A pillar of Recycle Utah’s mission is education, and they’ve worked through partnerships to start at the beginning, education the next generation. 

Their programs for kids in Summit County are offered in and out of the classroom, and they educate over 5,000 elementary students a year, according to the Recycle Utah website. With curriculum designed to align with Utah Core Curriculum Standards, Recycle Utah educators visit classrooms for lessons on basic recycling, natural resources, conservation needs, alternative energy and climate change, to name a few.

Out of the classroom setting, Recycle Utah organizes summer camps and field trips through community partners like Summit Community Gardens and EATS. Camps cover topics like pollution and the benefits of buying local, and field trips include tours of the recycling center and the Three Mile Canyon Landfill. 

But what about for adults who want to keep learning well past their school and summer-camp years? That’s why Recycle Utah started their Green Drinks series, held every two months, six a year. 

“It’s our main adult education program,” said Chelsea Hafer, Recycle Utah’s community outreach manager. “Each Green Drinks, we have a different topic, and we have different speakers.”

The format is actually a national program, she explained, where an international network of people who work in the environmental field meet up at informal sessions in their cities. A simple website lists the locations around the world where these meetings are met and also provides resources for new people to launch a Green Drinks series.

The concept began in 1989 at an England pub when two eco-conscious parties met by happenstance, pushed their tables together and began chatting, according to the Green Drinks website. Edwin Datschefski, one of the pub attendees and an employee at The Environment Council, built a website in 2001 in his spare time, and it has since spread.

“I think the strangest thing about Green Drinks is that the goals are so vague and the benefits hard to quantify — but they are undoubtedly there,” Datschefski writes on the site. “When you have seen people come and make new links and learn and argue and set up new schemes and get new jobs etc, it is a good feeling.” 

He explains the concept he created as biological because it is distributed, viral and adaptive: having no central organization, spread by word-of-mouth and different based on each city. 

Mary Closser, Recycle Utah’s education director, started the Park City “chapter” of Green Drinks in 2021 with its bimonthly, second-Tuesday-of-the-month format.

“Depending on the topic, there will be speakers. Some of them are more like a presentation format, and some of them are more like tabling,” said Hafer.

The ad hoc structure is the beauty of Green Drinks, and one way Recycle Utah organizes theirs is by hosting the events at Summit County Green Businesses.

Recycle Utah initiated the Green Business program in 2016, and the group has since grown to over 30 members. It’s a point system for measuring the eco-conscious practices at a business, Hafer said, with three designated levels achieved through green actions. The action categories are energy, water conservation, materials management, transportation and thriving community and equity. 

This program is now a joint effort of Recycle Utah, Park City Municipal and Summit County Sustainability teams, the Park City Chamber of Commerce and Utah Clean Energy, Hafer said. They’re also currently in the process of restructuring and relaunching the program.

One of the already-appointed green businesses is Este Pizza Park City, which is where the next Green Drinks event on Tuesday, Sept. 10, will meet. With a focus on waste, speakers include Tim Loveday, Summit County’s landfill manager, Andy Hecht, the Park City Community Foundation climate fund manager, and Wasatch Resource Recovery, Hafer said.

“The landfill filling up, we talk about it every time we teach kids, and I think it’s a really important thing for people to know about because it’s a very big issue in our county,” Hafer said. “So Time Loveday was an obvious pick (for a speaker).” 

The topic of waste will of course discuss the landfill and ways to lessen the loads taken there.

“Thirty percent of the landfill is organic, including cardboard, that could be diverted,” Hafer said. “In Park City there’s a big movement towards diverting food waste as the first choice because I think a lot of people, hopefully, recycle and know the rules about curbside recycling. Food waste is a lot of what is taking up volume in the landfill, that’s why the Community Foundation has their Zero Food Waste goal.”

All these issues, and possible solutions, will be discussed during the Sept. 10 event, held from 5:30-7 p.m. It’s a slight deviation from their usual 6-8 p.m. time in order to accommodate for the presidential debate, Hafer said.

“We’re going to have speakers from 6-6:45 p.m. and then Este is going to air the debate, just so that people can watch it,” she said.

There will be drinks for purchase and light appetizers available.

Park City Mountain will host the next event scheduled for Nov. 12, when topics will include “protect our winters” and “dark skies.” Tickets, which are free, for all Green Drinks events can be reserved on the Recycle Utah website at recycleutah.org/events.

“Most of the people who come come to every single one because it’s always a new topic, and people are always able to learn more. Almost all of the information is incredibly interesting,” Hafer said. “If people have not been, they definitely should come because there’s always something new to learn. I learn something new at every one.”

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The Creative Academy wrapped up its summer series of cooking classes taught by Deer Valley Resort’s team of culinary experts. The most recent chunk heavily featured fan-favorites from their pastry chefs: carrot cake, chocolate chip cookies, devil’s food cake and tres leches cake.

Chef Jhonatan Noguera, a pastry chef at Silver Lake Lodge, taught the Tres Leches class, drawing from more than just his professional knowledge: his personal experience growing up in Yucatan, Mexico. 

“Today, my job will be teaching you how to make the emblematic cake from Latin America,” he said. “This cake is fairly famous, at least in the south of Mexico. Why? Because you just have four ingredients: it’s just eggs, sugar, flour and vanilla. That’s it.”

