No admission posted, 1–5 Saturday, 120 S. Kimball Ave., Caldwell.
The Rundowntoday in 40 seconds
- 0115,000 expected, 70 vendors, four taps, and a strudel clock all Saturday.
- 0282 today, 89 by Sunday, dry all week — mornings the window.
- 03Farm day in Caldwell Saturday; a chicken calls the 4:15 bingo.
- 048th Street's reopened block throws a First Thursday party, 5–7, stamp card and all.
- 05WinCo's third-ever CEO sets a 2027 exit; no successor named.
Today's Edition
A chicken walks a numbered bingo board at 4:15 Saturday in Caldwell, and no admission charge is posted. That's in Family Budget, next to the Meridian Oktoberfest in The Table — free to enter, $5 for the beer wristband, with eating contests from eleven to sundown.
The Forecast has the climb to 89 by Sunday, so mornings are the window. Arts & Culture takes tonight's 8th Street party, the block that lost a summer to construction. And Local Hustle marks WinCo's third CEO heading for the door — the company its employees bought in 1985.
A chicken walks a numbered bingo board at 4:15 Saturday in downtown Caldwell.
— The Editor
The morning cover — one frame for the whole edition
THE TABLE
Meridian Oktoberfest runs 11 hours on strudel and brats
Free at the gate Saturday, $5 for the beer wristband, and a contest clock from 11 a.m. to sundown.
Meridian Oktoberfest runs eleven hours Saturday on Idaho Avenue and 2nd Street in downtown Meridian, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and the Meridian Chamber of Commerce builds the whole day around eating. Admission is $0. Want a beer? Bring a photo ID and buy the $5 wristband at the stations on site. About 15,000 people, about 70 vendors working food, crafts and retail.
Four taps pour all day: Loose Screw Beer Co., 127 Saloon, Voodoo Brewing Meridian and Sockeye Brewing. The eating is paced like a clock. Youth strudel at 11 a.m., adult strudel at 4, the pretzel toss at 2, and the brat eating contest at 6:30. Boise Edelweiss plays from noon to 3:45; Soul Patch takes it from 7:30 to close.
Saturday hits 86 and sunny, so a hat and a water bottle earn their keep before the first bratwurst clears the grill. Generations Plaza runs kids' crafts from 10 to 1, which hands a parent a quiet window to go find a pretzel.
What to Order • If you're undecided: nothing to pre-order. Walk the 70 stalls first, free, and let the line length pick for you. Beer wants the $5 wristband and an ID, nothing more. • If you want the full experience: grab the wristband early, pick a brewery, and settle in before the 4 p.m. adult strudel contest. • If you already know what you want: the $5 wristband is the only fixed price the Chamber posted. No vendor menus went out, so graze.
Bring a group, kids included — this is a daylong downtown crawl, not a date night.
📍 Idaho Ave. & 2nd St., downtown Meridian 🕒 Saturday, Oct. 3, 10 a.m.–9 p.m. 💰 Free entry; $5 for a 21+ beer wristband (photo ID required) ★ Best value: the $5 wristband, if you came for the pour
The last event of the night is a stein hold at 7:20 p.m. Sunset in Boise on Saturday is 7:21. So the steins go up one minute before the sun goes down.
— Nina's Table: eleven hours, four taps, and strudel on the clock.
The arms go up at 7:20, the sun goes down at 7:21.
Source · Meridian Chamber of Commerce
THE FORECAST
82° / 53°
A steady climb to 89 Sunday, and no rain anywhere in it
MOOD OF THE SKY: STEADY. A ridge of high pressure has set up over Boise and it is in no hurry to leave. Today settles at 82 under full sun, the wind a polite 5 mph out of the west come afternoon. Tonight eases to 53, mostly clear.
From there the thermometer just keeps climbing. Friday takes us to 85, Saturday to 86, and Sunday leans all the way to 89 as warm southerly air drifts up from the Southwest. The NWS calls the whole run 10 to 15 degrees above normal, dry clean through next week. No front to wait on. No watches or warnings posted for southwest Idaho.
