The co-founders of Salt Lake City’s La Barba Coffee are opening a bar at The Gateway, officials announced Tuesday.
Seabird Bar and Vinyl Room is expected to open this fall, on the second floor of the mall near La Barba Coffee. The coffee shop in the remodeled Starbucks site opened in early June.
As the name suggests, the new bar will serve wine, beer and cocktails, while music plays from a classic turntable.
“Seabird is exactly the kind of concept we’re excited to bring to downtown,” Jenny Cushing, vice president of leasing at Vestar, which operates The Gateway, said in a news release. “What [La Barba] can do with coffee is second to none, and now, they’re going to bring that same level of quality and uniqueness into the cocktail scene.”
It’s not the only Seabird Bar in the works. La Barba co-founder Josh Rosenthal and his business partners are constructing another Seabird Bar at 13811 S. Sprague Lane in Draper. The City Council is expected to consider its liquor application during its next meeting on July 10.
Besides coffee and cocktails, The Gateway has a new pizza restaurant.
MidiCi The Neapolitan Pizza Company opened June 16 and serves traditional wood-fired pizza, salads, burrata and desserts. On Tuesday, the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control granted MidiCi a state liquor license that allows it to serve beer and wine.
While new places are moving into The Gateway, Barnes & Noble is on its way out. The retail store will close this week.
All the changes are part of a $125 million rejuvenation Vestar is undertaking at The Gateway, which opened in November 2001, just months before Salt Lake City played host to the Winter Olympics.
In May, the state’s first Dave & Buster’s opened at the mall. The 44,900-square-foot space takes up a large chunk of the mall’s second floor and offers food and entertainment.
The now-closed Dick’s Sporting Goods is being revamped so it can house Recursion Pharmaceuticals.
Vestar also has attracted Kiln to another office space and is negotiating with another tech company for 50,000 square feet adjacent to Kiln.
SkinnyFats, a rapidly growing Las Vegas-based restaurant, will be the first of about 10 food vendors to open in a new food hall at the open-air shopping center.
The hall will open this fall at the south end of the downtown shopping center, where Urban Arts Gallery, Sunglass Hut and The Happy Sumo were, officials said.
In addition to food, the hall is expected to have a beer and wine bar.