The dessert, made by pouring a mix of three types of milk — evaporated milk, condensed milk and whole milk — over a spongy cake, and topped with whipped cream, has many different versions based on the country of origin, Noguera explained.

“Everyone in Latin America has their own version. Some of them put alcohol in the mix of the tres leches. Some of them use a different cake,” he said.

Some places top the cake with pastry cream and chantilly cream, which is made with heavy cream, powdered sugar and vanilla, while others top it with Swiss meringue, made by whipping sugar and egg whites. 

For the class, he taught the Mexican version, which starts with making the cake.

While the hour-and-a-half long class wasn’t enough time to have each person make the cake from scratch, Noguera called on volunteers to demonstrate the main steps.

For the cake, the key to its airy texture is through first whipping the egg whites, then carefully mixing the other ingredients without deflating or losing the air. 

The pastry cream — made with egg yolks, milk and heavy cream, sugar, vanilla and corn starch — involved baking techniques of tempering, said Noguera. After heating the milk, the process of tempering would introduce the hot liquid slowly into the whipped egg yolks to avoid scrambling or cooking them. Then cooked over heat, it thickens to a yellow cream from the corn starch.

Swiss meringue is one of the three types of meringue, Noguera said, which are Swiss, Italian and French. The Swiss style heats egg whites and sugar in a bowl over a boiling pot of water, a technique called a bain-marie, then adds cream of tartar and vanilla and uses a stand mixer to whip until thick. Then, it can be pipped and will harden, holding its shape.

Noguera demonstrated each step, having volunteer attendees try techniques hands-on. The key to working with these ingredients is confidence, he said.

“In your mind, you’re thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t want to mess it up.’ And then you go slow. When you do that, there’s two things that can happen. You can mess it up, and then you can take longer to do it,” he said, and the room laughed. “So don’t be afraid to do it.”

After showing each recipe, Noguera’s assistants passed out pre-prepared ingredients for attendees to use and assemble their own cake to take home.

First, scraping the caramelized layer off the cake so it can absorb the milks. Then, the tres leches mix — four milks in this case with the addition of heavy cream — poured over the baked and cooled cake. Next, pipe the pastry cream over the top and spread with an offset spatula. And last, a layer of Chantilly cream to top it off.

Noguera brought out pre-made cakes for people to try both Swiss meringue and Chantilly cream styles, his favorite the meringue, having grown up with that version in Mexico.

“In Mexico, we use meringue. Why? The sun where I am from is pretty hot and humid. If we use Chantilly cream, it’s going to melt,” he said. Plus, heavy cream is expensive, but the base of the meringue, eggs, are more common. 

Deer Valley’s Creative Academy offers classes throughout the year with topics that range from cakes and cookies to barbecue, salads, mixed drinks and cuisine from around the world. Visit deervalley.com/things-to-do/activities/creative-academy to learn more and stay tuned for their next round of fall-time classes to be announced soon.

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A wind-swept cacophony animates the Tagge’s Fruit & Veggie farm stand — sounds of cars, rustling trees and cheery conversation fill the wood-and-metal structure along Highway 89 outside Brigham City, a much bigger version of the Park City stand at S.R. 244 at the entrance to Canyons.

The road north of Salt Lake City was once dotted with farm stands, known for the area’s peaches, when Thayne Tagge and his wife Cari purchased the farm and stand in 1997. But now, their numbers are dwindling.

For these longtime farmers, it’s becoming a scary reality to see fellow growers burn out or pass away, leaving the land no longer ripe for fruit, but for developers. It’s unsurprising given the stunning location: nestled on the hillside in the northernmost part of the Wasatch mountain range, overlooking Willard Bay to the west, dwarfed by Willard Peak to the southeast. Location, location, location.

So, why not sell, join the growing number of retired farmers and end the long hours of hot, sweaty work? Because this land isn’t just special for its beauty, it’s also the perfect microclimate for growing fruit trees, which is why the family decided to place their land into a legacy trust, legally requiring their 130 acres be used for farming and to never be sold. Forever.

The best use of the land

Thayne and Cari weren’t born into a farming family; they started as sellers, picking raspberries in Bear Lake then selling them at Salt Lake City farmers markets.

Their customers one day asked about peaches, Cari said, so they bought boxes of peaches from a farmer off Highway 89 in Perry to sell at markets, too. A joking remark from Thayne — “I might as well buy your whole farm” — quickly turned into reality, and the farmer agreed to sell the 27-acre plot and stand and trained Thayne to run it.

They had no idea at the time, but they’d basically struck gold.

“This area, because of that mountain breeze, the water, the lake effect, on a hill facing west, it gives us degrees of warmth so we don’t freeze out. This is the best place, I’m saying this, in the state to grow fruit because of those factors,” said Thayne, now 27 years later. 

Farmers are at the mercy of the weather, his son Chad says, walking the tightrope between May freezes and August hailstorms. One bad hailstorm can wipe out an entire season’s crops, their entire livelihood. The Tagges’ location protects them from those extremes, but the world keeps trending toward worse. 

