‘The nation’s first restaurant and distillery’ wants to open a large Garden City location

Garden City is known locally for its breweries and wineries, but a distillery with a restaurant might be on the way, too.

Boise restaurateur Kevin Settles hopes to build a new Bardenay location at 3100 W. Chinden Blvd., between the Stagecoach Inn and the Riverside Hotel.

Construction plans have been filed with Garden City, but the project remains in the exploratory stage, said Settles, who is the longtime Idaho brand’s founder and CEO.

“We are at the point where we need to see what the city will require and how it will impact the project,” Settles said. “Numbers have to work and building and equipment is expensive these days!”

If nothing dramatic and unexpected occurs, and costs remain on their current course, “I feel really good about it,” he said.

Bardenay launched its original location nearly a quarter century ago at 610 W. Grove St. in Boise. Since then, it has expanded to 155 E. Riverside Drive in Eagle and to Coeur d’Alene. There’s also a small Bardenay inside the Boise Airport.

Many Idahoans don’t realize it, but Bardenay was a groundbreaking endeavor when it appeared in downtown Boise in 1999. “Bardenay is proud to be the nation’s first restaurant and distillery,” its website explains.

Setting itself up to compete more intensely with national liquor brands, Bardenay recently upgraded the look of its bottle labels. “We’re in the process of trying to push the sales of bottled spirits a little harder,” Settles said.

If that effort is successful, Bardenay will need more distilling capacity. That’s where the Garden City location would be important. Its plans include a roughly 3,000-square-foot distillery. Bardenay’s largest distillery now — the one in Eagle — is a little over 700 square feet, he said.

The entire Garden City building would be 6,000 to 6,500 square feet, Settles said — or about 7,500 including a covered patio.

The building site is owned by the Riverside Hotel, he said.

Different Bardenay locations distill different spirits. Boise makes ginger rum, amber rum, aged rum and rye whiskey; Eagle does gin, lemon vodka and fruit-flavored liqueurs; and Coeur d’Alene handles vodka, according to Bardenay’s website.

All the locations are known for a food menu that ranges from burgers and sandwiches to pasta, salmon and steaks.

Bardenay in downtown Boise rates 4.1 out of 5 stars on Yelp and 4.6 out of 5 stars on Google.