I didn’t realize how much I missed Salt Lake City until I had a layover there on the way to Washington in June. I REALLY wanted to leave the airport and go see all the things. So this time on my way to Washington I added a 24-hour stopover in SLC.
The plane landed around 1 pm, and I headed straight to the Vertical Diner (didn’t even bother to drop off my luggage) for lunch.
I asked for a seat on the patio. (Four days earlier they’d posted “Patio Days are still here!” on Instagram, so I think I was inceptioned.)
I ordered “the avalanche,” which I always order because it comes with the best pancakes (vegan or non-vegan) I’ve ever had. They’re crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and taste the way vanilla smells. The avalanche also comes with tofu scramble, potatoes, and breakfast sausage. This dish fit on one plate the last time I had it, so by the time I finished BOTH plates and the server said, “Save any room for dessert?” the answer was a firm no. But, for future reference, I asked if they still had their brownies (another best-ever, vegan or non-vegan). They said, “Oh yeah, we’ll always have the brownies.”
After the Vertical Diner I went to the Harmons in downtown because Google maps swore there was a post office inside. But Harmons was on my to-visit list anyway. Is it odd to put a grocery store on a must-visit list? Yes, probably. Is this grocery store worth the trip? Absolutely. The lighting, the variety, the vastness combine to make an engrossing food shopping experience. (They had TWO chocolate popup displays this time.) I spent a lot of time in Harmons, mostly looking for that post office. Turns out I was standing under the post office sign the whole time.
After Harmons I wandered the City Creek mall. (This is the mall with the retractable roof. The roof was open because the weather was a perfect 70 degrees.)
On March 18, 2020, a 5.7 magnitude earthquake shook Salt Lake City and knocked the trumpet out of the hands of the Moroni statue on top of the temple. Ironically, the temple was already shut down for a four-year renovation project that includes adding a base isolation system to absorb seismic shock waves. So both the temple and Temple Square are closed at the moment, but mark your calendars! The church plans to have an open house for the public once the work is complete (and before the temple is dedicated at which point only church members are allowed inside).
From Temple Square I took the train to the Salt Lake City Public Library and then walked to Liberty Park. The Chase Home Museum of Utah Folk Arts is in the background, built in the 1850s by Isaac Chase (business partner to Brigham Young). In 1882 the 110-acre Chase farm went to the State of Utah and eventually became Liberty Park.
The duck pond at Liberty Park. (The tree-lined sidewalks photo at the start of this post is also Liberty Park.)
Flowers overflowing the Wasatch Community Gardens fence on my walk from Liberty Park, past Trolley Square and Smith’s, to catch the train up to the U of U for …
… pizza! The Pie makes the best vegan pizza (better than any in California unfortunately). I was tempted to get two but knew there was no way I could eat it all.
I opted for the BBQ beef pizza with pineapple, vegan ground beef, two kinds of vegan cheese, and cilantro. This photo is lit by the overhead lights at the Stadium TRAX station while I waited for the train back downtown. It brought back memories of staying in the computer lab until well after dark and then shivering on a bench waiting for the last train.
In the morning my first stop was the all-vegan Big O Doughnuts, which has moved next door to the Vertical Diner.
I ended up with (counter-clockwise from the bottom) passion fruit-pineapple, blueberry lavender, churro, worms and dirt, wildberry cheesecake, and a maple bar. The worms and dirt doughnut has chocolate pudding in it. They all had great flavor, particularly the passion fruit and the churro, and the worms and dirt one was way fun to eat.
By