“Everything now, the word for it is extreme: extreme winds, extreme hail, extreme rain, extreme heat. Everything’s in extreme mode,” said Thayne. 

For some neighboring farmers, it’s too hard to sustain, even in an area as rich as theirs.

“We’ve seen farmers sell their land all the time, and this last year, three farmers came to us to buy their orchard to farm, and it just breaks our hearts,” said Cari. “It’s sad to see farmland disappear. It really is. This land, farming is the best use,” Chad adds.

Along with their ideal microclimate, the water access from Pineview Reservoir is key to growing the best produce. Fruit is thirsty, Chad said, and the area’s farmers actually have first water rights to the stores.

And with technology, it’s become even easier — a few taps on his phone, Thayne’s request for water can be delivered to his fields in minutes, distributed through drip irrigation for the best efficiency.

While the area is known for its peaches, with land optimal for stand orchards, it’s proven good for growing all kinds of crops. As the Tagges have purchased more land in the area, they’ve added and experimented with their offerings. Now, they grow 27 varieties of peaches, the newest being their doughnut, or flat, peaches, as well as blackberries, raspberries, nectarines, pears, apples, apricots, cherries, sweet corn, carrots, greens, zucchini, peppers, cabbage, broccoli, lettuce, garlic, potatoes, winter squash, hard squash, tomatoes … the list goes on.

Building a legacy

Though Thayne and Cari didn’t come from farming legacies, they’ve started one. They’re inspiring the next generation to know the benefits of eating from the land.

But first, they have had to work up a clientele, often through adding a personal touch to every interaction. That looks like personally answering every call, Thayne said, counting 92 calls by 1 p.m. just that morning.

“When I first started here, no one would stop at my stand. It sucked because I’m right in the middle,” Thayne said, “Now they’re saying, ‘We only stop at your stand because you’ve got everything, and we appreciate you helping us.’”

They built fruit stands across the valley and in the Wasatch Back, participate in farmers markets from Ogden to Provo every day of the week and distribute through their community-supported agriculture (CSA) produce box program from Logan to Spanish Fork, with now over 1,000 members.

Their “famous” farm is now a massive network and a huge mantle to pass on, and two of their four kids, Laci and Chad, have stepped up to the task.

The two grew up working on the farm, planting seeds, pulling weeds, thinning the peach trees and selling at farm stands. 

“My mom would say, ‘Hey ride with me. I’ll give you five bucks to ride with me all day,’” Laci said.

The parents always gave the choice to choose a different career or to carry on their parents’ work. So, Laci stayed, working fulltime to manage their warehouse, distribution and CSA program, getting married and raising her own family in the farm. 

Chad took a detour, moved to Boston to earn a Ph. D. in biomedical engineering. After graduating, he moved back to Utah to work in that career. He was comfortable with a job designing medical equipment. But then he took a second look.

“Eventually it was more of a fear that if (Thayne) passed away, they would be like, ‘Chad, we need your help.’ And I would be in the field like, where’s the pipe that is buried?” Chad said.

So Chad quit his job and came back to the farm, learning side-by-side from his dad on everything it would take to run their operations — not at all a reluctant return, he said.

“I get to work with my dad at the peak of his career, not many people get that opportunity,” Chad said. “How cool is that to be able to see your dad in his element, the peak of his performance and everything, and then get to get all that knowledge passed on.”

For him, it’s not just about getting to work with his dad, but with his kids, too.

“My boy just turned 9 yesterday, and then my other boy is 6, and then I have two daughters, a 10 and a 4 year old, so now they get to work with me. That’s how we were raised, where we were able to work with my parents,” Chad said. “This is just now keeping on a legacy.”

Preservation for the future

The family works together as a carnivalesque blur, with a comfort and freedom particular to familial intimacy. A gentleness to the bickering, a laugh beneath the chide. 

In a row of their now 3-year-old doughnut peach trees, Thayne pulls weeds as Chad thins excess green fruit from the branches. Laci’s 4-year-old son, “little” Thayne, and Cari pick the rosy-colored peaches and fill the belly of Cari’s makeshift shirt basket.

Still young, little Thayne is already learning how the farm is run, fingernails ringed in soil, his smile stained with blackberry juice. He walks hand-in-hand with his grandfather through the rows of peach trees, a vision of everything they’ve worked for — and everything they’re committed to preserve.

Preserving the land — ensuring its best use, farming, will be its only use. Preserving the jobs — hundreds of employees work to pick, package, distribute and sell their products, and each job would disappear if the land became housing. Preserving the beloved Brigham City peach — a tradition for the greater area, who every September come together to celebrate “Peach Days.”

“It’s got to work. People need to support us, and if they want, we want to stay around,” Thayne said. 

With the legacy trust, the land will continue to pass down to two people, requiring that it always be used for farming and that it can never be sold. Any other land the Tagges buy to grow their farm will also be added to the trust.

One of the best ways to support Tagge’s Famous Fruit & Veggie Farm is through their 15-week CSA program, with weekly produce boxes for one, two or four people. Visit their website, taggesfruit.com, to learn more and for information on their farm stands and market locations.

