For many, restaurants are more than just places to eat.
That hibachi restaurant might have been someone’s first date. The local hole-in-the wall? A vacation memory. The tried-and-true lunch spot doubles as a makeshift meeting place for an array of local professionals. Around tables across Southeast Idaho, families, friends and colleagues are making new memories and savoring satisfying food while they are at it.
In our area, restauranteurs are cashing in on our need for good food in good places with good people.
In Pocatello and Chubbuck alone, more than a dozen new restaurants opened in 2016. Most of the new eateries are national chains or franchises and are located around the busy Yellowstone Avenue and I-86 interchange. In 2015, Bannock Transportation counted more than 4,600 average daily car trips around where most of the restaurants are popping up.
In a county with almost 85,000 people, these blossoming chains give thousands a little bit of everything.
For example, the diner who wants their food to come with a side of entertainment, there’s Fuji Japanese Steakhouse. The Japanese bar and grill that specializes in sushi and hibachi opened on June 20, 2016.
Chubbuck is the second location for Fuji, which opened first in Idaho Falls a little over a year ago. Heather Anderson, a server who has worked at both the Idaho Falls and the new Chubbuck location, said there was a niche to fill in the area.
“We were always busy at the Idaho Falls location,” Anderson said. “We expect the same here.”
The menu at Fuji includes sushi, Thai food and hibachi.
“People think hibachi is really crazy,” Anderson said. “Really it’s just chicken or steak or salmon with rice and salad.”
While the hibachi food isn’t too far out of most people’s comfort zone, the show that accompanies it is enough to add a little spice into any night out. Usually, the chef comes out and cooks the food with some added fire juggling and broccoli basketball.
The restaurant is family-friendly and is open both weekdays and weekends. Weekday hours are 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. On weekends, the restaurant is open all day from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
For a quick lunch with something to please everyone’s palate, Noodles & Co. is the place to go. The smell of freshly cooked noodle dishes and vegetables being sliced for a variety of healthy salads shares space with a throng of customers near the intersection of Pole Line Road and Yellowstone Avenue. The noodle-centric fast casual restaurant opened Aug. 7, 2016 to a good-sized crowd.
“It’s been nice and steady,” said Noodles & Company Area Manager Zach Chalkus. “We’ve been able to make everybody super happy.”
The meals are prepared free of any antibiotics or hormones, and management says the Spicy Korean Beef Noodles are usually a favorite. The dish includes a bed of ramen noodles topped with a sweet and spicy Korean-style Gochujang sauce, naturally raised steak, Napa and red cabbage and Asian sprouts and spinach, finished with cucumber, green onions and cilantro.
Regular restaurant hours are Sunday through Thursday, 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday, 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. To place a take-out order, people can download the Noodles & Company App or order online at noodles.com/orderonline.
Chalkus said Noodles & Co. does a lot of market research before opening a new location, and he was pleased with the Chubbuck store.
“We have a chain that does its homework,” Chalkus said.
The location along Yellowstone Avenue is in the same plaza as a Chipotle Mexican Grill and Popeyes Louisiana Chicken, which both opened in the summer of 2016. Just to the north is a new Red Robin Gourmet Burgers and a Panera Bread.
“It’s good to have other choices around you,” Chalkus said. “It gives people a good variety right here in the plaza.”
Looking further around town, The Black Bear Diner and Freddy’s Steakburgers opened near Fuji. An A&W opened closer to Pocatello’s downtown area and a new Jack in the Box recently opened in Chubbuck. All of these new eateries have opened within the space of abut one year.
But not all of the new restaurants are national chains. Some have been started by ambitious entrepreneurs looking to share their cuisine with the community. One such eatery at 465 Yellowstone Ave. in Pocatello, simply called “Filipino Cuisine,” opened last summer by Amor Hale, which serves authentic food that her mother, Aida Dumleo, has been preparing for more than 20 years beginning 7,000 miles away in the Philippine province of Ilocos Norte.
“The first day was very busy,” Hale said. “We didn’t expect a lot of people to come in because we didn’t advertise at all, other than Facebook. But we used our entire three-day supply on the first day.”
Open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., the menu consists of five constant items and several others that frequently rotate with a different special daily. Each entree comes with steamed rice and drink for less than $10.
