For us old Salt Lakers, the dizzying array of changes to Salt Lake City can be disorienting. I’m not talking about the actual map; the grid system still abides, as is written. No, I’m talking about the shifts to the cultural map, the ideas and concepts that orient us. The places and spaces that make any city a city have been changing, shifting around and evolving.
Every city has a Restaurant Row, that part of town, often an actual street, that occupies the collective mental map as the place to go to answer the eternal question, “where shall we eat?” In Salt Lake, this has been and continues to be downtown, but new possibilities have emerged in parts of town that weren’t previously places to
be considered.
Our writer, Lydia Martinez, recently pointed this out. Nine-hundred South, specifically the intersection of 900 East and 900 South (9th and 9th), has long been a spot, a thing. A place we all regard as “cool.” And now the whale! But slowly, in fits and starts, the avenue of 900 South, AKA Harvey Milk Boulevard, has turned into what could be described as a Restaurant Row, albeit a very long one. We have big blocks in SLC. Hotspots dot the path west, drawing us beyond 9th and 9th proper.
To the West is Central 9th, anchored by its initial pioneers, the cocktail wizards at Water Witch, but from the rubble, a new place for your mental maps now exists. The Pearl, Bar Nohm, Central Ninth Market and Scion Cider Bar make this place a place.
It was the in-between, however, that Lydia noted. Fine-dining stalwarts like Veneto and Manoli’s have been there, of course, but now there is more there, there. While we complained about orange traffic barrels and fledgling businesses struggled uphill, little by little, cohesion and a new bike and walking route (The Nine Line) connected the dots. Lake Sears is still a blight, but enough dots have filled in that we can proclaim that 900 South is a Restaurant Row. We point the way on in our feature “The New Foodie Hotspot.”
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