Utah is trending! I know because, despite my secular upbringing and my paucity of bronde ponytail extensions, I left behind my glamorous New York life as an unemployed blogger to open up a bookstore and skateboard shop amid the alpine splendor of Midway, Utah with my boyfriend. That was a year ago, and most non-Ute acquaintances thought I was a lunatic for moving to a place largely influenced by a church to which I do not belong, where school boards have outright banned YA dark romantic fantasy fiction.
But between the salacious debut season of Hulu’s Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, the first few episodes of the explosive fifth season of Bravo’s Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, and the proliferation of Hallmark Christmas movies filmed here, all those naysayers are beginning to see what I see in Utah. And now, they have one question on their lips: Do I know the other Jennifer Affleck? And a follow-up: If so, do I have the time and wherewithal to pull her aside for a sec to talk to her privately about her personal life? I don’t, but I did recently take a selfie with model/LGBTQIA+ icon Brooks Marks at his mother Meredith Marks’s jewelry boutique in Park City (511 Main Street, Park City, UT, 84060). (Does that count?)
In preparation for further questions about my star-studded home state, I’ve been keeping tabs on where my friends, were they to visit, might casually run into any number of famous 28-year-old mothers of four and their absolutely, definitely heterosexual husbands. It’s peak autumn, arguably the most beautiful time of year here, and there’s never been a better time to soft swing around the mountains with 44 ounces of doctored Diet Coke in hand.
Black Rock Mountain Resort
Black Rock Mountain Resort is a new-ish hotel, restaurant, and event space just outside of Park City, a mountain-modern behemoth with sweeping views of the Jordanelle reservoir and Deer Valley’s ski runs. The hotel’s ultimate draw is that its penthouse was where Mormon wife Mayci J Neeley (who has a heartbreaking and triumphant backstory, detailed in this 20-part blog post, thank god) decided to celebrate her birthday with the MomTok gang.
This episode, titled “The Book of Truth” was a turning point on Mormon Wives: the show’s second most confounding villain, Whitney Leavitt, passed out sweatsuits with each woman’s name emblazoned on their chests. Finally, the viewers could tell these princess-haired sirens/mama bears apart! Once I understood who was a saint, who was a sinner, who made a TikTok in the NICU, and who performed a sex act involving Fruity Pebbles that I might be too prudish to comprehend, I was hooked.
909 W. Peace Tree Trail, Heber City, UT 84032
Swig
Of all the Utah dirty soda shops with ingenious names like “Sodalicious” and “FiiZ,” Swig is the queen bee. In my opinion, Swig even outranks Thirst, the “soda maestro” founder of which we saw pouring cans of Diet Coke into Styrofoam cups on the Mormon Wives episode that commemorated Zac Affleck’s BYU graduation party.
In a later episode of Mormon Wives, the girls eschew Utah’s drive-thru culture and order sodas to their exacting specifications in person. Every tiny Swig location is staffed by hundreds of teenage girls armed with iPads, and I was happy to see their hard work highlighted on screen. I don’t have that hearty Mormon pioneer-stock pancreas that can process large quantities of sugar and dairy creamer, so I opt for an enormous seltzer with various pureed fruits swirled into it. My favorite beverage is the Strawberry Breeze with sparkling water. I usually nix the coconut creme that comes in it because I find that it curdles before I’m even 20 ounces in.
Swig also sells those soft, cold iced-sugar cookies that have been making their way across the country via franchises like Crumbl, another Utah company that’s recently gone national.
Multiple locations, but my favorite is in Millcreek at 2330 E 3300 S, Salt Lake City, UT 84109 because it’s close to I-80 and in the same parking lot as Joann Fabrics.
JZ Styles Hair Academy
Not to be confused with Jizz Styles, which I’m sure does good work.
Mormon Wife Jessi Ngatikaura’s hair academy and extensions salon often serves as an on-screen gathering place for the MomTokkers of Mormon Wives to sit in salon chairs and girl out, gossip, and get uninvited from baby Luca’s christening for not being strong enough in the church. Filled with trendy arched furniture and a wall of cascading hair, JZ Styles is a total vibe. Maybe even more so than Housewives’s Angie Katsanevas’s SLC salon empire, Lunatic Fringe, where I once got my hair cut next to Papa John Schnatter of Papa John’s fame about three weeks after his n-word scandal. Self-care is so important, especially in Utah.
At JZ Styles, a beaded weft move up/install is just $120, which has to be a great price even if I don’t exactly know what that means because 7/8s of the Mormon Wives have identical heads of hair.
537 W. University Parkway, Orem, UT 84058
