Sundays, for the average college student, are for laundry, test cramming, sleeping off the hangover, catching up on Netflix and, most importantly (in my humble opinion), brunching.
Utah, but Salt Lake City specifically, has a very select mindset: Sundays are for family, relaxation and cooking in, making it pretty hard for any out-of-staters to ingest their weekly value of Eggs Benedict.
Coming from Chicago, where a Sunday morning in the Loop is more bustling than a Friday night on Michigan Avenue, it was pretty hard to adjust to the idea that I would need a car to get to an establishment that would take the weight of attempting to fry bacon off my hands.
There are some truly incredible local restaurants flourishing in downtown SLC: Gourmandise, Eva’s Bakery and Kneaders come to mind. However, many restaurants and bakeries central to downtown are closed on Sundays for religious purposes, and so workers can get a day off to be with their families.
This is an incredible doctrine — it promotes happy employees, family time and lends itself to the city’s relaxed vibes on Sundays. However, I know for a fact that if you asked any U student who has been to Gourmandise before if they would like the restaurant to be open on Sundays, even with reduced hours, the response would be an overwhelming “yes.”
If restaurants and stores choose to stay open on Sundays, they generally practice shorter hours of operation. Because of the reduced Trax and UTA schedule the city practices on Sundays, restaurants’ reduced hours do not seem to be an issue for the general public. This should serve as a cue to other surrounding businesses that all-day operation is not necessary. We will take even a few short hours to get our hands on those chocolate chip pancakes.
Salt Lake is rapidly becoming more progressive; taking feedback from data on optimal UTA times into account, attempting to expand with local restaurants and businesses, catering to the needs of its citizens. So while I respect the decision to let employees have Sundays off, business could be booming for certain establishments if we weren’t banging down doors just to pour some coffee, pore over our textbooks and turn out our pockets in search of the perfect brunch spot.