Each day saves its heat for the afternoon, so the morning is the window for a run on the Greenbelt or a loop above Table Rock before the sun climbs, and that goes double Sunday. One thing to watch sits up high: the NWS flags thin smoke aloft and some surface haze Friday through Sunday off prescribed burns in the region, so the distant hills may read soft instead of sharp.
A weak disturbance late Sunday into Monday nudges in a 5 to 10 percent chance of showers, and only near the Nevada border and the south-central mountains. Down here in the valley, nothing. Sunrise is 7:42, sunset 7:25, and we are shedding about three minutes of daylight a day now. The sky has opinions, and this week it has made up its mind. Sunday: 89 and sunny.
TODAY
82° / 53°
STEADY
TONIGHT
53°F
Mostly Clear
TOMORROW
85°F
Mostly Sunny
Source · NWS Boise
FAMILY BUDGET
FAMILY BUDGET
A farm day in downtown Caldwell, with bingo called by a chicken
Hay Day runs 1 to 5 Saturday at Indian Creek Plaza: tractors, pumpkins, and a grape harvest kids can get into.
A live chicken decides the bingo winner, and the square it lands on wins.
A live chicken decides the bingo winner at 4:15 Saturday, and that is the headliner of a fall afternoon at Indian Creek Plaza. Hay Day runs 1 to 5 p.m. at 120 S. Kimball Ave. in Caldwell, the first one Destination Caldwell has thrown. No admission is posted on the plaza page, and FromBoise's October roundup lists it as free. The bingo squares cost money, and nobody's published that price.
What the kids can touch This one's built for hands. The plaza lists a grape harvest, hops, pumpkins and seeds, plus antique tractors and industrial equipment parked for a close look. Add local vendors and farm activities pointed squarely at families, and you've got an afternoon that doesn't ask a kid to sit still for any of it. For littler ones, the tractors alone can run out the clock.
The music and the floor Boulder Hill and Fiddle Express play live, and Dirt Road Dancing runs country swing and line dancing if anyone in your crew wants to pick up a step. Bring the dog on a leash. No glass, and alcohol comes only from the plaza bar — the kind of plaza rule worth knowing before you pack a cooler.
Saturday sits at 86 and sunny with light wind, and the whole thing runs through the warmest stretch of the day, so hats and a water bottle earn their spot in the bag. There's a parking map on the plaza website, worth a glance before you load the car. This is the same plaza that opened in July 2018, a $7.4 million build on the old King's Variety Store site.
What it costs: nothing posted at the gate, with bingo squares priced on site. How long: four hours, 1 to 5. Who it suits: families with kids who'd rather study a tractor than hold still. The call: no posted admission, hands-on, and about half an hour from Boise, which makes it an easy yes for a bored Saturday.
About that chicken. At 4:15 a live one walks a giant numbered board, players buy squares, and whichever square it, ah, lands on takes the prize. Destination Caldwell calls it “absolutely hilarious, surprisingly suspenseful, and quite competitive,” per the Idaho Press. Going? Reply with the square you'd buy.
Source · Indian Creek Plaza / Idaho Press
ARTS & CULTURE
The 8th Street block reopens
tonight with a First Thursday party
A magician, a caricature artist, music and a 15-stamp card, 5 to 7 on the stretch that lost its summer to construction.
Some of the concrete poured on 8th Street this summer didn't meet the project's standards, so crews tore it out and started over. That's the short reason this block is throwing its reopening party tonight instead of in early September. First Thursday has been a downtown habit for more than 30 years, and the City of Boise and the Downtown Boise Association run tonight's edition 5 to 7 p.m. on the south block, Main to Idaho — the stretch that's been car-free since the 2020 pandemic pilot that let the patios spread out.
