Posted: 10/1/2013 12:10:45 PM EDT
Hi all, the wife and I will be visiting Salt Lake City next week and I was wanting to get a little info from the UT HTF. We are looking at staying downtown near the convention center. From reading it looks like City Creek Center and The Gateway are interesting areas with food and shopping. Is this a good area to stay? Are there any areas to avoid and conversely any must-see places? Restaurant and nightlife suggestions are welcome too. We like doing outdoor stuff so we'll probably lean more in those type of activities. Thanks in advance for any replies. 
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my list:
Restaurants: Lucky 13 is best burger bar its near the bee's stadium If you want a nice dinner, top floor of the Joe Smith building there are 2 places. "the roof" is a somewhat classy buffet. ( I know classy and buffet aren't supposed to be used together) Brew Pubs: squatters has great beer and good food, Red Rock has good beer and great food. If you make it to Park City then look into the High west distillery. Snowbird ski resort which is about a 20 min drive will be doing their annual Oktoberfest If you wanna drive to ogden then look into the John Browning museum If you have never shot full auto then look into Get Some Guns and Ammo in Murray. If you want to go on some Hikes then I would suggest Donut Falls for fun short hike. If you go to snowbird Oktoberfest you could take the Tram to the top of the mountain for some good views that are easy to get. What kind of outdoorsy stuff are you talking about. I can recommend a lot of great hikes. Depends on how in shape you are. There aren't really any bad places in Salt Lake. City Creek is in a nice area. |
| Thanks for the replies guys, I appreciate it! And tveddy, we are looking at hiking, mountain biking and white water rafting. Not trying sound arrogant or anything, but the wife and I are in great shape. Fitness is a big part of our lives so we can handle just about anything. One other thing, my plan currently isn't to rent a car. I'm not opposed to getting one for a day to go some places but for the most part I think we can get by with public transportation or maybe the odd cab ride. Am I way off on this thinking? |
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If you want to hit the canyons I recommend a car. The Cottonwood canyons aren't super close to downtown and you would likely pay less for a car rental than for cab rides. I love biking at Snowbird and you're looking at some long bus rides on public transportation to get up there.
When you're downtown check out Bambara, Blue Plate Diner, and Red Iguana. |
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There are some ok bars downtown if you're looking for that kind of thing.
Murphys, Cheers to You, Jackalope Lounge - all kind of smaller bars on Main and State St. Murphy's has food. Bar X - nice, kinda fancy bar with expensive cocktails, across from Gallenson's gun store. Beerhive - nice bar and has a frozen ice strip in the bar to keep your beer cold Piper Down - Irish/English/Scottish bar with pretty good bar food and my personal favorites:: The Republican - best Irish pub in Utah, soccer on all the time Lucky 13 - good bar and the best burgers I've ever had Burt's Tiki Lounge - super divey bar that has bands play The alcohol laws here are confusing and strange, so be prepared for that. For restaurants, I'd recommend these. Ruth's Diner up Emigration Canyon. Pho Tay Ho for really good Pho. Cottonbottom Inn for awesome garlic burgers. Chowtruck is really good for a food truck, Asian food. Oh Mai Vietnamese Sandwich Shop Caputo's Deli - Italian market/deli Siegfried's Deli - German deli Copper Onion Firehouse BBQ, although I hesitate to even recommend any BBQ here since you're from Texas. |
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If you want a great view of some mountains I would recommend the following, keeping in mind to check weather prior because all the peaks are exposed and weather can affect a lot in the fall
Mt Olympus great view of the valley, difficult hike due to steepness Timpanagos One of my favorite hikes. 45 min south of SLC Lake Blanche shorter, with a nice alpine lake and views of the mountains. I dont bike, but my buddy told be this is a fun trail wasatch crest trail Also on my list of "to do" is The Pfeifferhorn Which you take the Red Pine Lake trail to. The website says it can be turned into a loop with the white pine lake trail on the way down after the summit. I haven't yet done it though, so I cant vouch. As mentioned, I would plan on renting a car if possible, but I'm sure you could do the public transportation to the park and ride. I dont know about that. |
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Hiking -
