Idaho Potato Museum & Potato Station Cafe

Plenty of parking for larger vehicles. I’d recommend checking out the cafe first. Best part here was the VR goggles that transport you into the driver seat of a giant potato picker & potato sack wear.

Cool museum to learn about the history of potato farming all the way back to its roots (ha) in South America. You can finish off your visit by eating some taters in the cafe.

Fun stop. We didn’t go to the museum, but stopped to try their potato. It was delicious!
They also have cupcakes and milkshakes partially made from potato stretch.

Great stop on the way to Yellowstone. Quality exhibits with lots of great information. Enjoyed the Potato VR and cafe at the end of the tour. Now you can brag to all of your friends that you've been to a potato museum.

On the way home. We had to stop at our nations finest establishment dedicated to our favorite starchy vegetable. The Idaho Potato Museum. I was able to learn about the potato’s origins and eventual rise to power. Pictured here are early tools used to harvest potatoes, potato fashion, cooking methods, evolutions of the potato harvest, different species of potatoes, Mr. Potato Head, the worlds largest (at the time) potato chip, and even potato VR. We ended the day with some fries and they tasted like fries. The staff was friendly and were tater tasting. I’m am proud to have visited this spudtacular piece of potato history. This is a must visit for anyone who has eaten a potato. If you don’t like potatoes, you will after you visit here.

Fun little stop if you are in the area. They have a VR thing where you can see what it's like to be a potato farmer, a Potato Head toy exhibit where you can put together a Mr. or Ms. Potato Head, some tractors, info about potato farming, and more. Don't skip the Cafe! The have baked potatoes, potato soup, fries, and potato bread! Plus, you can get some huckleberry ice cream. I loved the potato soup and bread. Very tasty! I think it wad $6 per adult to get in.

This was a very interesting stop. Lots of fun facts about potatoes. Great for a quick roadside stop

Charming museum for the family, even little ones. The visit takes no more than 45 minutes and you can get some potato-flavored ice cream in the shop at the end of the tour.

The gift shop alone may be sufficient stimulation for many but for those willing to pay the nominal price of admission a whole host of surprises await you!

Those that enter and only superficially engage with the exhibits will certainly leave fulfilled and entertained. With the price of my admission I was gifted a commemorative Idaho potato pin that I will preserve and wear on my lapel for special occasions. (But there’s much more, read on!)

For those who are willing to take a closer look and scrutinize the thematic elements and muted tones of the documentation blatantly distributed throughout the museum and accompanying the vast collection of artifacts will discover a presentation of an Eastern Idaho which clearly demonstrates a perspective of potato superiority and dominance.

Not dissimilar to recent presidential elections, one must assume some influence from foreign powers that helped establish dominance in the region. (Either that, or this is what we’re intended to believe). I first came to this realization when I discovered an elaborate piece of equipment on a elevated platform. The Spudnik Harvester. What appears to be a simple conveyor belt powered by numerous motors is obviously a symbol of the region’s pursuits to dominate the industry. This centerpiece is surrounded by educational materials to ‘inform’ today’s youth of the success achieved only through hard work, sacrifice, and a willingness to wear a gunnie-sack (a
burlap potato bag).

Yes, that is correct, the museum is adorned with the burlap bag in predominant locations - these bags decorate the halls and it’s hard to miss the female model dresses only in gunnie-sacks at the museum’s entrance.

Adjacent to other farming implements the museum loops videos showing people working non-stop to cultivate and process the potatoes. And as you move further into the museum you will discover an increasing number of potatoes in each frame of the videos. The pinnacle of video-graphic messaging is apparent in a short-looped video showing former inhabitants in the region happily completing their duties assisted by ‘Spudnik’ inspired machinery…

Facing the fear of revealing too much sensitive information that otherwise would only be discovered by savvy seekers of truth, I will share one last and ‘ultimate’ collection of evidence- which quite overtly describes the sentiments represented in this review. Look closely and you will find, in plain sight, multiple maps… some of these maps demonstrate early plans of leveraging the railroads to obtain advantage over the west. The other maps display the outcome of centuries of planning and execution, highlighting the region’s superiority to Western Idaho. These maps show that a majority of Idaho’s potatoes come from the Eastern regions while only 10% comes from the west!

I round a corner to hear a strident cry from below. My eyes dart involuntarily to the source of the sound, and my gaze locks with an enigma. I stoop down, craning my neck for a better view through a narrow opening. After a few moments, my mind begins to make sense of the scene. Three humanoid potatoes languish on a decrepit couch in a dungeon of sorts. Their pasty, sun-deprived skin reflects a lurid glow as a projector casts movement onto their otherwise lifeless corpses. Their vestigial limbs, frail and flaccid from years of disuse, cling to each other as a testament to their companionship in an eternal imprisonment. The shrill and haunting tones of their elegy pierce the air, one word repeated endlessly: “potato.” Apparently, the isolation of their exile has driven them to madness, no longer capable of coherent speech or thought. “Potato, potato, potato…”