Why it lands now instead of September The original finish was September 4. The redone concrete pushed it to September 25, which is why the party meant for early September lands tonight. BoiseDev's newsletter yesterday called the block "(partially) open." The $2.2 million job went to Guho Construction, which added crews after the city also hit underground utility conflicts and squeezed in geothermal upgrades while the street was open. The city's plan for this phase calls for more trees, public seating and separated walking and cycling zones.
What's on the block Live music, a roaming magician, a caricature artist, face painting, carnival-style pop-ups and local vendor booths. Mayor Lauren McLean, in the city's release, called 8th Street "a place where Boise comes together," built now for people to "stroll, roll and gather." Local businesses put together a Boise on 8th Field Guide, a walking directory with a stamp card. Collect 15 stamps from participating spots and you win a prize.
How the evening runs Show up at 5 while the stamp card's fresh and the magician is still roaming. Work the block, hit the vendor booths, pick up stamps as you go. The whole thing wraps at 7, so for once a First Thursday doesn't send you home in the dark. Go early. Work continues north toward Bannock through November; this is the part that's finished.
The block that lost its summer to construction gets its party tonight.
Source · City of Boise
boise.term — zsh — 120×40
$ boise --today --topic=local hustle
> WinCo's third CEO is retiring. The board hasn't named the fourth.
In 1984 Grant Haag was stocking produce at a store called Waremart in Oregon. By May 2027 he'll have retired as CEO of the company that store became, WinCo Foods, which announced Tuesday he's stepping down after 42 years, about eight of them in the top job. He's only the third CEO since the 1985 employee buyout. The board hasn't picked the fourth. Haag will work alongside whoever that turns out to be through the handoff.
The path from clerk to corner office ran through every rung: produce department manager, district manager, SVP of operations, president, then CEO in 2019, when he took over from Steve Goddard. That climb reads a certain way at a company its own workers own. Before Goddard, Bill Long ran the place for two decades.
The ownership is what makes this a Boise story and not just a grocery one. Long joined Waremart as a store manager in 1968, when the store sat on the Boise Bench; employees bought the company out from the co-founding Ward family in 1985. “Serving WinCo and working alongside our employee owners has been one of the great privileges of my life,” Haag said in the company's announcement, reported by BoiseDev.
The numbers behind the handoff are large. National Retail Federation figures cited by BoiseDev put WinCo at $10.89 billion in 2024 sales across 140-plus stores in ten states, roughly $77 million a store, and Forbes ranks it the nation's 52nd-largest private company. Back in 2006, under Long, it ran 54 stores. Whoever's name goes on the door next inherits a Boise company that has more than doubled its store count and is still owned by the people stocking its shelves.
/* A produce clerk in 1984, the corner office by 2019, and the fourth name still blank. */
Source · BoiseDev
📋 The Ledgerwhat we're watching — and when it moves, you'll read it here
- ●Union Block, 710–722 W. Idaho St. — RFQ closes October 15; contractor selection, repair details and a timeline; the who-pays ruling; the 9th Ci… (watching since 6/23) · Δ 9/29: 2026-09-29: city issued an abatement RFQ; proposals due Oct 15
- ●BSU Pac-12 transition — Pac-12 opener vs Utah State, Saturday October 3, 5:30 p.m. MT, CBSSN; whether the ranking holds (watching since 6/23) · Δ 9/29: 2026-09-29: 3-1, AP No. 22
- ●Ibaia (formerly Basque Ranch) — Brighton's north Meridian annexation — Meridian Planning and Zoning Commission hearing (not yet calendared); City of Star's position on the area-o… (watching since 9/29) · Δ 9/29: 2026-09-29: opened by The Market
- ●UNVERIFIED — Canyon County $1M+ home sales, August 2026 — Verify against Intermountain MLS Canyon County data or a Canyon-reporting primary before any use (watching since 9/29) · Δ 9/29: 2026-09-29: filed unverified
- ●Red Ridge Village — DF Development's 722-unit 'new city' on 2,250 acres near McCall — The Valley County Planning and Zoning work session September 24 on DF Development's outstanding information… (watching since 9/3) · Δ 9/25: watch date passed (2026-09-24) — resolve or renew