2 weeks Ago
A Salt Lake City bar that’s operated along U.S. 89 for decades will close its doors for good this year and then be demolished, its owner says.
The Garage on Beck, at 1199 N. Beck St., will close on May 31, and “the building will be knocked down,” owner Bob McCarthy wrote in a Facebook post Thursday.
McCarthy said he’s closing The Garage to focus on the two downtown Salt Lake City bars he owns: Stoneground Italian Kitchen at 249 E. 400 South and Juniors Tavern at 30 E. 300 South.
In the post, McCarthy promises The Garage will go out swinging, with “tons of music and big celebrations” in May. “Come support my wonderful staff and fill their pockets with cash before they move on to their next chapter,” he wrote. Though the building will be torn down, McCarthy wrote, “everything will be for sale.
You could have the name, website, liquor license. ..
. Take everything in the building, including the building.” Much of the equipment inside The Garage was replaced when the bar reopened in summer 2024, after a fire gutted the place in October 2023.
All of that equipment — including kitchen gear, hood systems and soundstages — along with the reclaimed wood is for sale, “pennies on the dollar,” McCarthy wrote. “I would love to see the legacy continue somewhere.” (Salt Lake City Police) Fire crews work to battle a blaze at Garage on Beck on Oct.
21, 2023. Fans of The Garage, responding to McCarthy’s post, expressed hope that some of the menu — such as the roadhouse chicken and especially the funeral potatoes — live on in another location. According to a 2018 Visit Salt Lake article , McCarthy first bought the location in 2008.
It had been called Jimax Lounge — a play on the names of the couple who owned it, Jim and Maxine — in the 1970s, and renamed Rose’s Jimax Lounge when another owner took it on in 1985. Some of the buildings on the site date back to the 1940s. It took three years, according to a 2012 history posted on the bar’s website, for McCarthy and his collaborators to revamp the bar and rebrand it The Garage on Beck.
They researched juke joints and roadhouses, and worked to create a place with that throwback vibe. The bar endured a fire in 2012, which knocked out part of the patio. McCarthy built the patio with a larger stage and more seating.
At the time, McCarthy told The Salt Lake Tribune , “you cannot kill this bar.” —— A note to readers • Do you have memories of The Garage on Beck, or the Jimax Lounge before it? Please share those memories and photos, if you have them, with The Salt Lake Tribune. We may include some of those remembrances in a future article.
Send them to [email protected] ; please include a name, phone number and email address, so we can contact you about your submission..
