Three summers ago, the six storefronts facing the Greenbelt at The Boardwalk sat empty. Not slow. Empty. The apartments above had filled in fast, but developer Vida Properties couldn't get a single food or beverage tenant to sign a lease on the ground floor, even with river frontage and a plaza built specifically for outdoor dining. If you walked the Greenbelt past 41st Street in 2023, you walked past glass.
This summer, that same stretch has a rooftop bar going in, a taco counter with a following in two other Idaho towns, a sports bar that timed its opening to the World Cup, and a Friday night market that shuts down the plaza for live music and local vendors. The riverfront setting is unchanged; the tenant lineup and plaza-wide event programming are new.
Why Six Empty Storefronts Sat That Way for Years
When Vida Properties broke ground on The Boardwalk, the plan was straightforward: build roughly 234 apartments along the Greenbelt, then lease six ground-floor storefronts to local food and beverage operators who would bring their own concepts, their own hours, and their own marketing. The apartments filled up fine, but the six ground-floor storefronts remained unleased in 2023. Individual operators had to commit to a build-out, a staff, and a customer base in a part of Garden City that was still proving itself, all without knowing whether the storefront next door would even be occupied.
Some tenants did eventually sign. Bao Boi and Tim's Burgers opened, gave it a run, and closed last year. Chicken in a Barrel BBQ and Laissez-Faire Wine held on. But a plaza with one or two open doors next to shuttered glass doesn't read as a destination. It reads as a risk, and it keeps foot traffic thin enough that the next operator to consider the space sees the same problem the last one saw.
One Group Took the Whole Plaza, Not One Storefront
Earlier this year, Apex Brand Collection, the hospitality group behind Spitfire Tacos + Tequila and Hemlock, partnered with Vida Properties to take over both new tenant buildout and event programming for the entire Boardwalk plaza, not just one unit. As BoiseDev reported, Apex Brand Collection founder Scott Slater described the property as:
"It's a gorgeous property, and it's an underserved market."
Apex's agreement covers tenant buildout and event programming across the plaza. This year's lineup includes four concepts, alongside the Friday night market.
Here are the four concepts in this year's lineup:
| Concept | What it is | Opening |
|---|---|---|
| Descanso on the Greenbelt | Open-air spritz, beer, and wine bar on the river-facing patio | May 22, 2026 |
| Spitfire Tacos + Tequila | Spit-fired meats and mezcal bar, third Idaho location after Eagle and McCall | June 2, 2026 |
| Ground Rules | Sports bar with a wall of TVs and garage doors that fold open to the plaza | June 10, 2026, timed to World Cup viewing |
| Peregrine Overlook | Fifth-floor rooftop cocktail bar with a circular wood bar and DJ-driven sunset sets | Later this summer |
What a Friday on the Plaza Looks Like Now
The clearest evidence of the shift isn't the restaurant list. It's what happens on the plaza on a Friday night that has nothing to do with any single restaurant's hours. Apex didn't just fill storefronts, it started running a weekly night market on the Greenbelt with live music, local vendors, and food trucks, from 5 to 9 p.m. every Friday, June 5 through September 4. The event takes place alongside the plaza's restaurant and bar offerings.
For visitors, the season runs through Labor Day weekend, so there are still a handful of Fridays left this year.
Ground Rules' opening was timed to World Cup viewing, and its garage doors fold open to the plaza.
The Rest of the Corridor Is Catching the Same Current
The Boardwalk isn't operating in isolation. A few blocks away at 175 E. 35th Street, the space that Puerto Rican restaurant WEPA vacated last summer reopened as Max & Louie's Cafe, a brunch and lunch concept from Lemon Tree founder Jasson Parra that filled a gap Garden City had been missing: a proper sit-down breakfast spot near the Greenbelt. And out on Chinden Boulevard, Krossfade Kombucha Cocktails took over the former Jak's Stripping and Refurbishing building at 4057 W. Chinden Blvd. for a tasting room built around its lower-sugar, kombucha-based cocktails, a Boise State capstone project turned brick-and-mortar brand.
Neither of those openings depended on The Boardwalk's turnaround. Together, they highlight the range of projects along the same industrial-adjacent stretch of Garden City. Garden City has always had the ingredients for this: the Whitewater Park drawing surfers and paddleboarders to the river, the Visual Arts Collective keeping a bar-gallery calendar packed year-round, and a Greenbelt that connects all of it without anyone needing a car. What was missing was density: enough restaurants and bars close enough together that a Friday night didn't require driving somewhere else.
The Riverfront Setting and This Summer's Changes
The river, the Greenbelt, and the Treasure Valley's growth are part of the setting. Those features were present in 2023 too, when the same storefronts sat empty with the same river view. This summer, the plaza has new concepts and a weekly night market; the tenant lineup and programming have changed, while the riverfront setting remains the same.
If you've lived in Garden City long enough to remember when 41st Street was mostly a parking lot for a stalled tower project, this summer is the payoff for that patience. If you're newer to the neighborhood, the Friday night market and the four-concept plaza are as good an introduction as any to what this stretch of the river is becoming.
Garden City's riverfront has spent years being the quiet, slightly overlooked cousin to downtown Boise and Eagle. This year it has a Friday night market and a sports bar built for tournament season, with a rooftop bar slated to open later this summer.
If you're watching this corridor because you're curious what a home near the Greenbelt is actually worth right now, or because a neighborhood this active has you thinking about your own next move, Joyce Little has spent more than three decades tracking exactly this kind of shift across the Treasure Valley. Reach out for a free consultation and home valuation whenever you're ready to talk specifics.