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Rise, a new dental clinic on Prospector Avenue, emphasizes holistic wellness. Unlike traditional dental practices, Dr. Ryan Osorio and his staff schedule fewer patients each day, aiming to ensure that each individual receives their undivided attention and comprehensive care.

The clinic’s philosophy centers around treating the “entire smile,” addressing oral health and patients’ physical, mental, emotional and energetic well-being.

“There are aspects beyond the physical smile that are crucial to a great smile,” said Osorio, the clinic’s founder. “That is why I have included the studio. This is a concept that I call the ‘inner smile.’ It’s really about overall well-being. All the aspects of who you are contribute to your smile.”

Rise offers various services for all ages, from routine check-ups and cleanings to complete smile renovations. The clinic’s wellness-based approach includes workshops designed to develop that “inner smile.”

Osorio said he is trying to change the prevailing perception of what a smile truly means. Many individuals equate a smile solely with happiness. He believes that inner peace is another crucial aspect to consider.

“Inner peace is always relevant. That is what we will focus on teaching in the upstairs studio,” he said.

Rise is gathering people from the wellness community in Park City to also offer sound healing, breathwork, and workshops on personal growth and mindset. These offerings will be scheduled soon in their studio.

By focusing on holistic wellness, Osorio said he aims to help patients achieve a balance between their external expressions and their inner feelings, fostering a more profound understanding of their smiles.

“I have been studying the smile for a long time. As a kid, they called me ‘Smiley Ry’ because I was a smiley guy. I have always been intrigued by the smile, which is one aspect that brought me to dentistry,” said Osorio. “I love the fusion of the artistic side of the brain and the scientific part of the brain.”

The serene atmosphere of the clinic, designed using the Danish concept of Hygge along with with a commitment to individualized care, sets Rise apart in Park City’s competitive dental landscape.

Rise also offers a mini facial after dental appointments to heighten relaxation and rejuvenation, along with nourishing and refreshing skin, is part of the clinic’s holistic approach to wellness.

For more information, visit Rise at 1800 Prospector Avenue, Park City, Utah, or call 435-214-0544.

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In a couple weeks, seven Park City culinary experts are headed to New York City to showcase their talents in five meals held at the James Beard Foundation’s new venue, Platform.

The events, scheduled for Sept. 26-29, are designed to bring the culinary world of Park City to the New York scene, said Ginger Wicks, the executive director of the Park City Area Restaurants Association.

The group leveraged a longstanding relationship with the James Beard House, a kitchen the James Beard Foundation opened in 1986. The organization is committed to “celebrate, support, and elevate the people behind America’s food culture,” their website says. Similar to the Beard House, Platform, located in the Market 57 food hall, is a “state-of-the-art show kitchen, event space, and educational hub for outstanding culinary arts programming.”

“When we learned about their new venue,” Wicks said, “… we reached out to them and decided this would be an amazing collaboration to bring Park City’s culinary talents and amazing award winning spirits to New York to show the city and to bring awareness to all that Park City has to offer in terms of our amazing culinary scene.”

The association opened applications to their members who would be interested in creating a meal, and winners would be sent to New York to cook at Platform. Funding for this event comes from a Summit County Restaurant Tax grant, the association said.

Of 16 submissions, five chefs and two spirits, and their makers, were chosen:

• Executive Chef Seth Adams of Riverhorse on Main
• Executive Chef Michael Showers of High West Distillery
• Executive Chef Clement Gelas of Courchevel Bistro
• Co-owner and Executive Chef Matthew Harris of Tupelo Park City
• Vice President of Food & Beverage Operations and Corporate Chef Zane Holmquist of Stein Eriksen Lodge
• Co-owner and Master Botanical Distiller Sara Sergent of Alpine Distilling
• Beverage Manager Holly Booth of High West Distillery

“We have so much diversity in our culinary scene, and this is going to bring awareness to all of it, and it’s an amazing platform for Park City to be on,” said Wicks, pun intended, perhaps?

Jennifer Wesselhoff, the president and CEO of the Park City Chamber/Bureau, also explained the benefits of this opportunity to showcase Park City out east.

“Food is such an incredible part of a community’s character and an essential part of how we define ourselves as a community,” she said. “What message are we trying to share about Park City and Utah’s cuisine?”

There’s Rocky Mountain game, like elk and bison, also Utah’s trout farms, lamb from Morgan Valley and products from local dairies and cheese makers, Wesselhoff said. These are all elements in the menus created for the September events.

“Dinner: Riverhorse on Main,” at 7 p.m. on Sept. 26, features Adams’ menu, which blends Utah and New York elements — Utah lamb, New York duck, a wild game sausage and New York apples. “Cocktail Party: High West Distillery,” at 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 27, includes Showers’ take on a bison tartare and a Utah elk schnitzel. At “Lunch: Courchevel Bistro,” noon on Sept. 28, Gelas will create three styles of trout: cured, in a salad and bouillabaisse, in a stew. Harris’ “Dinner: Tupelo Park City,” at 7 p.m. on Sept. 28, highlights some produce grown in Utah, like Green River watermelon, Utah peaches and Gold Creek Farm’s feta from Kamas. And at the final event, “Brunch: Stein Eriksen Lodge,” Holmquist will serve Utah products like honey and Rocky Mountain elk.

