The Garage on Beck Shutters Its Doors After 17 Years of Service

The Garage on Beck has been a Salt Lake City staple since its founding in 2008. The roadhouse-style bar and grill was a haven of local music, delicious food and, of course, some great booze. All good things must come to an end, however, and The Garage on Beck has closed its doors with a musical bang after 17 rockin’ and rollin’ years. SLUG sat down with owner and founder Bob McCarthy to take a walk down memory lane, or a drive into memory’s garage, and talk about what made The Garage just so special. 

“The proudest [I was made of the venue] was because of our diversity. The bar on the edge of town was for rebels and misfits, a mixture of old, young, Black, white, gay, straight, trans — it was an amalgamation of diversity,” McCarthy says. “I didn’t want an old dad bar or a bar full of fraternity kids, I wanted to blend them all.” 

The closing of The Garage does not mean there are no places left to go, however. McCarthy shares a few places that are ready to receive The Garage’s diaspora: “Bob’s Redwood Lounge, a lot of my folks go to Duffy’s [Tavern], anything that’s not fabricated, ‘real’ is the name of the game,” McCarthy says. “Lucky [13], Piper Down [Pub], anywhere you can see that somebody is home, that someone has their eyes on it, y’know?” 

“We didn’t want cover bands, we didn’t want it to be get-up-and-dance hits kind of a thing, y’know? It doesn’t feel authentic.”

McCarthy puts a very heavy emphasis on authenticity, which is evident in every aspect of his tenure at The Garage. “The reason The Garage is The Garage is because it was born as a garage in 1947 … Be true to whatever the project is, and when everything changes, which it will, don’t follow every trend,” McCarthy says. “The trend will come and go; I’d rather just be timeless. I know the garage would have been there a hundred years if we owned the property — it is timeless.” 

McCarthy touches on what did, in fact, bear the end of the garage’s time. The garage had been on uneven footing since its founding in 2008. According to McCarthy, an ordeal involving the land surrounding the property nearly closed The Garage in its infancy but when the deal to sell the land fell through, it granted the bar more (if not borrowed) time, during which it burned down twice. This went on until another deal was brokered between the owner of the land and the oil refinery and the land was sold last year. “It wasn’t about putting me out of business, it was about liability,” McCarthy says. “To have 300 kids there by an oil refinery every night — and they do blow up or have mishaps where eardrums blow and windows crack — I’m sure they paid a million dollars [in insurance] a year because of the 300 kids sitting right next to them.” McCarthy was sad to make the decision to close, but says he was happy for the bar to go out on top.

Something the oil refinery couldn’t buy, though, was the memories and the music. McCarthy recounts some of his favorite acts that have come through The Garage on Beck: “Nationally, Brad Wheeler bringing us Andre Williams, Bill Kirchen … from Commander Cody… Locally, it doesn’t get better than Joe McQueen, [a] jazz musician from Ogden, unbelievable, and then one of the cornerstones, Morgan Snow from Triggers & Slips … people like Jordan Matthew Young who came in second or third in The Voice, Michelle Moonshine, Pixie & The Partygrass Boys … Music has always been a big deal [to me], I wanted to do what I knew, and I know music, and I know good music,” he says. “All those guys I mentioned are the real deal … We didn’t want cover bands, we didn’t want it to be get-up-and-dance hits kind of a thing, y’know? It doesn’t feel authentic.”

“The bar on the edge of town was for rebels and misfits, a mixture of old, young, Black, white, gay, straight, trans — it was an amalgamation of diversity.”

Bob McCarthy is a man who undeniably keeps it real. The Garage on Beck, Stoneground Kitchen and Junior’s Tavern are all great examples of the authenticity that he brings to the Salt Lake bar and restaurant scene. Make sure to keep up with his other Salt Lake staples over on Instagram at  @juniorstavern and @stonegrounditalian, the latter of which has just celebrated 25 years of serving Salt Lake City! 

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Adam Michael Terry Is Your Neighborhood Jazz Dealer
Melissa Chilinski’s Beautifully Perfect Trash Moon Collective