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.

January and February are when the cold sets in, and we start craving cozy comfort foods with a punch of heat to chase away the winter. A good spicy dish will make your lips tingle and might just clear your sinuses, but it should still be balanced beyond pure heat. Here are two spicy dishes in Utah, guaranteed to shake off the chill, from Salt Lake magazine’s food writer Lydia Martinez (a dedicated cold-weather wimp)

Maria’s Mexican Grill’s Molcajete

A molcajete is a fine-grained lava rock basin on legs often used to make guacamole or grind spices with a pestle. At Maria’s, it is heated to lava-hot levels and used to simmer a tomatillo sauce. It arrives at the table bubbling and studded with flame-grilled carne asada, chicken and shrimp, and soft strips of nopalito cactus, onions and jalapeño peppers. The stone is so hot that it softens and chars the vegetables. You’ll simultaneously warm up in the way sitting around a roaring fire warms you up. Hold your hands out campfire-style, but don’t touch. The stone will still be piping hot 30 minutes later. I always say you can control the amount of spicy heat by breaking up all the jalapenos into the sauce. The best part? It easily serves two to three people. 

When You Go

3336 S. 2300 East & 781 W. 10600 South
mariasmexicangrillslc.com

Takashi’s Spicy Sushi Rolls

Takashi is the king of slipping delightfully surprising heat into his signature sushi rolls. There are several rolls on the menu that have fresh spicy chilies or a hot dipping sauce sneakily hiding in plain sight. There are five hot-to-trot rolls, and I will always order a couple every time I go.

Ceviche Roll: This roll itself isn’t super spicy—but it is served with Takashi’s signature ceviche dipping sauce that is a mix of tart and hot. The roll itself has cooling avocado, cucumber and cilantro inside with salmon, sea bream and octopus on top. 

Ramon’s Roll: The menu itself warns you, “it’s hot” for this Mexican-ish inspired roll. With tuna, fresh cilantro, avocado and spicy mayo, it’s the fresh chile peppers on top that make it extra spicy. Similarly, the Caribbean Roll is topped with fresh chiles, but the mango and yellowtail temper the heat.

Forrest Gump Roll: I’m not 100% clear on the relationship between this roll and the movie character, but it has crispy shrimp tempura, cucumber and spicy mayo on the inside and split shrimp ebi, escolar and eel sauce on top. Spicy habanero masago (the delightfully small burst-in-the-mouth fish egg gems) liberally garnish the roll for pops of heat. 

T&T Roll: This roll takes the cake for the spiciest roll on the menu, again not for the roll itself, but for the “hotter than hell” sauce that comes along with it. The yellowtail, albacore and salmon roll is flash-fried, and the sauce will make you catch your breath a little…and then breathe fire.  

When You Go

18 W. Market Street
takashisushi.com

Find more spicy dishes in Utah to warm your bones this winter, here!