Each event will have drink pairings by either Alpine Distilling or High West Distillery, cocktails like Alpine’s “Moon Walker,” “Elevated Gin & Tonic” and “Alpine Negroni,” or High West’s “Old Fashioned,” “Espresso Martini” and “Spritz.”

For Holmquist, who was born and raised in Park City and has spent most of his career as a chef in the area, this event is a culmination of his life’s work.

“I’ve tried very hard my whole life to bring light to Utah and Utah food in Park City,” he said. “We’ve always had this weird stigma around our liquor laws and our food … and we weren’t known for our cuisine and what we do here.”

But now, Park City has developed a rich culinary scene with plenty of talent, he said.

“I think it’s such a special family to shine and show that off in New York and let the public know (Park City’s) amazing — biking, skiing, fly fishing, but the food’s pretty dang good too,” Holmquist said.

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For Park City couple Logan Jones-Olson and Kristen Roscher, bringing an Upgrade Labs center to the Wasatch Back is their way of giving back to the community, bringing a resource from which they’ve both benefited.

Upgrade Labs is a “medical spa” — not as relaxing as a traditional spa, not as training-centered as a gym and not exactly a doctor’s office. Rather, it combines elements of all three using technology-focused approaches to physical health, strength and recovery.

“We think of it in three parts: recovery, performance, which is like exercise, and then cognitive enhancement,” Jones-Olson said.

Dave Asprey started the franchise. He’s the founder of Bulletproof Coffee, author of “Smarter Not Harder: The Biohacker’s Guide to Getting the Body and Mind You Want” and host of “The Human Upgrade” podcast. He’s called the “father of biohacking,” which a decal at the entrance to the new Upgrade Labs location defines as “the art and science of changing the environment around you and inside you so you have more control over your own biology.”

Asprey started upgrade labs in 2017, and Park City is its seventh location. Marketed as a “human upgrade center,” many of the facility’s treatments center around light and electromagnetic energies, which are designed to positively impact a person’s own energetic field, to “upload” a better version of oneself.

Jones-Olson, who has followed Asprey for a while, decided to visit the Upgrade Labs in Riverton and learn more about the brand and was sold when the experience helped him recover from a nerve injury that he’d long since given up on. 

“Two summers ago, doing yard work with her, I had a pinched nerve. I went to all the doctors, did surgery and I couldn’t move my thumb,” he said. After a month of treatments in their pulsed electromagnetic field therapy machine, PEMF, it could move again. 

With construction finishing up just in time for their soft opening on Saturday, all their equipment is now installed and ready for use. The treatments are set up in stations around the space in Kimball Junction, guided by trained staff for members to use based on their needs. 

“What we like to start with is, first, you,” said Jones-Olson. “What’s going on with you? What are you working on? Any injuries? Are you trying to work on sleep, are you trying to work on working out more?”

They then conduct a cell health analysis scan using electrical sonar to measure the body for weight and composition. Based on these results, they recommend the treatments best suited for their needs and goals — recovering from injuries or chronic pain with tools like the red charger, a full-body red and infrared LED light therapy machine, or the big squeeze, a suit designed to drain the lymphatic system by inflating air from feet to head.  

“The lymphatic system basically carries all the junk in and out, and if we’re not moving and detoxing, this can help people,” Jones-Olson said.

The PEMF machine is a favorite, he said. Essentially, two electric blankets are rigged to send electromagnetic currents to the body, charging it like a battery.

“Our bodies are made of energy with voltage levels, and when our voltage levels are at the right level, we feel good, our body does what it’s supposed to, it heals properly, etc. But as we age or get injuries, the voltage levels drop,” he said.

Laying in between the blankets, the 12-minute treatment is set to the person’s comfort level. It “charges” the body where needed, Roscher explained, so some people feel it in their feet or hips, others their stomach, or on the left or right sides. It’s especially beneficial for people with chronic pain or inflammation, she said.

“You’re going to feel like popcorn in a microwave, in a good way,” she said.

Performance options at Upgrade Labs incorporate AI into exercise programs, like their AI adaptive bike and AI cheat machine. These adapt to individual bodies to strengthen more evenly. 

Their cryotherapy chamber is recommended for both recovery and performance, with sessions from 30 seconds to three-and-a-half minutes that can chill to 175 degrees below zero. 

“Cryotherapy decreases inflammation, boosts metabolism and immune system function, turns on the body’s fat-burning mechanisms and significantly increases deep and REM sleep. It’ll also maximize endorphin rush — the body’s feel-good hormone,” their website says.

While both Jones-Olson and Roscher have nine-to-five jobs of their own — his in marketing, hers in real estate — the opportunity to work on something together has been rewarding, they said.

“So far so good. … You know how the ultimate test of a relationship is ‘Can you build Ikea furniture together?’” said Roscher. “We do pretty good,” Jones-Olson responds, and the two laugh.

As a one-stop-shop for efficient treatments, the couple said Upgrade Labs is actually cheaper for the access it provides, and they are excited to introduce it to the Park City area.

“For me to hear our members say, ‘I already do yoga, and I go to my doctor’s office that does something similar, and I have a red light panel at home.’ But they still want to come here because they think of it as an ‘and.’ It’s not ‘instead of,’ it’s an ‘and,’” said Roscher.