Geeze take your pick. I would suggest something like silver lake (American Fork Canyon), if you are downtown there are lots of trails just up above the "avenues" and a canyon with a trail to the east of the Capitol building as well as look up olympus cove hiking trails. With the leaves changing colors I would look for hikes near the canyons (http://www.utah.com/saltlake/hiking.htm) has some good ones listed. If you don't mind driving Logan Canyon has one of the best rated "scenic canyons" for fall colors (about a 4hr round trip from SLC) Eating - I work downtown and have eaten at many of the establishments. It will just depend on what you are feeling like I would say where I work the places we go when people come into town are: Squatters (pub/restaurant), Siegfrieds (German delicatessen), Beni hanas (SP? Japanese sushi bar), Blue Iguana (below Beni Hanas), Market Street Grill (Great clam chowder and fish for being this far from the coast), The Roof or Lion House, etc... Lots of food. Let me know what you like and I can point you around Mexican - Red Iguana (South Temple and 500 West I think) has some good Mexican food We have a bunch of Brazilian Buffet places like Tucano's Rodizio grill, etc... Barbaque - Pat's (off of 21st south and around 3rd west) - is good and was featured on diners, dives.and drive-ins, there is a new one downtown (NOT Sunnys) that is supposed to be good Fast Food - JCW's (Mostly Utah County and close to Cabela's have great burgers especially the bacon and hamburgers but be prepared to wait because they usually have a ton of people), Cafe Rio, Costa Vida (etc.. fast food wannabe mexican food) Down over by Cotton Wood canyons you have Lonestar Taqueria (They used to only take cash but that could have changed) great food. Breakfast places - Ruth's diner (up the canyon past the zoo ~ 20 minutes from downtown), and a lot of eclectic ones around 1300 east from about 700 south to about 2100 south (kind of hipster places) Here is a link of the most popular places (http://www.urbanspoon.com/lb/54/best-restaurants-Salt-Lake-City) This will give you a general overview but it is not all inclusive Places to see what types of things do you like to do? Usually people go to Temple Square, John Moses Browning Museum, Hill Airforce Base Museum, Park City, any of the ski resorts, or tons of canyons, Bridaveil falls in Provo Canyon, if you get further south east you have places like Hells Backbone, Arches NP, Moab, Calf Creek Falls, Capitol Reef NP, Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, tons of reservoirs/lakes to go out but it will be a little chilly. Hope this helps |
| went up to white pine lake today. Its a little chilly above 10K feet. If you plan on summitting, make sure to bring waterproof gear, cold weather gear, and such. There was about a foot of snow up at the lake. Got too late of a start to try to summit. best of luck chief. |
Well we just got back on sunday and had a great time! The first day we got in we were hungry and tired from flying so we ate dinner at Red Rock Brewery then went to Squatters to relax and liked both places. We drove to Antelope Island the next day and hiked Sentry Trail first. We wanted to do the Frary Peak trail since it had more of an elevation change but it started raining when we were at the top of Sentry trail and we didn't really have wet weather gear. My wife enjoyed seeing the bison, mule deer, and antelope though. We spent one day down at City Creek because it was raining and had a great lunch at the Blue Lemon. We also went to the UMOCA and saw some interesting art. That evening we hung out at The Green Pig pub. The next day the weather was much better so we took the TRAX train to the University of Utah campus then walked the rest of the way to Red Butte Garden and walked all the trails in addition to walking the garden grounds. Our last day was saturday and we went to Oktoberfest up at Snowbird and ate some good German food and drank a fair amount of beer. We also took the tram up to the top and man it was brisk up there at 11000 feet! Overall we enjoyed the area thanks in part to all the suggestions from the UT HTF. Thanks again guys! 
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Quoted:
Well we just got back on sunday and had a great time! The first day we got in we were hungry and tired from flying so we ate dinner at Red Rock Brewery then went to Squatters to relax and liked both places. We drove to Antelope Island the next day and hiked Sentry Trail first. We wanted to do the Frary Peak trail since it had more of an elevation change but it started raining when we were at the top of Sentry trail and we didn't really have wet weather gear. My wife enjoyed seeing the bison, mule deer, and antelope though. We spent one day down at City Creek because it was raining and had a great lunch at the Blue Lemon. We also went to the UMOCA and saw some interesting art. That evening we hung out at The Green Pig pub. The next day the weather was much better so we took the TRAX train to the University of Utah campus then walked the rest of the way to Red Butte Garden and walked all the trails in addition to walking the garden grounds. Our last day was saturday and we went to Oktoberfest up at Snowbird and ate some good German food and drank a fair amount of beer. We also took the tram up to the top and man it was brisk up there at 11000 feet! Overall we enjoyed the area thanks in part to all the suggestions from the UT HTF. Thanks again guys! Glad you enjoyed your stay
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