This local restaurant opened where a chain fed Boiseans for years. There’s already a line
Get in line, Boise.
Local staple Big Bun Drive-In just opened its new expansion restaurant at 4999 W. Glenwood St., near the corner of Glenwood Street and Chinden Boulevard in Garden City. It took over a former Carl’s Jr. building that served Idahoans for about two decades before closing in 2023.
The high-profile location is right off one of the area’s busiest intersections. And as lunch hour neared on Monday morning, there already was a wait — both inside the buzzing restaurant and outside in the bumper-to-bumper drive-thru. (Big Bun has a double drive-thru, but only one lane was open.)
Marketing itself as a place “where classic American fare meets old-school values,” Big Bun specializes in hamburgers (20 options!), chicken sandwiches and strips, finger steaks, plus 50 flavors of “hand-spun” milkshakes.
A basic quarter-pound hamburger costs $5.49. But many customers gravitate to calorie bombs such as the half-pound Tom Burger ($11.49). It includes two patties, two slices of American cheese, two slices of ham, two layers of Applewood-smoked bacon, mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato on a five-inch sesame seed bun.
Big Bun has been in Boise for several decades. Last year, its other location at 5816 W. Overland Road in Boise celebrated 70 years in the Treasure Valley. “We’re one of the first drive-in restaurants here in the valley,” Big Bun co-owner Tyler Kellogg told the Idaho Statesman days before that celebration.
With massive glass garage doors and an “indoor-outdoor patio,” as a press release describes it, the new Garden City restaurant has a more modern vibe.
Big Bun offers online ordering through its website. Hours at the new restaurant are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday.
To celebrate the opening, the new location will give away free 12-ounce milkshakes on Saturday, Jan. 18.
Despite closing in Garden City, the Carl’s Jr. chain still operates several Treasure Valley locations.
