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Post Office Place’s Taro Scotch Egg with “Happy Lady” sauce. Photo by Adam Finkle
What may have started as a necessity—a bar to welcome the long line of patrons waiting for a table at Takashi—has grown into something special. The stellar experience is heralded by the towering, illuminated shelves of manifold liquor bottles behind a welcoming bar. Salt Lake magazine has often praised the ingenious bartenders, innovative cocktails and the impressive selection of Japanese Whisky at Post Office Place, and our panelists agree that beverage director Crystal Daniels is doing something pretty amazing with the sensory, fun bar experience. But Chef Brandon Kawakami is doing something pretty amazing with the food menu as well. The fusion of Japanese and Peruvian is “fusion in the best way—with purpose,” says Lydia Martinez. The food feels intentional in its combinations of flavors and pushes the envelope, delightfully defying expectations and enhancing the drink experience. Post Office Place more than stands on its own and deserves to be a destination for drinks and eats in its own right, rather than a waiting room. —Christie Porter
Yes. Copper Common is a bar and NOT a restaurant, which is clearly noted by Utah’s state-mandated sign on the door. The original inspiration for owner Ryan Lowder was Maison Premiere in Williamsburg, a high-end cocktail and oyster joint at the heart of hipster Brooklyn. Oysters are still on the menu here and the cocktails are still on the highest of ends, but it’s the food that makes Copper Common a reliable restaurant (despite what the liquor cops say.) Mainly thanks to its new(ish) Chef Sarah Corson. Lowder is a guy who can see talent. He plucked her off the line at Copper Onion and trained her up to be chef de cuisine at both Copper Onion and the bar, ahem, restaurant next door. Corson is the opposite of her loudmouth (in a good way) boss. She’s quiet and reserved. She lets the food on the plate do her talking, elevating items as basic as a cheeseburger or a frissee salad to mouth-watering levels. “Her new menu invigorated a lot of what I thought was already great about Copper Common,” complimented panelist Darby Doyle.
Smoked Trout Rillette, Crab and Pimento Dip, Lamb Merguez Meatballs. Photo By Adam Finkle
Chicken fried chicken served with gravy and sides of collard greens and candied yams. Photo By Adam Finkle
Inside, Sauce Boss Southern Kitchen feels more like a diner than fine dining, but that’s the point. “It’s not fancy, but it is great eats served with love,” says Darby Doyle, a Kentuckyian who knows Southern food. The menu is the embodiment of nostalgia, Southern comfort and Black soul food at its best—a rare combination to find in Utah, to say the least. The focus is on authentic flavors, consistent quality and the details: Red Drink (their house-made version of Bissap), real sweet tea, crunchy-crust cornbread, fried catfish, blackened chicken wings and the best collard greens in the valley. Chef Julius Thompson nails the standards. He’s a master at the deep fryer, and, our panelists say, his touch with spice and sauces is pretty special.
HSL’s Grilled cauliflower with coconut milk and red cabbage emulsion. Photo By Adam Finkle
These are two different restaurants in two very different spaces. Handle, located just off of Park City’s Historic Main Street, stands out in a town that caters to visitors where some operators, frankly, phone it in. HSL on the edge of downtown SLC is Handle’s cousin in the city. The common denominator is, of course, Chef Briar Handly, who is the impresario behind what panelist Lydia Martinez called “The Briar Handly Experience.” Chef Handly is an enfant terrible who can’t stop playing with his food. But sitting still is only prized by preachers and school teachers. We, on the other hand like our chefs to have poor attention spans which result in surprise and, from Handly, delight, regardless if you’re in a party of 20 or two. (The latter was experienced by panelist Jennifer Burns, who watched in awe as the servers and kitchen produced one of “the most phenomenal experiences ever.”)—Jeremy Pugh
Poached, line-caught, Pacific halibut with sunflower seed and arugula puree, fennel sauce and sourdough breadcrumbs. Photo By Adam Finkle
Table X continues to push its high-concept experiment further. Started by a team of chefs who came from traditional fine dining restaurants on the East Coast, Nick Fahs and Mike Blocher, Nick focuses on the restaurant’s bakery (which sells directly to customers) and Mike sources food locally (much of it from the restaurant’s own garden). Last year, Blocher doubled down on his confidence in the food from his kitchen. Table X only serves an ever-changing tasting menu at each seating. Basically, he’s saying, “I’ll decide.” Relax. You’re in good hands. “This is the most ambitious kitchen in town,” says panelist Lydia Martinez, echoed by panelist Darby Doyle who says, “their prix fixe tasting menus are dependably stunning and always include vegetarian and vegan options.” But don’t think this is fussy food, Blocher limits himself to a small number of minimally manipulated ingredients. But. No. They don’t serve a burger.
