This Boise restaurant had some of the best finger steaks around. They’re going away
Two years ago, USA Today named the finger steaks at Boise’s Dutch Goose the 8th-best in the state. This year, they won second-place behind the Westside Drive-In in the Statesman’s Best of Treasure Valley reader awards.
The chunks of hand-carved tri-tip coated with a light batter that fries up crispy have been a favorite for decades.
The Dutch Goose’s finger steaks, steamed clams, fish and chips, burgers and draft beers are set to disappear as the tavern and restaurant at 3515 W. State St. prepares to close.
Owner Tom Moroney has sold the business, and the Dutch Goose will close after business on Wednesday, according to a Facebook post.
“It’s been a great ride Boise!” the Dutch Goose said on its Facebook page.
The post said a new owner plans to open at the building in April. That person has not been publicly identified.
Boise resident Lanny Huff dropped by the Dutch Goose a few minutes after its 11 a.m. opening Tuesday to beat the crowd he knew would show up. Huff has been eating at the Dutch Goose since 1999, five years after it opened.
“I have a lot of memories, that’s for sure: poker games, dollar beers, throwing horseshoes and, of course, the fantastic food,” Huff said by phone.
For his final meal, Huff ordered a buy-one-get-one-free bacon-cheeseburger combo. It’s a $10 Dutch Goose Tuesday tradition.
He also raved about the finger steaks. “They’re fabulous,” Huff said.
An hour later, when Huff walked out of the Dutch Goose, the parking lot was full.
“There were people standing in line outside,” he said. “Everyone wants to show support for the Dutch Goose. It’s been a staple here in Boise for a long time.”
The Dutch Goose joins more than 40 Boise restaurants that have closed either temporarily or permanently in 2020. The coronavirus pandemic gets the blame for most of the closings.
Boise resident Chet Nowak lamented the restaurant’s closure.
“It’ll never be the same,” Nowak wrote on the Dutch Goose’s Facebook page. “The staff is some of the friendliest in the Valley. I guess, no, I know we’ll be in tomorrow for the farewell.”
Former Boise resident Veronica Daley Zaleha said she was saddened by the closing.
“(It was) a favorite gathering place while I lived in Boise and my go-to reunion spot any time I visited,” she wrote on Facebook. “The best fish and chips anywhere. I’m going to miss this place so much!”
The Dutch Goose opened in April 1994. It was patterned after the original bar and restaurant with different ownership in Menlo Park, California, near Stanford University.
Maroney was not available to talk Tuesday. He told the Idaho Statesman in January that he was looking to sell the business. Operating the Dutch Goose and Sully’s Pub & Grill in Star was running him ragged, he said.
“The bottom line is I’m working too much, man,” Moroney said then. “I’m working 6-1/2 days a week between the two of them. There’s just not a lot of labor in the Valley right now.”
It’s unclear whether the new owner plans to reopen the restaurant in April as the Dutch Goose or under a different concept.
Before it was the Dutch Goose, the building operated as the Big Pine. A fight scene in the 1980 Clint Eastwood film “Bronco Billy” was filmed there.
The Goose was once so popular that in 2003 a Boise fire marshal issued a warning after Boise police counted 222 customers, 100 above the building’s legal capacity.
Midwest resident Pat Anderson Carter said she would miss the Dutch Goose when her family visits Idaho.
“Almost always visited when we came to visit from Indiana,” Anderson Carter said on Facebook. “Finger steaks, fries and a pitcher of beer with a slab of mud pie. Yum!”
BoiseDev.com first reported the closing.
This story was originally published December 29, 2020 at 2:32 PM.
