A trendy brunch spot in downtown Salt Lake City might lose its liquor license for 30 days unless it can prove that it’s turning its sales tax money over to the state.
That was the warning Michael McHenry, owner of Sunday’s Best, at 505 Gale St. in the Post District, got Thursday from the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Services’ (DABS) liquor commission at the board’s monthly meeting.
McHenry told commissioners that when Sunday’s Best opened last July, the restaurant had a sales tax license number in place. But a month into operations, the taxpayer access point, a website for people to file their sales tax returns, “disappeared,” McHenry said, making it “impossible” for the business to hand over its sales tax money to the Utah Tax Commission.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Michael McHenry owner off Sunday's Best, a brunch restaurant in the Post District, during the restaurant's opening weekend in July 2025.
Jason Gardner, the tax commission’s deputy executive director, told The Salt Lake Tribune that if McHenry had an issue with his taxpayer access point account, “he could call our customer service and we could help him with that.”
“That’s not an excuse to not file your sales taxes,” Gardner said.
According to the tax commission’s website, businesses hold sales tax money “in trust” for the state until the owner pays it to the Utah Tax Commission.
“The funds may not be used for any other purpose,” the website said.
But McHenry’s attorney, Steve Young, told commissioners that Sunday’s Best had “prioritized other expenses.”
Commissioner Juliette Tennert chimed in and said sales tax is “not really an expense, it’s just a remittance of customers’ sales tax.”
McHenry also said that he had been on a payment plan with the Utah Tax Commission for two other businesses he owns, Sunday’s Best in Sandy, and Oak Wood Fire Kitchen in Draper, and that those balances were now paid in full.
Tennert then asked him, “How do you end up on a payment plan for sales tax?”
Young said that as an attorney who specializes in tax matters, it’s common to see business owners that get “upside down” with their cash flow, and not realize they “have to pay the government first.”
“I‘ve seen it happen over and over and over again,” he said.
In all, Young said the amount McHenry had owed to the tax commission was “thousands of dollars. It was a lot.”
Neither the DABS nor the tax commission would tell The Salt Lake Tribune exactly how much sales tax money Sunday’s Best owes.
McHenry said his company had reapplied for a sales tax license number for Sunday’s Best in Salt Lake City on Wednesday.
The tax commission has “received everything that they need,” McHenry said Thursday afternoon. “It’s our understanding that that’ll be approved.”
He also said “we are completely up to date on all entities associated here,” including the two locations of Sunday’s Best, and Oak Wood Fire Kitchen in Draper.
But Stephen Handy, the commission’s chairman, told McHenry, “Clean up your act.”
Commissioner Tara Thue added, “Our hands are tied if they don’t have a tax ID number at this point.”
McHenry told the commission that “we recognize the gaps in some of our decision-making and management, we’ve definitely worked to clean that up. ... We’ve paid over $170,000 in sales tax. ...”
“Wait, wait,” Tennert jumped in again, “your customers paid over $170,000 in sales tax.”
The commission ultimately decided to give McHenry until Friday to show that he had an active sales tax license number for the Salt Lake City location. If he can’t, that business’s liquor license will be suspended for 30 days, and all alcohol will have to be removed from the premises.
The next meeting of the DABS’ liquor commission will be March 26.