They will be open with discounted memberships starting Saturday, with a grand opening event on Oct. 11-12. The weekend will include a ribbon cutting, tours of the new center, an introduction to the brand’s performance and recovery technology, discounts, prize raffles and more. Mayor Nann Worel will join the festivities Oct. 11 at 2:45 p.m. and founder Asprey will hold a meet and greet on Oct. 12.

For more information and to sign up for a free intro tour, visit upgradelabs.com/park-city.

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The new Smith’s Marketplace at the north end of Heber City — almost within throwing distance of the old one — opened for the first time Saturday morning and was flooded with customers searching for groceries and out of curiosity.

Store Leader Bryer Trussell and other staff pointed out additions and improvements to the market’s operation, presentation and selection variety.

Shoppers can find items from take-home pizzas to an expanded sushi option to Lifetime kayaks and Columbia jackets.

The 123,000-square-foot building is a huge expansion compared to its 47,000-square-foot predecessor just down the street, and according to Trussell its barn-inspired architectural style is unique to Heber City.

The company’s corporate affairs manager, Tina Murray, said unique builds are becoming more popular as Smith’s parent company Kroger builds more stores. Personally, though, she said she was still impressed with the new Wasatch County addition.

“This is very unique on the exterior,” Murray said. 

“You couldn’t just build a plain Jane store here,” Trussell said. “This town is stunning.”

The large size, while not unprecedented, is also unique for a newly built location.

Some Kroger stores that were built before the company bought out Fred Meyers in 2004 approach 200,000 square feet. The ones within the region that have been constructed since are smaller.

“This is the biggest store that we build now,” Murray said.

“This is the biggest this format, non-Fred Meyers store,” District Manager Stephanie Mitchell said.

She and Trussell said the majority of the store — about 98,000 square feet — is floor space where the product is displayed rather than stored.

When you limit storage areas, Mitchell explained, it heightens product turnover rate, which in turn leaves customers with fresher products.

“We limit the backroom space just for that reason,” she said. “It keeps rotations better.”

Trussell also excitedly explained that with the larger size comes wider aisles, which as anyone who shopped in squished areas during busy times at the old Smith’s location can attest, can make a big difference in the shopping experience. 

The store is also unique in its carbon dioxide cooling system used to chill its refrigerators and freezers.

This, however, will not be unique for long, Trussell said.

“I think every store that gets built in 2025 will go to that,” he said. “It’s been a learning curve, but it’s going to be great.”

Typical refrigerants are far less environmentally friendly and far more dangerous to people who may be exposed to the chemicals.

“You can’t let that out into the world,” Murray said. The new carbon dioxide system changes that. “If you do have a damage or a burst, it doesn’t cause any type of damage to the store, humans or the environment.”

Every Kroger store, she said, is transitioning.

According to Trussler, the prices of freon and carbon dioxide are similar, but leaks in a carbon dioxide system are cheaper and easier to repair.

“It really is quite a bit if you have that issue,” he said. “That’s the biggest thing.”

Some of the largest — and potentially most impactful — changes to the store aren’t actually in the store at all, but at its fuel center at the southwest corner of its massive parking lot.

The massive station has two canopies holding 11 pumps, a waste dump station for trailers and RVs and a diesel exhaust fuel dispenser.

According to Jim Dye, the fuel manager for 114 sites in seven states, the center is the most complex Kroger has ever built.

“We’re glad to have it at Smith’s,” he said. “I’m kind of the advocate for fuel inside of the Smith’s division.”

In the old location, he said the five pumps were being used roughly twice as much as they should have been as motorists were waiting in line to fill their cars, trucks and other vehicles.

The new facility should resolve that issue.

“I would estimate that this site will probably get one or two deliveries a day,” Dye said. “The tank monitor monitors the sales, and they always have it here before we run out.”

Aspects of the new store also pay homage to its location and the history of the land it sits on. The entrance is decorated with photos of the old barn that once stood there. They’re framed by the old structure’s wood. A mural by local artist John Moore shows aspects of life that draw people to Wasatch County.

According to Heber City Manager Matt Brower, the new Smith’s will benefit the community through the increased sales and property tax base it will provide for Heber City. Already, Smith’s Marketplace is one of the community’s top-five tax contributors, and Brower said the new location is expected to bring in an additional $300,000 annually.

The post New giant Smith’s Marketplace opens in Heber City appeared first on Park Record.

Lucky Ones Coffee signed their lease for five more years in the space connected to the Park City Library, bringing a revamp to the aesthetics of the space and functionality of the barista area. 

The coffee shop is set to reopen Wednesday and has an official ribbon cutting for the renovated space set for a tentative date later in July. 

“Hopefully, we will be functional on the 3rd — work out some kinks. We’ll be open on the 4th because it’s always one of the busiest days in here,” co-owner Katie Manhart said. She explained there will be additional finishing touches over the next few weeks leading up to the ribbon cutting. There are plans to work with the library and an interior designer to bring in new furniture and revamp the overall space. 

“Initially, when we ripped everything out we were like, ‘We’re doing it in a week,’ so cute and naive,” Manhart said.

