Boise’s Culinary Oz

Restaurant Row on 8th: For eco-restaurateur Dave Krick, it’s not just about where his food comes from, but also where it’s going in Boise, Idaho. PHOTO BY KAREN DAY

DAVE KRICK

By M.M. Sigler

Unassuming in his signature baseball cap, glasses, and sincere ah-shucks smile, Dave Krick is one of Boise’s most prolific restaurateurs, and a quiet force for sustainability and change in Boise’s food and restaurant scene since his family opened Bittercreek Alehouse in 1996.

The frontman for the venture, Krick began working to shape downtown’s culture. His mantra — “Just Eat Local” is more than a catchphrase. It became a way of building the business, downtown’s culture and community.

The tipping point happened in 1999 when the Capital City Public Market moved to 8th Street.

“That was the catalyst,” Krick said. “I was naive in thinking, ‘We sell food, so we’re gonna support these local farms.’ Early on, it was self-serving. People liked us because we’re supporting local producers.”

It wasn’t that easy.

“Small farms aren’t built to sell to restaurants in a way that is economical, or that works with chefs and consumers,” Krick said.

It was a puzzle he was keen to solve. As he leaned into the idea, Just Eat Local became a brand and now a website that touts products he sells and the people who make them.

That groundwork put him in the right place when the pandemic shut everything down. No one knew what was going to happen. State and city officials were hamstrung.

“It was chaos,” he said. “You can do things in a crisis, you can’t do any other time. Our businesses were in complete collapse, so it was easy to get people to say, ‘Let’s put this thing together.”

Krick and other downtown business owners came together to create City of Good, which helps low-income people access local food; and FARE Idaho, a trade organization for independent producers, restaurants, grocers and makers, that surprisingly is the first of its kind in the nation, said FARE executive director Katie Baker.

“We believed that there were other associations like this so there would be a model out there, but there wasn’t,” she said. Now FARE is the model.

Krick is the nexus between the two. Though he would never call himself the instigator, longtime downtown advocate and FARE board president Rocci Johnson would.

“He’s a mover and shaker like me,” Johnson said. “If he picks up the phone when I call, I know we’re going to get some shit done.”

“I think all of us are trying to find our place,” Krick said. “I’m in the food industry. I understand it. I care about the changing climate we live in. Through food, there are solutions, and we desperately need our ag producers to be part of those solutions.”

Now, two years post-COVID and “... the story isn’t done,” he said. One lesson of shutdown and recovery is that people need to be paid better, so wages have increased. “That’s good news.”

That further tightens margins and restaurants cut costs by cutting jobs. Smaller kitchen staffs use more processed food, he said.

“The work now is to make it affordable to purchase local food. That’s good for everyone.”