Closing now was ‘the last thing’ this Boise restaurant wanted. Facing ‘nightmare,’ it did

If you showed up to Lucky Fins craving lobster mac and cheese over the weekend, you wound up unlucky.

A sign on the well-known seafood restaurant in downtown Boise informed customers that it had closed.

But there’s good news. The longtime Grove Plaza restaurant space will be reinvented this fall with a fresh, sleeker concept.

Its name? Acero.

Lucky Fins, 801 W. Main St., was shuttered July 1, said Ken Chaffee, vice president of operations for Fins Restaurant Group. Part of a regional chain, it opened in 2013. Another Lucky Fins, which debuted in 2011, operates in Meridian. There are no plans to rebrand that location, Chaffee said.

But the downtown Boise spot had run its course, he said. After the pandemic hit in 2020, business in the Grove Plaza never returned to previous levels, Chaffee said.

Acero — an Italian word for “maple” — will arrive later this year, albeit sooner than its owners had planned.

“We are trying to revitalize the downtown scene with something that is ‘wow, beautiful, gorgeous,’ ” Chaffee said. “And just revitalize the Grove area.”

“We just thought downtown needed something better for the downtown crowd,” he added. “Which is no longer family and casual.”

Hastened closure

Fins Restaurant Group had wanted to say goodbye to Lucky Fins this fall, Chaffee said. That way, the restaurant could enjoy one last hurrah during summer, typically a busier time. After that, remodeling would begin for Acero.

But red tape involving a liquor license transition created a “nightmare,” Chaffee said. That necessitated saying goodbye to Lucky Fins sooner than expected.

“The last thing we wanted to do is close all summer long. But that’s where we’re at right now,” he said.

On the flip side for diners, it also means that Acero will be open sooner than initially planned — probably in October, Chaffee said.

‘Casual fine dining’

Acero’s menu will feature nontraditional Italian and Mediterranean cuisine. “It’s not going to be, like, a Luciano’s kind of menu,” he explained. “Nothing like that. More of an eclectic feel on there.”

The restaurant will be more upscale than Lucky Fins, he added, with a strong wine program and full liquor bar that serves as a center of attention inside the space.

“It’ll be casual fine dining,” he said, describing Acero as “bottles, boards and bruschettas, and oh so much more.”

Along with Lucky Fins’ former interior, the outdoor patio facing the Grove Plaza will be overhauled.

The hope is that Acero will jump-start excitement not just at the old Lucky Fins, but in the entire plaza, Chaffee said. While the restaurant and entertainment scene has bloomed nearby on 8th Street in recent years, the Grove Plaza has suffered, he said.

“Back in the day, it was the place to be,” Chaffee said. “(With) Alive After Five kind of things going on, and all the bands. It’s kind of lost that luster. So we’re going to try to bring back that dynamic, focal-point end of the street.”

Lucky Fins is the second Boise restaurant closed this year by Fins Restaurant Group. This spring, it pulled the plug on Naked Fins, 1120 S. Broadway Ave.

That space recently reopened as Zen Baja.

This story was originally published July 5, 2023 at 12:34 PM.