The Salt Lake ValleyThe Avenues Street Fair closes 1st Avenue Saturday, Doja Cat plays West Valley, and Cursed Child leaves the Eccles Sunday
Plus the Full Stack in Union Park, Skyline High's finished rebuild, and a Royals goal in the 96th minute.
Good morning, Salt Lake Valley.
The Avenues Street Fair turns 49 on Saturday, and it's the one day a year you can walk the middle of 1st Avenue from I Street to O Street. More than 270 vendors set up, and the day starts with a kids' parade down the block.
It stays sunny with highs in the mid 80s through Friday, and Saturday cools to about 80 with a slight chance of showers. Storms are in the forecast Saturday night and Sunday, when the high drops to about 70, so anything outdoors belongs on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday.
📍 30 seconds in the valley⏱️ 9 min read
- 🎨Walk the Avenues Street Fair Saturday
- 🎭Catch Cursed Child before it leaves Sunday
- 🥞Order the Full Stack at Penny Ann's
⭐ The Big One
Best Saturday plan of the week
Walk the 49th Avenues Street Fair on Saturday
The Greater Avenues Community Council closes 1st Avenue between I and O Streets on Saturday for its 49th street fair. More than 270 vendors line five blocks with art, crafts, and food booths, and six local acts play the stage at M Street, from the ukulele band Salt Lake Strummers to the classic rock covers of Valkyrie.
Volunteers run the whole thing. Vendor booth fees pay for the street closure, the stage, and the porta-potties, and whatever is left over goes back into neighborhood projects like the Memory Grove cleanup and the Popperton Community Garden. The council expects about 10,000 people over the day, with no more than about 2,500 on the street at once.
Our take
Get there at 10 if you have kids. The fair opens with a flag ceremony at the M Street stage, and then a children's parade walks west down 1st Avenue to the kids' activity area on the church lawn at J Street. This year's featured artist, Libby Peterson, painted the Animals in the Avenues theme art, and her booth sits next to the council's at 1st Avenue and K Street.⚠️ Heads up: The fair has no parking lot, so plan on a side street a few blocks out and a walk in. Free drinking water is set out at every intersection, which you'll want on an 80-degree day.
free familiesfreethe Avenues
📰 Around the Valley
The West Valley Library closes Dec. 19 and will be rebuilt more than twice as big
Salt Lake County is closing the West Valley Library for good on Dec. 19, tearing down the building, and putting up a new one on the same site. The library has been there since 1969, and the county says it no longer has room for what West Valley City needs. The new building will be more than twice the size, with an arts space shared with Ballet West Academy and a black-box theater, and it's expected to open in early 2029.
Skyline High's seven-year rebuild is finished
Skyline High in Millcreek opened its new performing arts center on Oct. 2, the last piece of a rebuild that started seven years ago. Granite School District rebuilt the school in phases on the same site so classes never had to move, after worries about earthquakes and a leaking roof. The old building had 72 ways in. The new one has far fewer, and classrooms are grouped in pods instead of strung along long hallways.
📅 This Week
Book now, it closes Sunday
Catch Harry Potter and the Cursed Child before it leaves the Eccles Sunday
The touring production of Cursed Child has been at the Eccles Theater since Sept. 19, and its last Salt Lake show is Sunday. It's one play in two acts, 2 hours 55 minutes with one intermission, and it picks up 19 years after the last book.
Our take
If full-price seats are more than you want to spend, enter the show's Golden Snitch digital lottery on the official tour site, which sells winners up to two seats at $40 apiece. Your ticket also works as a full UTA pass on show day, so ride TRAX downtown and skip paying for a garage on Main Street.⚠️ Heads up: It's rated for ages 8 and up, babies aren't admitted, and every person needs a ticket. The staging uses strobe lights.
$$$ theaterHarry Potter fansdowntown
Worth it if you already love the records
See Doja Cat and Latto at the Maverik Center
Doja Cat brings her Tour Ma Vie world tour, behind her new album Vie, to West Valley City on Saturday night. Latto opens.
Our take
You can do this and the street fair on the same day. The fair shuts down at 5, the show starts at 7:30, and the drive from the Avenues to Decker Lake Drive is a straight shot out I-80 and down I-215.⚠️ Heads up: Read the bag rules on the Maverik Center's FAQ page before you bring a purse, so you're not walking it back to the car.
$$$ pophip-hopWest Valley City
Worth it for preschool through grade school
Ride the cow train at Wheeler Farm's Pumpkin Days
Wheeler Historic Farm in Murray runs Pumpkin Days through Oct. 31, with a hay maze, a play area, and wagon and cow train rides.
Our take
Weekdays don't open until 4pm, so Saturday at 9am is the window for little kids who are done by lunch. If you can wait until next week, Tuesday evenings are $2 off and the farm brings in food trucks for dinner.⚠️ Heads up: Sunday closes at 4pm, and Sunday is also the day storms are forecast. Pick Saturday.
$ kidspumpkinsMurray
Worth it for a fall night outside
Hear Dwight Yoakam at the Sandy Amphitheater
Dwight Yoakam, who brought the Bakersfield honky-tonk sound back to country radio in the '80s, plays the Sandy Amphitheater on Thursday night.
