A restaurant in the middle of the Utah desert

How does a “top-notch restaurant” literally in the middle of nowhere not merely survive but prosper? asked Jane Ure-Smith in the Financial Times. Consider the case of Hell’s Backbone Grill in Boulder, Utah (pop. 180). Until 1942, mail to Boulder was delivered by mule train, and the town still “remains one of the most remote locations in the country.” To get there, visitors must take Highway 12 from Bryce in southern Utah. After an hour-and-a-half drive through sublime desert scenery, the road “climbs steeply onto the slender Hogsback Ridge.” At its foot lies Boulder, where Blake Spalding and Jen Clark have operated the restaurant for the past seven years.

“Applying their own stamp to Pueblo Indian and Southwestern recipes,” the two women create unique dishes: spicy meatloaf with lemony mash; green-chili corn tamales filled with lamb and wrapped in corn husks; and a signature chocolate chili cream pot. The pair grow their own organic vegetables, local farmers supply the meat, and the fruit comes from “heirloom orchards planted by early Mormon settlers.” Tibetan prayer flags and a statue of the Buddha ornament the garden, and the restaurant itself lies within the grounds of Boulder Mountain Lodge, a stylish ecolodge adjacent to a 15-acre bird sanctuary. No. 20 N. Highway 12, Boulder, (435) 335-7464

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