Holy cow, Eagle! Look what’s opening where your ‘go-to’ Buster’s restaurant closed

When Buster’s Sports Bar & Grill closed in January, it was the end of an era.

Buster’s restaurants had served the Boise area for nearly four decades. Opened in 1999, the Eagle location was the last Buster’s standing — a “go-to destination” for the community, real estate broker Ron Ramza said.

Don’t put the landmark building out to pasture just yet.

Holy Cow Idaho! plans to take over at 1396 E. State St. with a goal of opening in October, owner Dylan Hutter said. Eagle residents will sip cold beer and wolf down burgers in the same familiar, updated spot.

This will be the second location for Holy Cow. The original debuted in 2019 at 1226 1st St. South in Nampa before expanding into the space next door.

Holy Cow dishes up creative, mouthwatering hamburgers. The menu also offers meaty sandwiches, baskets, chicken wings, fries — and, naturally, prime sirloin finger steaks.

The signature Holy Cow is a jaw-dropper: Two 1/3-pound grass-fed beef patties, double bacon, American cheese and Holy Cow fry sauce — served between two grilled cheese sandwiches. To clarify, the “bun” is two grilled cheese sandwiches. Made with Texas toast. “Every time we bring one out,” Hutter told the Statesman in 2021, “you tell a customer, ‘Best of luck.’ ”

As Hutter hunted for another Holy Cow home, he had his own stroke of luck. He happened across a social media post about the old Buster’s being available.

What jumped out about the building, Hutter says, is that he was “actually able to imagine it being a Holy Cow.”

“The patio really excited me. That’s what I was gearing towards for whatever we had next. We plan to put a bunch of cool plants and things in and really make it a real feature in Eagle.”

In Nampa, Holy Cow Idaho! has become known as a true family-operated restaurant. It’s owned by Hutter and his mom. The staff has included relatives barely old enough to land a service-industry job. “All of the nieces and nephews ... they all work for us,” Hutter said, “or have worked for us at some point. One of them’s in college now.

“It’s really been realized in the fashion that we wanted, as a family-run business. We’re really hoping to pay that forward in Eagle as well.”

Both restaurants are about the same size, Hutter said. But the Eagle space does have one advantage: roughly quadruple the number of taps. “We’ll have 26 taps,” Hutter said. “We have a lot to play with. That’s exciting as well.”

And even if the capacities are similar in size? The outdoor situations are completely different. “Seat-wise, the patio is the game changer out in Eagle,” Hutter said.

“Summer months will have a nice bump if we can keep that patio full — which I imagine we will.”