Bertie’s

INCLINE VILLAGE RESTAURANT SPOTLIGHT: Bertie’s Hot

Chicken

By Maggie Galloway

SOUTHERN COMFORT FOOD in the middle

of a mountain town? It must be none other than Rick Boyd’s, Bertie’s Hot Chicken.

Previous owner of Brewforia, Rick Boyd opened Bertie’s February 2, 2020, a month before the COVID-19 shutdown with the intention of eventually turning it into a wine bar.

“I’ve been looking for five years for a place to put a wine bar, and this space would work for it, but it needed quite a bit of a renovation,” Boyd said. “Knowing what the permitting process is, we opened up this place without even repainting it. We just thought it would be quick to get Bertie’s open and while we were going through the permitting process, we could sell fried chicken.

When the owners were done with the permitting process, they figured that they could close and reopen into a wine bar and the process would be quick and easy. Shortly after COVID-19 hit so the wine bar idea went out the door with current restaurant restrictions, so Bertie’s Hot Chicken was the temporary answer.

Shortly thereafter, the hot chicken “pop-up shop” turned into being a full-time hit.

“I was only planning to have it be around for a year, but it seems like people like it a lot,” Boyd said. “I was considering turning Bertie’s into a Greek inspired restaurant called ‘Supergyro’ this March, but I already knew that Bertie’s was a hit in Incline Village. We have the exact opposite problem of not enough business, we have too much business for the size of our kitchen.”

Bertie’s quickly pivoted to maintain bustling business while keeping their customers and employees safe and happy.

“That’s why we shrunk the menu down,” Boyd said. “Our menu went from being about 40 items, down to about seven. Its freed up a lot of capacity for us and it speeds up the process of getting the food out.”

Boyd previously owned five restaurants and a brewery in Idaho. He moved to Tahoe in 2015 with plans to retire, but the entrepreneur was restless and had many ideas he needed to write down. Boyd has a whole page full of concepts that he would like to eventually try out including a poke bowl place, a barbecue, a steak house, a sushi place, a philly cheese steak spot, and multiple different taverns. He even planned on opening a “dog bar” down in South Shore.

“It’s like a craft beer bar/coffee bar/dog park,” Boyd said. “So, you can have a beer or coffee with friends while you let your dog run around with other dogs.”

If there ever ends up being a vacant restaurant space in the Tahoe basin, expect Boyd to be the person to fill it.