradance, a high school dance, to dinners. Whatever they want to use it for. It can be rented by the hour or by the day.”

All the rental details are found on merlynscatering.net where people can leave contact information. An event coordinator with Merlyn’s Catering will contact the client and work through the event plan, get a quote and schedule a viewing of the facilities. A date is confirmed, and a written contract is produced. The client’s full payment is required upon signature.

“We’re booking out into July right now,” Baker said. “We just barely opened and there seems to be a lot of interest in small venues with an ambiance for people to celebrate with family or friends in a location that doesn’t overwhelm their home.”

The Valley Venue main dining room can be rented alone or in conjunction with its commercial-style kitchen or in combination with the Summit Room as well.

The kitchen in the Valley Venue room is not a commercially licensed kitchen, but it’s available for rent for cooking classes or for events where the client is providing the food themselves. For the latter, the kitchen can be rented as a set-up kitchen without the use of equipment, or a client may rent the whole kitchen with its walk-in cooler, freezer, a big range, two ovens, a griddle, counter space and a toaster oven — whatever the client chooses.

“When renting the kitchen, we ask that people bring their own utensils,” he said. “Merlyn’s Catering does rent out china, glassware and silverware and that’s the choice of the client.”

Alcohol and alcohol service is available for those who want it. Merlyn’s Catering provides the bar service.

“So, there’s a lot of versatility in renting what people want, so they are not paying for more than they actually need,” Baker said.

The Summit Room upstairs is not handicap accessible. It does have stairs on both sides. This room comes blank without chairs and tables, but it can be transformed into a theater-style entertainment room. It has a small stage for a DJ, small band or business presentation. It can also be transformed into a ballroom with party lighting, a portable bar, projector screen and WiFi access.

The Valley Venue room does come with a limited supply of tables and chairs that accommodate about 30 people, and it also has a bar service option by Merlyn’s Catering.

Baker said the Valley Venue room will now become the home of the White Hat Dining Club, which is something that people who enjoy Merlyn’s food can sign up for on the webpage again. One must be a member of the club or be a guest of a member to dine at the club events. Members will receive routine communication on events that are happening and can sign up to attend those events.

The room rentals, catering and dining club events are all enterprises that fall under the Merlyn’s Catering umbrella, but that’s not all they do. The business also sells spices, bakery products, almond milk that they produce and offers cooking classes.

Chef Merlyn Baker has been in the culinary arts profession for 51 years, starting when he was 15 in Minnesota. He spent many years traveling throughout the United States, working for international chefs. His travels took him from the Caribbean to Alaska and from California to New York. He worked for a lot of different ethnicities and chefs from regions all over the world.

Prior to coming to La Grande in 1997 to open Foley Station Restaurant, he was the executive chef at Jake’s Crawfish in Portland. He ran Foley Station Restaurant for about 15 years, closing only because of economic issues across the nation. Then in 2014, he opened Merlyn’s Catering with his good friend, Kevin March, and later Baker took on the business fully. His business survived Covid, and as he moves forward with catering, he’s training some chefs to help him in what he calls his semi-retirement.

Merlyn’s Catering headquarters is located at 1204 Spring St., La Grande, open Tuesdays through Fridays 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. for food order pickups. For more information, check out their website or call Merlyn at 541-786-0123.