Eureka! (soft opening)

I first heard of Eureka! last year, when it was announced that they'd be opening a location in downtown Boise.  Downtown probably needs another burger joint like, well, like I need to eat more burgers.  Still, they do have a burger featuring bone marrow, and a selection of small batch whiskeys.  It's pretty safe to say I was intrigued.  Now I don't seek out freebies.  I don't contact restaurants or PR firms and hint that I'd like to be able to access a place early, or for free, or whatever.  Still, sometimes these people contact me, and I was kind of hoping that would happen in this case, simply because I expected them to be annoyingly busy when they first opened and knew I would likely wait a few weeks or even a couple of months before I finally got around to trying them.  A few weeks back, I signed into my email to see a message from Eureka!'s PR awaiting me, but it turned out to just be an opening date, a press release, and an offer of high res photographs.  You know, just in case I wanted to give them a little free advertising.  Now if you've been reading my stuff for a while, you'll know this is a pet peeve of mine.  I don't just post other people's words and pictures.  Still, I wanted to check them out eventually, and I figured I'd just post my own words and pictures when I got around to it.  I mean maybe they weren't even going to have a soft opening.

Nope.  They did indeed have a soft opening, and yours truly scored an invite, albeit in a completely unprecedented and unexpected way...