So I was in Utah and searched high and low for a non hamburger place to eat one night about 10 PM. I cannot believe how many hamburger joints there are in Utah and so few nice places to eat.

So I finally found this place the wife and I could sit down and eat something other than a hamburger. I think we were in Bountiful or Woods Cross (north of SLC).

Anyways we each ordered a Bud Light and the server has to see or ID. Then the manager has to come and double check our ID's to make sure we are both over 21. We have grandchildren so I know we look like we are under 21. Then we have to promise that we are both over to 21 and we both are planning on getting something to eat. I thought that was stupid but to get liquor we have to go behind the veil (curtain) and watch the bar tender mix our drinks. I guess watching liquor being mixed might turn minors into raging drunks.

We had flown in, spent all day on planes, it is late, we are tired, we want to eat and get to our hotel room and get some sleep. The place we are eating at has the worst karaoke going. They are trying so hard to get the few people in the restaurant to sing.

Guess who comes in the restaurant. Groups of Morons. All the men look like they belong to an Amish Cult. They all are wearing the same pants, shoes, white shirts and ties. All the women look like they just got off the wagon after being hit by the ugly stick multiply times. Not a speck of make up or fashion clothes on any of them. Maybe they were pulling a hand cart but I expect they were watching a movie at the big white and spacious building on the hill in Bountiful.

So we finish our food and Bud Light's and get ready to leave when this guy comes and starts begging us to sing karaoke. I tell him no and he says "but you had a beer".

I guess in Utard a single beer makes you drunk enough to sing a stupid karaoke sing. Good Grief, no wonder Utard has such stupid liquor laws and bad dressed couples.

Where is Joan Rivers and the Fashion Police when you need them along with the most interesting guy in the world.

I am going to go and drink a nice cold beer (29 degrees).

If you can't find a good place to eat and to drink beer then you aren't looking very hard. Bountiful sucks, but you are about 10 minutes away from downtown with good traffic, and could easily find things there. There are a lot of good diners in Bountiful though.

Every so often a thread about good places to eat around SLC come up. Search for them and you'll get literally dozens of ideas.

That being said, some of the best hamburgers I've ever had in all of my traveling come from Utah. We do have a lot of non-chain burger joints. The best ones have beer too.

We did find a place in Salt Lake on Broadway near State Street (Theatre District ?) called the Copper Onion. The food was outstanding. Pricey (hamburger was $13). I had their meatloaf ($10) and it was so good. The best part, the waitress did not ask for ID or make our drinks behind the veil. They acted like a normal restaurant. The food was the best we had during our trip.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/02/2014 06:28PM by themaster.

You are absolutely right. Outstanding food, but it is pricey! I'm glad you found that place, it is a gem.

The place that is next to it is called Copper Commons. It used to have some of the most amazing ramen I've ever eaten. As much as I love bars, it was a shame they turned it into one.

themaster Wrote:
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> I cannot believe how many hamburger joints there
> are in Utah and so few nice places to eat.

This.

"But you had a beer!"

"True, but you didn't."

My personal experience of Karaoke is the enjoyment is directly related to the consumption of alcohol. If the singers are good no one minds.

If the singers are bad and the listeners have tied a few on, they don't mind either.


The checking of ID at your age sounds like paranoia.

Utah needs to get on their Meth problem, I've had more trouble from meth drivers in St. George than any where else, and I supposedly live in a meth capital of the North West.

But you're right, to a non drinker; one beer makes you three sheets to the wind and too impaired to drive. How this can happen on 4% Beer I don't know...unless they added something to it? Is that why you had to watch them pour your beer behind the counter?????

Lucky 13

I agree with london, Lucky 13 has great food and the atmosphere is not really one for the mo-mos. (Although, I know a handful that go just for some garlic-roseMary fries and Cokes).

I completely missed the point of this headline the first time.

I thought the OP was making a statement that liquor ruled in Bountiful, not describing the liquor rules in Bountiful.

Oh well, even if liquor does not rule in Bountiful, Utah, it does rule in Key West, Fla.

and I wondered why it rules in Bountiful, of all places



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2014 12:10AM by donbagley.

This incident also says a lot about Mormons incomprehension of social boundaries.

They seem unable to get it.

We are in our 40's and notice that we are only asked to show ID at the chain restaurants. DABC loves nothing more than to run "stings" to catch restaurants serving minors.

DH and I go out 3 or 4 times a month and have drinks with dinner not once have we had to go behind a curtain, but Bountiful is the TBM of Davis county!

There recently were some restaurants that got busted for serving minors. That is a huge thing in Utah with big fines for both the server and the restautant. I bet the manager told staff they have to card everyone no matter how old they look, and that it has to be verified by a second source. As to the "Do you intend on dining", that is a new rule in all Utah restaurants. Ridiculous, but true. As to the "Zion Curtain", they have to mix behind it in newer restaurants, but I have never had to follow them! I think someone was definitely over-reacting.

I'm not going to name the place, but it is in Sandy and had a mouontain lion visit it last Friday.
The food and drinks are great there.
There are 3 restaurants and in one of them (IIRC) there is NO ZION CURTAIN!!!
They just pour your drink right in front of you.
Kid-friendly parts are way over on the other side of the open floor plan.

Ruths, to the east of SLC is wonderful for great food and a beautiful view.

I work in that area what restaurant were you eating at?

The first time someone asks me to show ID to serve alcohol I'll titter to myself graciously and consider gently inflating their tip. I'm 45, but still cute.

The second time someone wants to further scrutinize my ID because they're disapproving of my choice to consume alcohol, I'll take my business elsewhere and never return.

Cripes. Only in Utah.

What in the heck are you guys talking about with this curtain thing? Are we talking a literal curtain here?

Utah's liquor laws are SO weird.

OMG I laughed out loud reading that!! That is the stupidest f#cken thing I have ever heard of. Well besides Mormonism. Seriously though, that is truly bizarre.

You're telling me a bartender can't mix a drink in plain view??? They have to hide it? I feel like this is a joke.

The "Zion Curtain" is a mandated barrier in Utah restaurants that keeps patrons from seeing alcoholic beverages being poured or mixed. It's all about "protecting the children" (as well as the naive TBMs who don't want to think about alcohol).

No joke twistedsister, the zion curtain is a certain "political" piece of embarrassment for any Utahn. It is the law here and we laugh about it all the time. There is a certainly.loud politician backing the need for this partition. Valentine, probably rcvd incentive for his vote..

Why Utah has a problem with it is a mystery. With JS having a bar in his home and BY having a distillery or two.

I live in Bountiful. And we were recently house hunting. We looked at one house where Hinkley was the name on the mailbox. And the upstairs looked very proper. But when you went downstairs there was a bar/dance floor. It was so funny. The bar was unmistakable as anything does. It was 1970's style with dark wood paneling, a full wall mirror, red backlighting and a disco ball. There were political posters and buttons to vote for Nixon. It was marvelous.

A little gambling town west of Salt lake City, was funded mostly by investments of the LDS church. I am sure they still have returns from that money making gem town.

I can top this and for the life of me I cannot understand why. I think it MAY have something to do with the legalization of weed, but nobody can decide how to set the whole thing up that they are somehow "practicing"

I live in Seattle and am 66 ( yes , I said 66) and I have been carded twice this month at a Rite Aid Drug Store for beer. Now can anyone explain that? Not just me, the guy behind me had it happen to him also and these were two different ladies.

Did the bartender ask, "What is wanted?"

If the manager came out and re-carded you, the restaurant had probably been busted for some infraction, and part of their punishment is to be monumental pains in the butt to their customers. Yet another way the Utah DABC is run by morons.