Ellis Island’s Front Yard to serve favorites, highlight beers

When the Front Yard opens at Ellis Island on Dec. 6, its menu will include a mix of Ellis family classics and beer-infused selections.

“It’s a combination of family favorites that my dad cooked for us growing up and my grandma cooked for my dad,” said Christina Ellis, director of marketing and daughter of owner Gary Ellis. “Great things we found that we love to eat and love to make — a colossal meatball, charcuterie. We’re smoking our own bacon and brisket. And we’re incorporating our beers in every way we can, like fondue with beer cheese, beer cheese on burgers. All that fun stuff.”

The Front Yard is a two-story structure on the northwest corner of the property at 4178 Koval Lane, which has a casino, hotel and brewery. Ellis said it can be completely open-air or enclosed with a shading system. It’ll have two bars, with 18 beer taps on the first floor and 12 on the second, and will serve some specialty brews that will be available only in the Front Yard. There will be live music as often as possible and one mammoth video screen and a bunch of smaller ones — perfect for game days, she said.

With room for just under 300 people, it’ll be able to host events such as corporate gatherings and weddings.

“Everything that Ellis Island has just been too small to accommodate,” she said, “now we have this larger space to do these large-scale events.”