Bedrock Cafe planned in ex-Denny's location

You won’t find Fred Flintstone there, but you will have to walk through a cave to enter Bedrock Café, a new Boise restaurant slated to open late this month at 23rd and Main streets.

Restaurant owner and head cook Adam Al-Hattab of Boise said he expected to finalize a lease by the middle of this month, and hoped to eventually purchase the building. The 3,400-square-foot structure formerly housed a Denny’s restaurant.

Al-Hattab, 29, has worked as a manager for Rockies Diner in Boise and Nampa, and still occasionally helps Rockies’ owner Rockie Paflias run the two remaining Rockies restaurants, in Boise. The Rockies eatery in Nampa closed in early 2000.

Al-Hattab, who has lived in Boise for five years, said the Bedrock Café will feature an American-themed menu similar to Rockies with burgers, fingersteaks, chicken strips, shrimp and steaks. The restaurant will seat 104, employ about 12, and open for lunch and dinner.

The interior of Bedrock Café will include a ceiling-high cave entrance made out of painted foam that diners will pass through as they enter the dining area. A few dinosaurs, also composed of foam, will be scattered throughout the restaurant and the ceiling will probably be painted to depict either a sea of stars or cloudy skies.

“I’m doing all the work myself and I just haven’t figured it all out yet,” Al-Hattab said. “I decided on this theme because I thought the town was missing something. So many restaurants look the same. I wanted a different concept to get people excited.”