Hitting a couple snags with redoing plumbing, which required shutting the water off in the entire library, and shipments that included tracking down a misplaced fridge in a Salt Lake warehouse, Manhart and the crew are excited to reopen. 

Lucky Ones Coffee’s mission is to employ and empower individuals with disabilities. They started with 10 staff members when they opened six years ago and now have a second store in Kamas with a total of 29 staff members. 

The post Lucky Ones Coffee ready to pour again appeared first on Park Record.

In the town of Wallsburg, not more than 30 minutes south of Heber City, sits warehouses among warehouses full of antique, valuable and unique cars, motorcycles, tractors, domestic goods, log cabins and other bits of the past, each with a story to tell.  

The collections are managed, curated and maintained by the Richard W. Erickson Foundation, the operating nonprofit in charge of the Antique and Classic Power Museum. 

From salt-flat streamliners to the 1939 Lincoln packed with a V12 engine to rows of early-1900s Harly-Davidsons, the compilation of rare and unique items started with the fascination of one Minnesota-born man, Richard W. Erickson.  

Erickson first set foot in Utah in the 1950s, when he was en route to California for military boot camp after being drafted to serve in the Korean War. 

According to Russell Baker, Erickson’s longtime friend and the man who now serves as chairman of the museum that bears his namesake, Erickson fell in love with the beauty of the western state, and after finishing his service and returning to his Minnesota home, he passed through again.

“He went home and packed his old Ford, tied his motorcycle on the back of the car, came to Utah and started driving truck,” Baker said.

He convinced his brothers to follow him, and soon the family had their own transportation business. But that wasn’t enough for Erickson, whom Baker described as incredibly business-savvy.

“Here’s the Dick Erickson philosophy: why am I driving somebody else’s truck? So he buys his own trucks. And why are we hauling somebody else’s gravel? So we buy our own gravel pit. And why are we hauling somebody else’s asphalt? So we have an asphalt plant,” Baker said. “It just goes and goes and goes.”

With that mentality, Baker said Erickson was able to amass a fairly considerable amount of wealth, and he added that purchasing land in developing communities helped.

It was with that wealth — and the property he watched and purchased as it became available in Wallsburg — that birthed the Richard Erickson Power Show and Museum.

According to Pam Williams, Erickson’s daughter, her father had a fascination with tractors that eventually spread to other forms of equipment, engines and machinery. 

“It kind of grew out of control,” Baker said. “He’d build a building, they’d build another building, they’d fill that one, they’d build another building.”

It was through Erickson’s fascination with cars and motorcycles that he eventually crossed paths with Baker, who himself is a curator. The two grew close.

“We were always at the same auctions, the same shows, the same events, and we just got to know each other,” Baker said. “I had a dealership back in the day, and Dick was always sneaking things into my trailers coming back from auctions.

The pair has travelled the country in their quest for fascinating items of history, and the foundation hasn’t stopped growing. 

By Erickson’s own design, it didn’t become a public endeavor until 2002.

“I would share my vision of the facility here with Dick, and he loved the vision I had to turn it into a venue for the public and multiple venues on site,” Baker said. “He would say, ‘Oh, that’s wonderful. Wait ’till I die. You do it.'”

When he passed, he named Baker as his successor.

“People give me too much credit,” Baker said. “I have the privilege of having a really good team of trustees and a lot of volunteers, and I just happen to be the coach.”

Along with collecting, curating and publicly presenting the Power Museum’s fascinating and rare bites of history, Baker said the foundation has also gotten involved in broader philanthropic and community endeavors. 

On its Wallsburg property, the foundation has built an oval track for high school teams to race cycle karts, maintained space for music festivals and contributed their profits to the Ronald McDonald House and Continue Mission, an organization that aims to provide support for veterans and their families through providing them with recreational and educational events.

This summer, they have three main events for which families can currently buy tickets: the TedFest music festival July 19-21, the Wasatch Boomer Fest (where cover bands regale attendees with the best of boomer rock) Aug. 23-25 and the Antique Power Show June 21-23, when the museum will display and demonstrate the use of its collections of old engines, tractors and other early agricultural tools.  

The early Antique Power Show also features tractor pulls, a competition in which registries show off their machines’ capabilities by pulling immense amounts of weight.

“Last year we had 64 entries,” Baker said.

Williams said the foundation and museum grew to what they are today after her parents initially purchased some land in Wallsburg not with the intent to host community events or display their endless collection of fascinating bits of the past, but to call home toward the end of her father’s career.

“Well, 350 acres later and 40-some-odd years it’s like, okay, thanks Dad,” she said. “He set the tone, and we’ve taken it to the next level.”

Even on Erickson’s deathbed, Baker remembered his friend working up until has last moments on Earth. 

“He’s in a care center,” Baker said, “and he did not until the last moment realize that his time had come. … He couldn’t even talk.”

At the time, another prominent curator was preparing to sell their collection of about 300 cars.

“I’m sitting on the edge of his bed, and we’re going through the brochure,” Baker said. “He’d see a car and he’d …”

Baker rapped on a table to show how his friend showed interest. 

“… How much do you want to spend?” Baker would then ask him. “He’d do fingers, and we’d come up with a number and I would write on there. … To the very last day, he was still buying for the museum.”

