A well-known local restaurateur is in negotiations with the city to take a run at a new café in Como Park’s now-vacant Lakeside Pavilion.

Matty O’Reilly — who over the past couple of years has started three successful St. Paul eateries — is now negotiating to try for a fourth.

He is talking this week to officials with St. Paul’s Parks and Recreation Department — which owns the pavilion — about opening a restaurant there come April.

While few details of the proposal have been released, parks officials did mention a tentative name: Spring Café.

O’Reilly declined to comment on the proposal.

Late last year, Dockside — a full-fledged bar and restaurant that also ran a music and theater venue on Como’s waterfront — closed after a roughly two-year run.

Its owner, Jon Oulman — who also runs the Amsterdam Bar and Hall downtown — largely blamed a city-mandated contractual obligation that he remain open through the winter.

A Pioneer Press review of Dockside’s revenues, which were reported to the city as they garnered a portion of the business’s profits, showed that revenue in the winter months was a fraction — often less than a quarter — of what it was in the summer.

Oulman also invested $294,000 in renovations into the facility — including a new kitchen, dock, and comprehensive rehab of the space’s interior.

Those renovations all remain, and in November the city let it be known that it was looking for a new vendor to take on the space. Within weeks, parks officials said they were inundated with interest about the facility, with multiple business owners contacting them.

The deadline for proposals was Jan. 10.

But this week, parks officials said O’Reilly’s proposal was the only one that was actually made. Related Articles Lunds & Byerlys to stay closed on day after Thanksgiving

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O’Reilly is already partnering with the parks department for its Red River Kitchen, an open-air eatery run out of the City House, an old municipal grain terminal that sits on the downtown-adjacent upper landing.

The Kitchen, which is more like a food truck with some adjacent seating, is open only in the warmer months.

City officials didn’t comment in November about whether they might consider relaxing the year-round mandate for the Pavilion, and didn’t comment this week about it either. A parks spokesman said department head Mike Hahm himself was slated to be in negotiations with O’Reilly through Thursday.

In addition to the Kitchen, O’Reilly opened the Bar Brigade in St. Paul’s Mac-Groveland neighborhood last March, and over the summer opened Delicata, a pizzeria that is also in the Como Park neighborhood.

He is perhaps best known for his Minneapolis restaurant Republic, on the West Bank. O’Reilly also tried to open a second Republic in Minneapolis’ Calhoun Square, but it closed after three years in October 2016. Related Articles St. Paul PD highlights surveillance photos of looting suspects, seeks tips

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During a Pioneer Press Q&A several years ago, O’Reilly noted that he’s not a fan of huge menus, and cited Brasa and Meritage as among his St. Paul favorites.

Parks officials said community input made during past public forums when the Dockside was being debated will be referenced and relied on during this week’s negotiations.

There are no additional public forums slated over the use of the space.