Tona’s Green Globe: spicy ahi tuna, snow crab salad, avocado, orange and wasabi tobiko caviar with citrus-soy. Photo By Adam Finkle
Tona Sushi Bar & Grill in Ogden has been wowing our cousins to the north for more than a decade with “creative and ingenious art,” as described by Dining Awards panelist Jennifer Burns. “I’ve eaten sushi within sight of an ocean and thought, ‘Tona is better,’” she says. Chef Tony Chen combines traditional Japanese techniques with a modern sensibility that wows on the plate. Sushi, after all, is fussy food with exactness and precision required of its practitioners who are as much designers as they are chefs. “Every touch is thought out to create the perfect bite,” Burns says.
I followed them to the sandlot once after school. I’d never seen any place like it. It was like their own little baseball kingdom or something. It was the greatest place I’d ever seen anyway.”
With those words, David Mickey Evans, the writer, director and narrator introduced us to The Sandlot, the iconic childhood baseball nostalgia film released in 1993. When Evans wrote those words in his screenplay for The Sandlot he was dreaming of a very real vacant lot in Southern California’s San Fernando Valley circa 1968. It had been transformed by local kids into a ramshackle baseball sanctuary where, throughout the summer, the crack of bats echoed from dawn to dusk. Back then, Evans and his little brother Scott were new arrivals to the community, and yearned to get in on the fun. But, this is where reality departs sharply from fiction.
“We got beat up a lot,” says Evans. His Pacoima neighborhood, one of many United States suburbs created to accommodate the White Flight of the 1950s and ’60s, had become home to lower-income Chicanos. The Evans boys didn’t look like the other kids, so they were persona non grata on the makeshift ballfield—even after Scott, desperate to court the bullies’ favor, bravely hopped a fence to retrieve their only baseball. His sole reward was a gnarled leg courtesy of the homeowner’s vicious dog.
Two decades later, in 1989, Evans now one of the hottest screenwriters in Hollywood thanks to his semi-autobiographical Radio Flyer (a dark fantasy wherein he reckons with the physical and emotional scars inflicted by his abusive step-father), mined these unhappy memories for a script called The Boys of Summer. It was to be his how-you-like-me-now revenge on the kids who denied him access to their baseball kingdom. This sounded wonderfully cathartic in theory, but there was just one problem: Evans didn’t want to see it, and couldn’t imagine anyone else buying a ticket for a downer movie about the bullies of his childhood. So on the day he was fired as director of Radio Flyer (early enough in production that the producers were able to scrap his footage and start from scratch with a completely different cast), he went in the opposite direction, crafting a deeply nostalgic mash note to the unifying spirit of baseball. It would be a film about unconditional friendship. It would be not about the way things were, but the way they should have been. And while the film would still be set in the San Fernando Valley, Evans would find his field of dreams a couple of states over after he visited a vacant lot in the Glendale neighborhood of Salt Lake City.
photos courtesy 20th Century Fox
The Sandlot turns 30 this year and remains a timeless account of the best summer a ragtag group of adolescents ever had. Set in 1962, the film kicks off with young, timid Scotty Smalls (Tom Guiry) moving to Southern California with his mother (Karen Allen) and stepfather (Denis Leary). While exploring his strange new environs, Smalls stumbles upon a makeshift baseball diamond composed of dirt, dead grass and a flung-together backstop. This is the sandlot where eight rambunctious boys bat the ball around until the sun dips below the horizon. Eight players means they’re short one for a full team, so when baseball-mad Smalls appears out of nowhere to set up in left field sporting the cheap plastic glove gifted to him by his grandmother, the squad’s leader, Benny (Mike Vitar), spies an opportunity for a ninth. Smalls is a disaster at first, but he ultimately overcomes his unsightly deficiencies in the throwing and catching department to win over the gang, leading to a magical three months full of highs and lows and plenty of mischief (most notably a Babe Ruth-signed baseball landing in the jaws of a backyard menace known as The Beast).
Given his devastating experience on Radio Flyer, Evans couldn’t afford another behind-the-camera misstep with his second feature. He hedged his risk by writing an all-ages comedy that could be made for under $10 million (a pittance for a studio production when Fox greenlit the film in 1991). The slashed cost, however, knocked Southern California out as a potential filming location. Evans, who’d lived most of his life in the area, was flummoxed. “I couldn’t imagine there being another Southern California basin,” says Evans. “It’s basically a desert surrounded by big purpley-blue mountains.”
Desert, big purpley-blue mountains…where might one find such a setting in the continental U.S.?
