It was voted best Boise sports bar for March Madness. Behind Hyde Park Pub’s popularity
Hyde Park Pub & Grill has only about 70 seats, according to owner John Cornell, but that didn’t stop Treasure Valley residents from voting the establishment as their favorite spot to watch March Madness basketball.
After five rounds of voting throughout March, Hyde Park Pub in Boise’s North End defeated 31 other locally owned sports bars in the Idaho Statesman’s March Madness sports bar bracket.
“We appreciate being recognized. We’ve always considered ourselves a neighborhood pub first and a sports bar second,” Cornell told the Statesman. “We cater to not just Boise State, but the Big Ten and the Pac-12 Conferences. And I think that has helped our fan base.”
Hyde Park Pub & Grill is a cozy location with an intimate seating arrangement. Tables and chairs in the middle of the bar are flanked on one side by booths and the other side by a long bar with high stools. A slightly raised sitting area is available at one end of the bar, while a door leading to an outdoor porch is at the other end.
And wherever the eye can see, there are televisions.
On Monday night during the NCAA Tournament championship game, not a single one of those 70 seats was empty.
Amid casual chatter and shouts of excitement and anger — depending on rooting interests — all eyes were glued to the game that was showing on every TV.
Sitting at the main bar in a bright blue sweatshirt with a large blue, red and yellow cartoon bird on the chest, Brian Foltz had a front-row seat for the roller coaster of highs and lows as his Kansas Jayhawks rallied to defeat North Carolina 72-69 to win the national title.
Foltz is a native of Kansas, growing up in a suburb of Kansas City, Kansas, and said he moved to Boise in October. He became a regular at Hyde Park when he first moved to Boise because it’s also a Green Bay Packers watch party location. He decided it would be a good spot for the Kansas-Carolina game as well.
“It feels like a hometown bar,” Foltz said. “Whether you’re a Packer fan, whether you’re just a fan of another team, if you come here, it just feels like you’re part of the watching experience and the sporting experience.”
Along with showing football and basketball games, Cornell said that Hyde Park Pub also shows a lot of baseball, and he called the bar “pretty sports-centric.”
Sitting just behind Foltz at one of the center tables was a group of people Cornell knows as regulars. The quartet said they frequent Hyde Park because John and Michelle Cornell make everyone who walks through the doors feel welcome.
Naturally, they also love the atmosphere during big sporting events.
“It’s a Packers bar mostly, so for those games, it’s insane and a great atmosphere. Everybody’s really into it, and it’s always been a positive experience,” said Danielle Krawl, one of the regulars sitting at the table.
Hyde Park Pub & Grill is located at 1501 N. 13th Street. The food menu features typical sports bar classics like burgers and wings, and a happy hour from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. every day.
“We have an awful lot of regulars, and that probably helped in the voting,” Cornell said. “My kind of line is our frequent customers pay the bills, and the infrequent guests send money home. We have great loyalty from our regulars.”
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This story was originally published April 7, 2022 at 1:32 PM.
