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Happy Monday, Meridian!
Ninety-three today and it climbs from there — 95 tomorrow, 96 Wednesday. That's the back half of August doing exactly what the back half of August does. Good news: the point forecast feed we've been complaining about for a week finally woke up, so today's numbers are genuinely today's.
In today's issue: The Curb Bar & Grill can't open, so it's throwing a party for the staff who can't work — Sunday afternoon in the parking lot, free food, all proceeds to the employees. City Hall's third floor gets a new show on Sept. 1, and the reception is worth the elevator ride. Six things to do, and Friday night football is finally back — Rocky Mountain at Owyhee, 7 p.m. A meme about the only sensible way to spend a 93-degree afternoon. And a trivia question about how many people moved in next door last year. Let's get into it.
In this issue
🍔 "Rally for The Curb" — Sunday, 1–5 p.m., every dollar going to the shuttered restaurant's staff
🎨 "Elemental Vision" opens Sept. 1 in the Initial Point Gallery, free, weekdays 8–5
🏈 Friday night football returns: Rocky Mountain at Owyhee, 7 p.m.
☀️ 93 today, 95 Tuesday, 96 Wednesday — no advisories, just heat
📅 Six things to do, plus a golf tournament and a new farm market worth booking now
🧠 Trivia: how many people Meridian added in a single year
🧠 Trivia: Between 2025 and 2026, Meridian gained more residents than all but two cities in the Treasure Valley. Roughly how many people did we add in that one year? (Answer at the bottom.)
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Straight with you: the next four days are thin, because the free calendars for this week are almost entirely things we've already run. Monday Night Market is at Storey Park this afternoon, Art Spark takes over Kleiner on Saturday, Main Street Market is on the City Hall plaza Saturday morning, and the Two Mustard Seeds anniversary sale runs Wednesday through Saturday — all good, all previously covered here, all still worth going to. Below is what's new, and where the near-term list is short we've reached forward to things worth putting in your phone today.
Friday, Aug 28
Football's back: Rocky Mountain at Owyhee — 7 p.m., Owyhee High School, 3650 N. Owyhee Storm Ave. The West Ada season opens Friday night, and this is the one actually played in Meridian — a non-conference meeting between two schools about four miles apart. Meridian High is away at Borah the same night, Mountain View hosts Middleton. If you have not been to Owyhee since it opened, the stadium alone is worth the trip. Add to calendar
Sunday, Aug 30
Rally for The Curb — 1–5 p.m., in the parking lot and on the patio at 1760 S. Meridian Rd., Ste 100. Free food while supplies last, drinks, raffles and auctions, and every dollar raised goes to the staff who are out of work while the building gets repaired. See the first story below. Details · Add to calendar
Tuesday, Sep 1
"Elemental Vision" artist reception — 4:30–7 p.m., Initial Point Gallery, third floor of City Hall, 33 E. Broadway Ave. Free. Meet the Boise Camera Club photographers and ceramicist Mandy Henebry on opening day. This is the low-commitment version of an art opening: it's free, it's downtown, it's over by seven, and there is no ticket to buy. Details · Add to calendar
Thursday, Sep 10
Ladies & Links Golf Tournament — 8 a.m.–3 p.m., Lakeview Golf Club, 4200 W. Talamore Blvd. The old Queens of the Greens, reimagined and renamed, presented by Cedar and Sage Homes. A women-in-leadership scramble that is much more about the day than the scorecard, which is the correct approach to a September golf tournament. Registration is in advance. Details · Add to calendar
Saturday, Sep 12 — two of them
The Ten Mile Market, opening weekend at Ten Mile Farms — 10 a.m.–9 p.m., 5040 S. Ten Mile Rd. A new makers market on an actual working farm in south Meridian: local artisans, handmade goods, farm-fresh product, food, and an eleven-hour run that means you can turn up late and still make it. Opening weekends are the good ones. Details · Add to calendar
Race 4 Hunger at Meridian Speedway — gates 4:45 p.m., racing through about 9:45, Meridian Speedway. Neil Alan Fine Jewelry's annual night at the track, benefiting Boise Rescue Mission Ministries. Short-track racing is loud, cheap and genuinely great with kids, and this one puts the gate money somewhere useful. Details · Add to calendar
Running again because the clock is on it: the Wyakin Foundation's free suicide awareness and discussion workshop is Tue, Sep 8, 6–8 p.m. at Grand Canyon University, 1144 S. Silverstone Way — recognizing warning signs, what to do in a crisis, and speakers on the veteran suicide crisis. Food provided. RSVP closes Sept. 3, which is a week and a half out, so this is the moment to deal with it rather than the moment to note it.
Eighteenth issue running the standing ask: if you know something happening in Meridian that never makes it onto a calendar — a church thing, a park thing, a garage-sale-that-is-really-an-event thing — hit reply. This week is exactly the kind of week where that would have helped.