Producer Mark Berg thought this sounded an awful lot like Salt Lake City and the Wasatch Mountains. Evans flew out to the valley for a location scout and was immediately convinced. Location managers David B. Smith and Dennis Williams knew the area well, and, armed with photos of Evans’ old San Fernando stomping grounds, locked down one perfect approximation after another. The film suddenly flickered to life in Evans’ imagination: The Beast’s chaotic pursuit of Benny through the Founder’s Day picnic; Squints’ shrewdly calculated kiss with lifeguard Wendy Peffercorn at the local pool; the ill-fated carnival ride fueled to vomitous effect by Big Chief tobacco; the boys’ drubbing of the rich kids’ team at their meticulously maintained ballpark; and, of course, that little baseball kingdom nestled in the heart of a tight-knit neighborhood.
Heart was at the top of the docket for Evans, and he found an abundance of it in Salt Lake City, starting with his crew. “This was the first time I’d ever worked in Utah, and the people there have a work ethic that’s unrivaled,” he says. “They care about what they do. They want to do a good job and they do a great job.” As Evans and his cast of troublemakers grew accustomed to the city, he realized the themes of his movie were reflected in the people he met. “The underlying values of the characters in the movie, I think, fit pretty perfectly with Salt Lake as I know it. I love it. The people there have just a magnificent take on family. It seems to me it’s a bit of a meritocracy. It’s a good-things-happen-to-those-who-do-good-things kind of vibe.”
photos courtesy 20th Century Fox
The populace of Salt Lake City has returned this affection a dozen fold. In 2013, Marshall Moore, then the Director of the Utah Film Commission, teamed up with Brian Prutch, the Director of Corporate Sales for the Salt Lake Bees at the time, to host the 20th anniversary at the restored sandlot. Moore’s love affair with the film began when he took his 4- and 3-year-old children to see the movie during its theatrical release. He had relocated to the area in 1993 to work on the ABC miniseries production of Stephen King’s The Stand and fell hard for its gentle nature and inclusive spirit. Having missed the chance to work on The Sandlot by just a year, he leaped at the opportunity to help orchestrate the film’s birthday celebration in a city that, despite its on-screen setting in California, has embraced it as the quintessential Salt Lake City movie.
Moore believes the city’s love affair with The Sandlot is rooted in its nostalgia for a childhood innocence that is disappearing. “There aren’t a lot of kids out running around playing sandlot baseball anymore,” he says. “Maybe [kids] all get together and ride their bikes, or get together to shoot some hoops at the playground, but [youth] baseball is very organized.” Still, Moore is encouraged that the film has not only endured, but expanded its appeal. Every year, parents show The Sandlot to their children, and, judging from the turnout at the anniversary events, which occur every five years, the movie exudes a timelessness akin to cherished classics like The Wizard of Oz, The Goonies and E.T.the Extra-Terrestrial.
None of this has gotten old for Evans or the cast. They eagerly show up for each anniversary celebration, sign loads of autographs on whatever’s handy (Evans claims he’s signed more than one baby with a Sharpie) and relive what wound up being the best summer of their lives. In exchange, attendees huddle together with their spouses and children under a starry sky and dream anew about the way things should be.
Left to right: Chauncey Leopardi, Patrick Renna, Marty York, Victor DiMattia, Shane Obedzinski. photo j’adore photography / priscilla poland
Where are they Now?
Tom Guiry (Scott Smalls) went on to star in major films like Ride with the Devil, Black Hawk Down and Mystic River. He will play himself as a kidnap victim in the forthcoming mob comedy Killin’ Smallz.
Mike Vitar (Benny Rodriguez) went from The Sandlot to the ice hockey rink as Luis in D2: The Mighty Ducks and D3: The Mighty Ducks. He quit acting in 1997 and later joined the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Patrick Renna (Hamilton “Ham” Porter) had memorable roles in 1990s comedies like Son in Law and The Big Green and the lamentably canceled Netflix series Glow.
Chauncey Leopardi (Michael “Squints” Palledorous) joined Renna in The Big Green before the criminally short-lived NBC series Freaks and Geeks. He recently appeared in the music video for Logic’s “Homicide.”
Brandon Adams (Kenny DeNunez) laced up the skates alongside Vitar for D2: The Mighty Ducks. He also appeared on ’90s beloved series like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Roc and Moesha.
Marty York (Alan “Yeah-Yeah” McLennan) has appeared on TV series as varied as Boy Meets World, Wings and The Eric Andre Show.
Grant Gelt (Bertram Grover Weeks) quit acting in the late 1990s and went on to co-found the brand studio Masscult.
