The last of Boise’s neighborhood markets just reopened: ‘It’s a wonderful thing’
David VanHoover walked out of the Roosevelt Market carrying a bag containing a sandwich for himself and a salad for his mom.
If you’re used to forgettable convenience store sandwiches, dry roast beef or turkey on equally dry bad bread and packed into triangular-shaped plastic packages, this wasn’t one of those.
No, VanHoover on Thursday carted away a $12 Gondolier, made with soppressata, an Italian dry salami; mortadella, a pork sausage; smoked ham; and provolone cheese. Smeared with olive spread and topped with a pepperoncini, a mild chile pepper. If that wasn’t enough, the sandwich was packed inside a crispy ciabatta roll from Acme Bakeshop in Garden City.
“I don’t really like much in the way of sauces, but I really like what I have on this one,” VanHoover said in an interview.
After being closed for seven months, the Roosevelt Market, at 311 N. Elm Ave., reopened March 31 under new management. Lizzy and David Rex, who operate The Wylder pizza restaurant in downtown Boise and Certified Kitchen + Bakery in Hyde Park, are the new owners.
The Roosevelt Market, an East End fixture and the last of Boise’s independently owned neighborhood markets, first opened in 1918 but see-sawed with closings and openings the past few years.
VanHoover grew up in the neighborhood north of Warm Springs Avenue and east of Pioneer Cemetery and has fond memories of the market in one of its earlier incarnations.
He remembers going after school and paying a penny for mini Tootsie Rolls. “You could come over with a buck and have Tootsie Rolls for a month.”
Today, he still lives less than two blocks away and walks to the store.
“If we ever need any of the basic essentials, it’s right here,” he said. “There’s independence from needing a car to go all the way over to Whole Foods to get a little bit of milk.”
Lizzy and David Rex, owners of The Wylder pizza restaurant in downtown Boise and the Certified Kitchen + Bakery in Hyde Park, are the market’s new owners.
The store is across the street from Roosevelt Elementary School, which was built a year after Roosevelt Market was founded. The store is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
“The Roosevelt Market has always kind of been just a neighborhood meeting place,” David Rex said by phone. “So we do some coffee in the morning, we do five sandwiches and five salads for lunch, soft-serve ice cream, beer and wine and simple groceries.”
Building owners Jill Simplot and her mother, Pam Lemley, bought the building in 2017. The market closed in late 2018, when then-owners Susan Wilder and Nickie Monroe retired after nearly 15 years.
Simplot, the daughter of J.R. Simplot Co. CEO Scott Simplot, and Lemley, the widow of Jack Lemley, an engineer renowned for fixing the troubled Chunnel Tunnel in England, later rebuilt the store located in the East End Historic District.
Sarah and DK Kelly, who operated the former Bleubird sandwich shop in downtown Boise and now run Petite 4 on he Boise Bench, had planned to operate the Roosevelt Market, but their plans changed in 2019.
The market reopened for a few months last year but closed again until the Rex family reopened it.
“It kind of looks like a bar disguised in a little tiny neighborhood market,” David Rex said. “The idea is that we layer things in as we go. We opened pretty simply, but there’s a lot of things that we can do. It’s just going to take us a little bit of time.”
Simplot and Lemley still own the two-story, 1840-square-foot building with 1,389 square feet of store space. Rex said the building is important to Simplot and Lemley for its place in the neighborhood. Rex said he and his wife share that vision.
“People come in and nobody’s really in a rush,” he said. “It’s a natural place for people to meet after they’re done mountain biking. The kids come over after school and buy candy and ice cream.”
Jolie Lickley, who lives about a mile and a half from the store, joined three of her friends for lunch Thursday. It was her first time at the market since it reopened, and she said she was impressed. Sitting at one of several tables, she munched on a $12 East Ender: turkey, dill Havarti cheese and spicy honey mustard, also on an Acme ciabatta roll.
“It’s a wonderful thing for our neighborhood and the community in the East End,” Lickley said.
Friend Amanda King said the market gives the neighborhood a vibe like that found in Hyde Park on 13th Street in the North End.
“I think it’s really important that we at least have one little landmark where you can stay in your neighborhood,” she said.
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This story was originally published April 18, 2022 at 4:00 AM.
