Blackfoot, Idaho: Get Fried and Baked (Potatoes)

Eastern Idaho’s Blackfoot celebrates tantalizing taters, and the outdoors

written by James Sinks

As the saying goes, it’s like the other vegetables aren’t even trying.

A veritable vestige of versatility, potatoes can be enjoyed baked, boiled, shredded and browned. Tater Totted and curly fried. They make chips addicting, mashers magical, gnocchi noshable and latkes luscious. And the tour de force? Hello, vodka.

The friendly potato also helps stave off scurvy thanks to abundant vitamin C. And as a good source of fiber, they’ll keep you on the go.

Because they do so much to improve our earthly lives, you’ll be pleased to know there’s a place to celebrate the tubular tubers. Appropriately enough, it’s in Idaho.

The city of Blackfoot, which dubs itself the Potato Capital of the World, invites visitors to prowl the Idaho Potato Museum, an homage in a 5,500-square-foot former train depot. You’ll know you’ve arrived because there’s a mammoth, selfie-friendly fake spud out front.

While it may sound half-baked, the space attracts some 45,000 visitors annually to explore the culinary, commercial and cultural—from Mr. Potato Head to a video game-style spud-cultivating experience to the world’s largest Pringle potato chip crisp. How large? It’s about 1 foot by 2 feet in size, and listed in the Guinness Book of World Records.

“Organizers didn’t even know if a museum based on potatoes would attract visitors,” said executive director Tish Dahmen. “Happily, this community experiment worked.”

Save room for lunch. At the museum’s Potato Station Cafe, the spread includes a baked potato bar, fresh-cut french fries, waffle fries and fried discs called potato dollars. The staff asks you to give them two hours’ notice for the bakers so they can be prepared to “the perfect fluffiness.”

And does Dahmen have a favorite style? “Seriously? Who can choose just one way to eat potatoes?”

At the Spud Sellar gift shop, find cookbooks, potato starch soap and toys. For cheesy romantics, the museum also invites you to write odes about the specialness of taters. Among the submitted sentiments in the “Potato Poetry Corner”: “I am a hot potato, desired, craved, naughty potato me.”

According to the Agriculture Marketing Resource Center, potatoes are the most valuable vegetable crop in the United States. And no place in the country grows more of them than the Gem State, where rich volcanic soil helped farmers harvest an astonishing 12 billion pounds in 2023, according to the U.S. Potato Commission. Rounding out the rest of the top five domestic producers were Washington, Wisconsin, Oregon and North Dakota.

A roadside attraction since 1988, the museum opens daily through the summer and six days a week the rest of the year. Admission is $7 for adults, $5.50 for students and $6 for military and seniors.

Bingham County, where Blackfoot is located, is the state’s biggest volume potato producer. It’s the headquarters for a potato-harvesting farm equipment manufacturer called Spudnik and serves as the annual home to the late-August Eastern Idaho State Fair. Just north of Blackfoot is the farm town of Shelley, set to stage its annual spud festival in September, featuring games including a tug-of-war over a pit of mashed potatoes, Dahmen said.

Yet while potatoes are fun, there’s more to Blackfoot—and you can mash quite a bit more into a visit.

Home to 12,346 people in 2020, Blackfoot sits along the Snake River roughly midway between Idaho Falls and Pocatello on U.S. Interstate 15. Out past the farms and tractors, it’s a jumping-off point to high country adventure.

Hike, camp, golf, bird-watch and explore craggy volcanic landscapes that were once the range of Indigenous tribes including the Shoshone-Bannock people, before the westward expansion got going in the 1850s. Just to the south, branches of the Oregon and California trails converged at Fort Hall.

To the east, the steep-sided Blackfoot River Canyon is a rookery for soaring eagles, hawks, owls and other raptors. In the Wolverine Canyon section, trails invite mountain bikers, and cliff walls beckon rock climbers. Want to escape the summer heat? In some places, the river is floatable in canoes and kayaks. In others, Class IV and Class V whitewater makes the route popular with expert river runners, when there’s enough water flow.

At Hell’s Half Acre Lava Field, a National Natural Landmark, three trails crisscross a 4,000-year-old Hawaiian-style lava field, and, without tree cover, you also can bake in the summer sun like a potato.

Feeling lucky? Wager actual (non-spud) dollars at the Shoshone-Bannock Casino Hotel, or foil your competition under the Saturday night black lights at Pindale Lanes.

Not surprisingly, taters populate local menus, including at Taste of Teton steakhouse, in the city’s several-block downtown district. Find Idaho nachos with waffle fries at Tommy Vaughn’s Grill, loaded cheesy potatoes with brisket at Blackhawk BBQ Pit, carne asada fries at Vazquez Mexican Restaurant and a stroganoff baked potato at Rupe’s Burgers.

Dig in at Taste of Teton steakhouse.
(photo: Taste of Teton)

At the Candy Jar, a kids’ paradise and dentists’ shop of horrors across from the Potato Museum, load up on marshmallowy Idaho Spud Bars plus chocolate milk made with potato flakes.

Candy Jar offers an array of treats to satisfy any sweet tooth.
(photo: Candy Jar)

Finally, toast tantalizing taters—and your East Idaho adventure—at watering holes like Tumbleweed Saloon, with potato juice of the intoxicating variety. Several Idaho labels including 44° North and Grand Teton Distillery concoct gluten-free vodka with local crops. If you’re going to get fried, it’s a good-spirited way to do it.