Shane Obedzinski (Tommy “Repeat” Timmons) left acting behind in 1993. He is now the owner of Times Square Pizza in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Victor Dimattia (Timmy Timmons) has returned to film, mostly behind the scenes, with billing as an actor and director.
David Mickey Evans followed up The Sandlot by writing the 1996 baseball comedy Ed about a baseball-playing chimpanzee. He wrote and directed 2005’s The Sandlot 2 and is currently developing a prequel.
Where to find The Sandlot in Salt Lake City
For superfans hyped about taking the SLC Sandlot tour, here’s your map of the essential stops.
Smalls and Benny’s houses are located on the 2000 East block in Salt Lake City.
Squints stole his kiss at the Lorin Hall Community Pool in Ogden.
The carnival and the Founder’s Day picnic were filmed at Liberty Park.
Our scrappy heroes routed the rich kids’ team at Riverside Park’s Rose Park Field.
The Sandlot itself is located behind 1388 Glenrose Drive, in Salt Lake City
NOTE: If you opt to visit when the field hasn’t been refurbished for its anniversary, prepare to be disappointed. It’s just a bland vacant lot. Also, it’s impossible to access the field without committing some light trespassing. So, you know, don’t do it.
This year, Best Friends Society, a leading animal welfare organization, is creating their own cuter and fluffier version of the Oscars.
Best Friends Animal Society
Best Friends Animal Society is a non-profit organization that operates the nation’s largest sanctuary for homeless pets. With bases in Utah, California, Arkansas, Texas, Georgia, and New York the organization has been working together to end the euthanization of animals across America for almost 40 years. Best Friends is committed to providing safe shelter, medical care, and adoption services to animals in need, with the goal of finding permanent homes for as many animals as possible. They offer spay/neuter services, community cat programs, pet food pantries, and of course adoption. With two locations in Utah: Salt Lake City and the other in Kanab, stop by at your closest one and take a look at the adorable furballs that this sanctuary has to offer!
Adoptable Pet Awards
Slim, nominated for Best Costume. Photo courtesy of Best Friends
For the first time ever Best Friends is hosting an Adoptable Pet Awards to boost adoption rates for their pets. “This awards season, Best Friends wanted to come up with a fun and engaging campaign to help raise awareness for a handful of adoptable dogs and cats who have been in the shelter system for a significant amount of time,” says Julie Castle, CEO of Best Friends Animal Society. “Our hope is that the public will vote for their favorite lovable pet, as well as inspire people to get out there and adopt. The shelters and homeless pets need you.” There will be 6 categories ranging from best action sequence to best supporting napper, with 4 pet-nominees for each category. Voting is now open and the results will be announced Friday, March 10th!
Visit here to vote and to get to know some of the adorable cats and dogs nominated!
Ares, nominated for Best Barker. Photo courtesy of Best FriendsRosemary, nominated for Best Meower. Photo courtesy of Best Friends
No-Kill by 2025
No-kill animal organizations play an important role in the effort to reduce the number of animals that are euthanized each year and to promote the welfare of animals in the United States. Best Friend’s made a commitment in 2016 to ending all kill shelters across the states by the year 2025. Currently New Hampshire and Delaware are the only no-kill states in the U.S. Utah, which is considered a low-priority state, is still estimating at about 900 animal deaths occur per year in the kill shelters that are still operating. There are also many smaller, locally-based no-kill animal organizations across the United States that work to address the needs of animals in their communities. A few of these no-kill shelters in Utah are Best Friends, Paws for Life, and The Humane Society. These organizations often rely heavily on donations and volunteers to operate, and may partner with other animal welfare organizations to provide a wide range of services to animals in need.Go to the Best Friends Animal Society website to donate today!
Salt Lake is a city built on secrets. Its origin tale is wrapped up with the “Bible 2.0” Exodus of Brigham Young and his followers, the Latter-day Saints, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (officially) or the Mormons (colloquially and historically). The Mormons first arrived here in the Great Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847, after a long and insanely dangerous trek from Nauvoo, Ill. Technically it was Mexican territory, but the Mexican-American War was about to get underway and much bigger dogs than Brigham and his rag-tag band of Mormons were squaring off for a fight. Brigham wanted his followers to be left alone to practice the LDS faith and, yep it gets weird, to establish a short-lived autonomous nation called the Kingdom of Deseret (which got as far as developing its own language and currency, BTW). It is, as we say around here, a heck of a story.
