Your plans to visit Southern Utah this year just became deliciously more exciting. On February 11, 2025, the renowned Hell’s Backbone Grill & Farm in Boulder, Utah announced their acquisition of the gorgeous Boulder Mountain Lodge property, adjacent to the famed dining destination. Both of these endeavors have existed in harmony under separate ownership for many years but after years of discussions can combine the lodging property with the ambitious food and sustainable living that Hell’s Backbone exemplifies. The recent purchase was completed through a unique community-funded initiative.
“This fulfillment of our dream represents so more than just the buying of a physical property,—it’s been our beloved home for so long, and being able to actually own it now is really a testament to the power of love, community support, and the commitment of our team to a kind of higher-consciousness way of doing business,” says Blake Spalding, co-founder of Hell’s Backbone Grill & Farm.
The property’s team consists of long-time chef-owners Spalding and Jen Castle, along with key team members Nina Brownell, Morgan Reedy, and Nick Barretta—all year-round Boulder residents. This acquisition was made possible through the contributions of these three dedicated “Hellion Investors” along with a group of long-term guests and friends of the restaurant. Their own “Hell’s Angels” made low-interest loans and gifts, so the team could avoid traditional banking institutions and conventional financing.
Hell’s Backbone puts an effort and care you don’t see often into its locally sourced food. They grow much of their produce on their six-acre organic farm and source food from heirloom orchards and local ranches. No other restaurant is more Southern Utah-flavored than Hell’s Backbone so to combine it with a beautiful lodge surrounded by three Utah national parks and decorated with iconic Utah flora and fauna is the perfect match for an authentic get-away experience.
HBG guests will see many exciting improvements in the weeks and months ahead, including the introduction of “Little Bone,” a new food truck operation on the lodge grounds, run by returning team member Lacy Allen. Little Bone will serve daily many of the beloved breakfast items from pre-pandemic times, and also dinner service on the restaurant’s off nights, featuring beloved menu items and new offerings. “Our guests have tearfully rhapsodized about our breakfasts, and we’re overjoyed to have found the right person and circumstances to make it work and bring back the magic,” says co-founder and executive chef Jen Castle.
Hell’s Backbone has found its place on the Boulder Mountain Lodge property for 25 years. For both owners and customers, it is an exciting movement to combine forces to make an even more authentically local experience through food and hospitality. The lodge already offers an outdoor hot tub, ten acres of a bird-watching sanctuary, lawn games, a gifts shop, and a fireplace, but this new partnership will add heated patio seating, a new food truck service, and an opportunity for event booking such as retreats or weddings. Spalding and Castle are excited to kick off their 26th season on March 14, 2025.
Hell’s Backbone Grill & Farm has been the recipient of many of Salt Lake magazine’s highest dining honors since its founding. There has not been a year that this restaurant has not earned a nod from Salt Lake magazine. Our late editor Mary Brown Malouf long championed this experiment in sustainability, kindness and destination dining in Southern Utah. Mary lobbied tirelessly for the James Beard Foundation to create a new region for its annual national restaurant awards to bust out Utah (also Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming) restaurants from under the shadows of California and Phoenix.
Hell’s Backbone Grill & Farm was selected as a James Beard Awards semifinalist in 2017, 2018, and 2019, and advanced to nominee in 2020, the year the awards were canceled due to the pandemic. Spalding and Castle were honored most recently by the restaurant’s inclusion as semi-finalists for Outstanding Restaurant (one of twenty restaurants each year in the national category) for both 2022 and 2023.
In addition to nods from us, HBG has been featured in many national publications, including the New York Times, O Magazine, and Bon Appetit. HBG was also the subject of a 2018 New Yorker feature highlighting its efforts to save the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument from being downsized.
The destination restaurant proudly enjoys the highest Zagat ratings in Utah and follows Buddhist principles, with a commitment to sustainability, food and social justice, and community and planetary responsibility. Co-owners Jen Castle and Blake Spalding have also created a retail line of food and two acclaimed and beloved cookbooks, With a Measure of Grace, the Stories and Recipes of a Small Town Restaurant, and This Immeasurable Place, Food and Farming from the Edge of Wilderness. Hell’s Backbone Grill & Farm was also one of four restaurants chosen to represent Utah’s Slow Food movement in an exhibit in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.
