Like any good mixologist, Ali Vallarta wanted to shake things up.
“I found myself going to the same seven bars over and over,” she said. “Like, every week, we’re back at the same places. There’s so much more to see and more people to meet.”
It’s safe to say that’s no problem after her year-long adventure.
That’s because Vallarta — whose day job is hosting the City Cast Salt Lake podcast — decided at the beginning of 2023 that she was going to do something a little crazy: grab a drink at every bar in Salt Lake County.
She drank at 211 bars in all.
The tour would be a bit of a logistical challenge. Sure, bars near her downtown Salt Lake City apartment would be relatively easy to pick off. But watering holes farther away required friendly designated drivers, geographic travel optimization, and, well, a lot of drinking.
Here’s a map of Vallarta’s 2023 journey. Dots on the map pop up to represent when in the year Vallarta visited each bar around the county.
She started out slowly, with those bars closer to her home. She didn’t hit the 50-bar mark until the end of April, but a late flourish of 83 bars visited in October, November and December ensured success before the year′s last call.
As Salt Lake’s foremost bar tourist, what can Vallarta teach us from her travels? Here’s what she said about her experiences — and Utah’s bar scene as a whole.
What makes a good bar?
Disappointingly, Vallarta declined to answer my obvious question.
“What’s the best bar in Salt Lake?”
She didn’t rank all 211 bars, which does feel understandable, and didn’t want to get into the cutthroat world of comparing these small businesses. She has favorites for different occasions: a first date (Junior’s), an anniversary (Bar Nohm or Sayonara), or a night at a dive (Bongo or Club 48).
But Vallarta said that there was clear continuity in her favorite bars, different types though they may be:
“A great bar is so clear in its identity, that when you walk in, you know what’s expected of you,” she said. “How to behave, and what is being offered, and what is not being offered. A bad bar is a bar without a clear identity.”
And most of all, through her conversations with people around the valley, she found another commonality:
“A key takeaway from this journey is that the best bar is the one closest to you,” she said.
Do the bars feel safe?
Another question that Vallarta said she heard frequently: “Did you ever feel unsafe during your quest?”
She said she didn’t — that “not once” did she feel either unsafe or even unwelcomed at the bar she was at. She acknowledges that her project’s usual modus operandi, popping into a bar for a drink or two, might have led to different feelings than for someone who stayed longer. Bad things do sometimes happen at bars.
(Ali Vallarta) The interior of HK Brewing Collective Taproom & Bar.
But in general, she felt that some bars just got a bad rap from people who didn’t know better.
“I think the implication of that question is — were these places seedy?” Vallarta said. “I went to a lot of dive bars, and I didn’t really meet seedy people, I met people who just think that the best bar is the one closest to their house.”
Bar staff deserved a lot of credit, too.
“I would attribute never feeling unsafe to how lucky we are to have really great bartenders and bouncers in Salt Lake County. I’m not just talking about your favorite door guy you know,” Vallarta said. “I’m talking about — when I went to the Second Amendment-themed bar in Herriman ... they could not have been more welcoming.”
What’s the best drink in Salt Lake County?
OK, Vallarta couldn’t try every drink in the county — nor did she really try to. But especially at Salt Lake County’s cocktail bars, she asked bartenders to recommend the best drinks they had available.
And one stood out: Seabird’s “Nine Post Cards” cocktail. At locations in Draper and the Gateway in Salt Lake City, Seabird’s bartenders make the drink with Suntory’s Haku vodka, pear liqueur, sesame miso syrup, and lemon juice. The cocktail costs a pricey $14. Still, she says it was worth it.
“It was divine,” Vallarta says. “It’s hard to say because sometimes you taste something delicious, and it’s also about the moment, what you ate an hour before, what you’re in the mood for. But this was just a good a-- drink.”
Notable bar crawls
In order to accomplish her goal, Vallarta organized many of her bar trips into weekend bar crawls, in which she’d visit establishments in a particular location or with a particular theme. These days became some of the highlights of the year.
• First, she says, was her Fourth of July bar crawl in Magna, which featured five different establishments.
“The Fourth of July in Magna is tremendous,” Vallarta said. “There’s a bustle about it. There’s a chaos about it. ... People are just down to clown. When you’re in Magna, you’re almost like ‘Are we in Nevada?’”
(Kylie Fitch) Podcast host Ali Vallarta drinks at Boomerang's Down Under Bar in Millcreek.
• Another notable trip: the Saturday she visited all nine ‘Bout Time Pub & Grub establishments in the county. A large group of friends and even just curious acquaintances joined the shenanigans. The chain is by far the most ubiquitous bar in the valley. Vallarta says that the ‘Bout Time location in West Valley City near the Maverik Center is the best one of the bunch.
• She organized two crawls in which she visited bars that aren’t open to the general public — those at country clubs and those for veterans. Sometimes, those clubs opened their doors when Vallarta explained her resolution, at others, she found a club member who “sponsored” her for a day.
The impact of Utah’s liquor laws
One of Vallarta’s most interesting takeaways was how Utah’s liquor laws impacted bars’ successes or failures.
First, Vallarta noted a relative lack of neighborhood bars. Because state regulations prohibit bars from being near churches, schools, libraries, parks, and playgrounds, they tend to be pushed to unusual places, or bigger retail developments — ironically, farther away from where people are likely to live. As a result, not many people can walk to a neighborhood bar outside of downtown Salt Lake City.
But Utah’s strict limit on the number of bar licenses available — one for every 10,200 residents — also had an impact on the character of new bars that open, Vallarta believes.
In short, the DABS only gives licenses to bars that are ready to open immediately. As a result, new bar owners must pay rent, develop a space, hire staff, and have supplies ready for months before opening a bar — a huge initial expense. But bar owners can’t really advertise about a new bar opening, either, because there’s no known opening date.
“You definitely notice a difference between places that are long established and places that are new,” Vallarta said. “It almost feels like you need to have some sort of like a gimmick or a very specific identity — like you’re trying to become the talk of the town. You’re trying to generate more enthusiasm than I think is appropriate for any new business to have to generate while opening their doors and training.”
But while the bars themselves differ, Vallarta says there’s value to any bar in Utah.
“Especially in Utah, being a place where people can gather (is important),” Vallarta said. “It’s a third space, where people can gather and where it’s not unacceptable or rude or bothersome to strike up a conversation with a stranger. There’s a little bit of identity politics at play when you’re in a bar in the state, because right away, people start to make inferences about your lifestyle.”
It’s true — bargoers are a little rarer around here. But perhaps there’s a lesson there: the inside of every bar, no matter the zip code, has its own community, and perhaps those communities have more in common than you might anticipate.
Take it from someone who’s been to all of them.
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