Boise bar and restaurant is ‘done,’ won’t reopen. ‘It sucks. My life savings is gone.’

A neighborhood bar and grill on the Boise Bench has fallen victim to the coronavirus.

“We’re done,” Diane Hodges, owner of The Footbridge Tavern, said Thursday.

The restaurant and pub closed March 19 because of the pandemic, and it won’t be able to reopen, she explained.

“We were too new,” she said. “We didn’t have enough cash reserve to tide us over. “

Located at The Shops at Borah Heights at 6555 W. Overland Road, the Footbridge opened on March 23, 2019.

“We were four days short of a year,” Hodges said.

“It sucks,” she added. “My life savings is gone. The first year, we hadn’t turned a profit yet. We were almost there, but with the restrictions in capacity, my rent’s too high. I can’t cover it until business gets back to normal.”

Social distancing requirements would leave seven tables in the tavern, she said, which isn’t a feasible economic model. “If every table was full every single night, maybe. But that never happens.”

The Footbridge sold beer and wine but not liquor. Service was split about 50-50 between being a bar and restaurant, Hodges said. “It didn’t have a kitchen when we moved in,” she said, “so we built out the kitchen and it didn’t get done until August. So we spent all our money building out the kitchen, and all that kind of stuff. The food was just starting to pick up.”

Hodges is disappointed, she said, but is focusing on her other food business, Hello Dinner. (“It would make me a lot less depressed if you talk about that,” she said with a friendly laugh.)

Now in its eighth year, Hello Dinner offers prepared meal delivery at reasonable prices. Entrees range from classic breakfasts to gourmet and meatier options such as wild salmon or slow roasted pork sirloin. Hello Dinner’s kitchen is located at The Footbridge Tavern for now, but Hodges plans to move the operation June 1 to Chow Public Market at the Boise Spectrum.

Hello Dinner’s orders slowed after the COVID-19 scare, she said, but have started to trend back in the right direction. “We’ve been around so long that we have a lot of regulars that order. So we’ll bounce back, for sure.”

As for the demise of The Footbridge Tavern?

“I’ve been in this business for 35 years,” Hodges said. “And you know, everything happens for a reason. And I’m just trying to stay positive that way.”

This story was originally published May 21, 2020 at 12:35 PM with the headline "Boise bar and restaurant is ‘done,’ won’t reopen. ‘It sucks. My life savings is gone.’."