Erickson is gone now, but his legacy remains, and the collection housed by his many roofs still grows.

“He built a very large holding,” Baker said. “He took care of his children. He took care of his grandchildren, took care of his church. And the rest of it was left to the foundation, which will take care of all of this and the philanthropy that we do for generations.”

The organization has also been helped by donors and individuals looking for a suitable home for their prized antique items.

Baker explained the impetus for collecting comes not from a collected item itself, but the stories that sit behind the handlebars and under the hoods of the items stationed in the museum.

“History has always been a passion to me. All history, American history especially,” he said. “I’ve been involved with motorcycles and cars since I was a teenager. My first motorcycle, I was 13. I grew up, and I drove muscle cars that I was buying and selling for $700 to $900. Now we’re paying upwards of $50,000 for them.”

In him and others, the items invoke strong emotions.

“When I’m out looking at an auction and when I’m following a lead, I want the story of the item,” he said. “And I want to be able to invoke somebody else’s emotions and stories.”

Both he and Williams stressed the museums’ emphasis on families. They carefully pick through the lyrics of songs bands hope to perform at their music festivals. They invite families to their website to book group tours. During their events, they host trailers of relatives who coordinate their family reunions so they can camp out at the power museum.

And — whether it be through a spark of nostalgia or the magic of the museum’s lack of cell service — it’s not uncommon for them to see grandparents pepper their grandkids with stories they otherwise might have kept to themselves.

“Grandpa starts sharing stories, and the little kids are listening,” Baker said. “I’ve had the moms come up afterwards and say, ‘Thank you so much. He shared more in the last 35 minutes than he has in the last however-many years.'”

The post Wallsburg museum invites community to summer events appeared first on Park Record.

Sometimes life takes you places you didn’t anticipate. Sometimes — if you’re Jade’s Cafe owners Mason and Halle Squires — it takes you to a corner of Heber City, where you start a cafe in pursuit of dreams, and in pursuit of reflection.

“I don’t have a background in coffee or food. My wife, she’s a designer,” Mason said. “She designed the whole place, and I just did a lot of research and figured it out.”

He’s from Highland and Halle from Pineview, though they’ve both made the hop over the mountains to Wasatch County several times in their lives.

A fly fisherman, Mason has regularly visited Heber Valley over the past decade, and he loved the place before it became home. His wife felt the same way, with her family regular boaters on Deer Creek Reservoir. 

The couple has been together for six years.

“We always split up here and hit the Back 40 or somewhere for dinner or lunch,” Mason said. “It just was a spot that we wanted to be. Since I was young I’ve always wanted to live in Heber, so it was a good thing we did it.”

When they started Jade’s Cafe, the pair did so without any significant restaurant or business experience. It just seemed like a great opportunity.

Halle had wanted to open a restaurant since she was 16. He attended Utah Tech University — formerly known as Dixie State University — for a year before finding success in sales, but that career was starting to wear on him.

The answer to both of their hopes came in the form of a small shop conjoined with the design business Halle, her mother and her sisters decided to lease for their design shop, Nomad Soul Interiors.  

“This was a good chance to kind of redirect the path of my life,” Mason said.

“It’s always been my dream,” Halle said. “It was my dream since I was a teenager. This was my thing. But I didn’t know how to make it happen. I knew how to make it pretty, how to make good drinks, but then he was the one that really brought it to life and figured out the business end.”

The family got the lease about two and a half years ago, and Jade’s Cafe opened in December.

“We got it kind of when we were coming out of COVID, so everything was just taking a little long,” Mason said.

Since opening, however, he said they’ve been embraced by the community, and have started to collect their own set of regulars.

Mason said he believes Jade’s Cafe stands out because the owners care not just about serving quality coffee, but also making sure the food is worth ordering. 

“We care about the food. Like 99% of it is made in-house from scratch. I think it makes a difference,” he said. “Coffee shops are notorious for having great coffee and then a few pastry options. So we ready had this idea like, ‘Hey, let’s do a coffee shop and then have a full menu.'” 

That menu’s theme is Food for the Mountains, and it was constructed by Halle’s brother and chef Michael Griego. It includes not only the breakfast staples you might expect from a shop trying to make sure its food meets the high bar it sets for coffee — pancakes, breakfast sandwiches, porridge — but also other options that aren’t as common, like salmon toast, lemon parmesan salad and pork belly and beans, the latter of which Mason considers to be their most underrated dish.

Mason and Halle have been working through their first months to figure out the best hours to be open and the other aspects of running a small business that might not be apparent on day one.

“I feel like I’m learning something every day,” Mason said. “Whether it’s taxes or just even simple things like spreadsheets. … It’s incredibly engaging.”

Halle said the first week brought up subjects she hadn’t considered very thoroughly before, things as simple as spoons the restaurant needed and how many cups went missing.

In the future, the couple hopes to continue opening Jade’s Cafe locations in their favorite towns, the next likely headed for Saint George. Each location, Halle said, will come with a different style of restaurant and menu to “be true to where it is.”

“Come hang out,” she said. “We’re excited to have you here.”

The post Heber City couple realizes dreams in Jade’s Cafe appeared first on Park Record.