In the late 1800s, federal troops, sent here to put the kibosh on this whole Kingdom thing, discovered rich veins of copper and silver and paved the way for the age of the silver barons and more outside influence. The east-west railroad brought an influx of laborers who would add diversity to the mix, and Utah’s admission to the United States, in 1896, brought even more changes. Still, Utah remained apart with a dominant religion, which often dictated politics and individual conscience. The point is that this delicious frontier mix of history made an atmosphere perfect for cultivating mushroom-like secrets.
THE SPHYNX OF SALT LAKE CITY
What:A Collection of Esoteric Sculptures called Gilgal Garden
Where: 749 E. 500 South, SLC
It was a legend among Salt Lake teenagers in the ’70s and ’80s: a bizarre sculpture garden located in the middle of Salt Lake with a menagerie of odd Mormon-themed statues and rock art installations. What adventurous teen wouldn’t want to sneak into a strange yard filled with bizarre carvings featuring ominous Biblical verses set in the stones, and (why not?) a sphinx-like creature bearing the visage of LDS Church founder Joseph Smith?
The works sprang from the mind of outsider artist Thomas Battersby Child Jr., a Mormon bishop, local businessman and stonemason. Child tinkered relentlessly in the backyard of his childhood home building his Gilgal (a word that means “circle of stones” in Hebrew and is a place name in the Book of Mormon). Child was self-taught; he made it all up as he went along, and his creations are excellent examples of outsider art. The sculptures are large and imposing, and a walk through the garden is a tour through Child’s eclectic fascinations with masonry and his musings on the relationship of Mormonism with the ancient world. The show pony is the Sphinx-Smith, but be sure to note Child’s self-portrait, a man constructed entirely of bricks.
After Child’s death, the garden became an oddity—almost an urban legend—and, while the mystique of hopping the fence to see the place was a dare-worthy part of life for SLC teens, the artworks fell prey to the elements and vandalism. In the late 1990s, the property was put up for sale, and a coalition of private citizens, public entities and nonprofit groups worked to preserve the site.
ABOUT THE BOOK: Secret Salt Lake opens a window into the weird, bizarre, and obscure secrets of Salt Lake, that are often hiding in plain sight. The guidebook, written by Salt Lake magazine editors Jeremy Pugh and Mary Brown Malouf is a collection of odd tales, urban myths, legends and historical strangeness here in the Beehive State. Get your copy from Reedy Press today and read more about the secrets and oddities of Utah.
Have you ever seen someone sprawled out at the gym? A trainer stretching them like a pretzel after a workout? Or maybe you’ve noticed massive football players on the sidelines getting an aggressive stretch before the game? It turns out this service isn’t just available to elite athletes or those who can afford personal training sessions. I recently discovered that there are places where mere mortals (like me) can get stretched out just like the pros. See, I somehow got talked into attempting to summit Kilimanjaro. As a mere mortal in preparation for this feat, I’m on an active search for anything that will improve my resilience, flexibility and endurance. Basically, I want to suffer less and actually enjoy the journey. It’s always a challenge to make time to work out and train but in my quest, I discovered StretchLab, a new business that extols the benefits of taking time (like actually making an appointment) to be deliberate about stretching, something that most of us do in a rush after a workout, if at all.
Knowing I could use some help, I visited the Sugar House studio (there are multiple locations) and had a session with Amber Alizondo, a “flexologist.” After a tour of the modern space, I was led to “the machine” (AKA a TRX MAPS). The device analyzed my movement while I performed three body-weight squats. There’s no judgment here. It’s just a benchmark of your strength and flexibility that will help you see progress (hopefully). The machine identified areas where I could improve in mobility, activation, posture and symmetry. I like measuring things and appreciated a way to see progress other than just checking for how I feel afterward.
photos adam finkle
Score in hand, Amber and I talked about my future fitness goals. With Kilimanjaro looming in my brain, we went to one of the stretch tables and got to work. I had a head-to-toe deep stretch. I can most definitely say she found the areas that need attention! “It’s all in the hips,” she chided as pulled me around like taffy. After one session, I was able to tell that assisted stretching has benefits. Like most runners and cyclists, I’m generally tight in the hips and she shared ways for me to alleviate that between sessions.
The StretchLab has a variety of stretching services to accommodate all ages and fitness levels. There are one-on-one and group-assisted sessions and a variety of membership options. StretchLab also trains its ‘flexologists’ with extensive classroom work. What I liked most about the experience was the focus it gave me on this often overlooked (or ignored) part of my fitness routine. Actually, going to the studio, and taking the time to concentrate on mobility and flexibility along with Amber’s expert advice and guidance was hugely appealing. I’ll be back.
IF YOU GO: StretchLab Sugar House (additional locations in Park City, Midvale, Bountiful, Farmington and St. George) 675 E. 2100 South, SLC 385-722-4656, stretchlab.com