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☀️ Mostly sunny and hot, high near 93, low around 62. Calm early, then a northwest breeze around 5 mph in the afternoon. No precipitation and no active advisories — this is just heat, not an event.
📈 It gets hotter before it gets better. Tue 95, Wed 96, then the slide back: Thu 92, Fri 90, Sat 88, Sun 87. Friday's 7 p.m. kickoff at Owyhee should be sitting somewhere in the mid-80s, which is about as good as an August opener gets around here.
🌡️ Meridian 93, Boise 92. Note the direction — the Meridian point forecast is running above the live Boise reading today, which is the opposite of the usual pattern. We publish the NWS number, but if you're working outside, plan for the higher end.
Fine print, and for once it's good news: the NWS point-forecast feed we pull refreshed yesterday afternoon after seven straight stale cycles. Today's numbers come from a forecast issued 1:48 p.m. Sunday, and they line up with the live Boise three-day strip (92 Monday, 94 Tuesday). Where sources disagree, we tell you both.
Two today rather than three, and we'd rather tell you that than pad it. Both are Meridian, both were published in the last three days, and both dates were checked at the source. A Monday after a quiet Sunday is usually the thinnest news day of the week; there'll be more tomorrow.
The Curb can't open, so it's throwing a party for the people who can't work
AI illustration — not a photo of The Curb.
Two weeks after the fire that shut it down, The Curb Bar & Grill is asking the town for help — not for the building, for the people. "Rally for The Curb" runs Sunday, Aug. 30, from 1 to 5 p.m. in the parking lot and on the patio at 1760 S. Meridian Rd., Suite 100.
The framing is worth repeating exactly as the restaurant put it: every dollar raised goes toward supporting The Curb's staff while the place is closed for repairs and they're waiting to get back to work. Not the insurance gap, not the rebuild — the paychecks that stopped.
There's free food for everyone while supplies last, drinks while supplies last, plus raffles and auction items. Which means the ask is small and the excuse is easy: turn up, eat something, buy a raffle ticket, and a server who has had a rough month gets rent money. If you have ever tipped well at that bar on a Friday, this is the same gesture with better odds.
CBS2 / KBOI News Staff, published Sat, Aug. 22, 10:37 a.m. MDT.
City Hall's third floor gets a new show on Sept. 1 — and it's free
AI illustration — not a photo of the Initial Point Gallery or of any work in the exhibit.
The city has announced "Elemental Vision," opening Sept. 1 in the Initial Point Gallery — photography by members of the Boise Camera Club alongside ceramics by Mandy Henebry. The theme is earth, water, air and fire, and the city's line about it is better than most gallery copy: the work invites you to look at the natural world "as if for the first time."
Three dates to know. The artist reception is Tuesday, Sept. 1, 4:30–7 p.m. Artist talks by Boise Camera Club members Jeff Manser, Harold Hall and Christy Griffith are Thursday, Sept. 17, noon–1 p.m. — a genuinely good lunch hour if you own a camera and have never had anyone explain what they were thinking. And the show hangs through Thursday, Oct. 29.
The gallery is on the third floor of Meridian City Hall, 33 E. Broadway Ave., open weekdays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. excluding holidays. Everything is free. It's curated by the Meridian Arts Commission and it rotates several times a year, which is the sort of civic amenity most people in town pay for and never use. It is four minutes out of your day if you're already downtown.
City of Meridian news release, Trevor Smith, Communications Manager, posted Aug. 21, 2026.
Meme of the Day
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Trivia answer
About 4,730 people. In a single year. That's roughly a Kuna High School's worth of new neighbors arriving between one April and the next, and it put Meridian third in the whole valley for raw headcount growth — behind Caldwell (5,160) and Kuna (4,810).
The percentages tell a different story than the headcounts, which is the genuinely interesting part. Meridian grew 3.2% — modest-sounding, but the fastest of Idaho's three largest cities, ahead of Nampa at 2.9% and Boise at 1.1%. Meanwhile Star grew 14.7% (22,370 to 25,660) and Kuna 14.3% (33,750 to 38,560). The small towns are exploding by rate; we're absorbing more actual human beings.
For scale: Ada County is now estimated at 589,500 and Ada plus Canyon together at 876,760. That combined figure was 726,072 in 2020 and 581,298 in 2010. The million mark is not a hypothetical any more — it's a date.
Which is the context for every story we run about a 500-home or 1,195-home subdivision. Those aren't speculative. They're the housing for the 4,730.
Source: population estimates compiled by the Community Planning Association of Southwest Idaho (COMPASS), released April 29, 2026, reported by Madison Guernsey, Idaho Press. COMPASS updates its estimates each April 1 using the most recent Census as a base plus building permits, household sizes, vacancy rates and annexations. ⚠️ These are the most recent published figures; the next update comes in spring 2027.
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