BOISE, Idaho — After 42 years in business, downtown Boise bar and night club Humpin’ Hannah's reopened as a restaurant on Saturday.
The establishment has been closed for nearly six months. With the exception of a couple of weeks in June, before Ada County rolled back to stage three of the governor's reopening plan and Central District Health forced bars to close.
“Honestly I don’t think it was really the time for bars to open and you know we've all made mistakes throughout this process, but we've never been through this kind of thing before,” said Humpin’ Hannah’s co-owner, Rocci Johnson. “So, it's kind of learn as you go.”
She told KTVB that the staple in the downtown Boise bar scene received a food service license and passed inspection on Friday. The license allows the night club to transform into a restaurant. Hannah's will now be serving pizza and alcohol and now patrons will be served at a table and not at the bar.
“We’re going to be very strict," Johnson said. “So, it's not going to be the normal setting that you would have and the super-duper party atmosphere, we're just wanting to get open safely and responsibly for our staff and patrons. So, we're going to be requiring mandatory masks.”
There will be some other noticeable differences, including no more live music or dancing. The restaurant will be running at 25% capacity and will enforce social distancing.
“It's not going to be the typical Humpin’ Hannah's that you've seen in the past because that just can’t happen right now,” Johnson explained. “It's tough but we know it's been tough for everybody out there so we just have to put our noses to the grindstone and make this work and we have to do it right. We have to do it in a way that we don’t put people at risk, especially our staff and our beloved patrons, it's been tough but we can make it work."
Johnson’s husband contracted COVID-19 and was hospitalized and she told KTVB that they take the pandemic very seriously and are being extra cautious.
As of right now, Humpin’ Hannah’s will only primarily serve pizza and will be open Wednesday through Saturday.