Our take
Thursday is clear with a low around 58, so it's short sleeves when the show starts and a jacket by the encore. His catalog goes back to Guitars, Cadillacs, the title song of his 1986 debut album.⚠️ Heads up: It's a 7pm start on a work night, so eat before you go or grab something on 9400 South on the way in.
$$ countrydate nightSandy
🏟️ The Scoreboard
The Mammoth lose for the first time, 4-2 at the Rangers
Utah's hockey team took its first loss Sunday afternoon in New York after opening with wins over Chicago and Columbus. The five-game road trip went through New Jersey on Tuesday and keeps going in Boston and Buffalo before the team comes home.
A goal in the 96th minute saves a point for the Royals
Brecken Mozingo hit a left-footed shot from outside the box in the sixth minute of stoppage time Saturday, and it stood after a video review, for a 1-1 draw at Racing Louisville. The Royals are fourth in the NWSL with three regular-season games left, two points ahead of the team they play next.
🍴 Eat & Drink
Worth the wait on a weekend morning
Order the Full Stack at Penny Ann's Cafe
Penny Ann's is a family-run breakfast and lunch cafe known for its sour cream pancakes, which it sells as Heavenly Hot Cakes. Union Park is one of five locations, along with Salt Lake, Taylorsville, Draper, and Bountiful.
Our take
The order is the Full Stack: two eggs and three strips of bacon sandwiched between three hot cakes, with butter and syrup. If someone at the table wants the most Utah thing on the menu, there's a fried scone.⚠️ Heads up: Penny Ann's runs an online wait list on its website. Put your name on it before you leave the house on a Saturday morning.
$$ breakfastpancakesUnion Park
🌲 Get Outside
Worth it if you like a steep morning
Climb Broads Fork before Sunday's storm
Broads Fork starts at the Mill B South trailhead, about 4.5 miles up Big Cottonwood Canyon, and climbs a little over 2 miles to a meadow under Twin Peaks. It's steep nearly the whole way, about 2,000 feet up.
Our take
A quarter mile from the parking lot, the trail turns left into the Twin Peaks Wilderness, and from there it's mostly up. Make the meadow your turnaround for a moderate day, since the routes above it are for people going for the peaks. With valley highs in the mid 80s through Friday, start by 8am and you'll be back at the car before it gets hot.⚠️ Heads up: Big Cottonwood is watershed, so dogs aren't allowed, even on a leash.
free hikingBig Cottonwoodearly risers
🎟️ Also Happening
Hear Staind play Break the Cycle
Staind, Seether, Hoobastank, and Hinder play the Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre tonight at 6pm in West Valley City.
Hear Juanes at The Union
The Colombian rock and Latin pop star plays The Union Event Center Friday at 8pm in Salt Lake City.
Run the Halloween Howl with your dog
Murray's 3K and 5K starts at the Murray Park outdoor pool Monday, Oct 12, at 5:30pm in Murray, $7 for residents and $9 for everyone else.
📰 Valley News
A pilot 700 miles away lands a plane at SLC International
On Sept. 30, a Joby Aviation Caravan fitted with autonomous flight technology landed at Salt Lake City International while a pilot flew it remotely from Concord, Calif., about 700 miles away. A safety pilot rode along but didn't fly it. Joby says its electric air taxis, which carry a pilot and four passengers, will fly over Utah sometime between next year and the 2034 Olympics, and UDOT is collecting data from the flights to help set safety rules.
Donner Trail Park reopens with Salt Lake City's first memorial tree grove
Donner Trail Park on the east bench is open again after a four-month rebuild with new playgrounds, water-wise landscaping, and a walking path. It's also the site of the city's first memorial tree grove, where residents can pay to have a tree planted in someone's name. The park's new art piece, Journey Lines by Adam Kuby, is 16 stone and steel pieces set along the paths.
A 217-unit apartment building breaks ground in Bluffdale
Six Ridge Partners started building a five-story apartment building at 15580 Plentiful Way in Bluffdale, inside the Independence at the Point neighborhood. It will have studios through three-bedrooms, a pool, a rooftop deck, and 395 parking stalls. The first units are expected in August 2027, with the whole building done in February 2028.
Delta starts nonstops from Salt Lake to Sonoma wine country
Delta's new nonstop from Salt Lake City to Santa Rosa, in Sonoma County, Calif., started Tuesday. The airline also has a Salt Lake to Monterey, Calif., route starting Dec. 19, and it announced twice-daily, year-round flights to Flagstaff, Ariz., beginning June 7, 2027.
The Debate
💙 Good Neighbor
Nominate the person who helped this week
If a neighbor did something specific that made your week easier, reply with their name, city, and what they did. We may feature them in a future issue.
Nominate a neighbor →Saturday stacks up well: the fair in the Avenues from 10 to 5, then Doja Cat in West Valley at 7:30 if you have tickets. If you want a hike, do Broads Fork Thursday or Friday morning and leave Sunday for the rain.
Reply with the neighborhood event, restaurant, or trail we should check next.
— The Salt Lake Valley crew
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