June is a fabulous month for plenty of reasons, holidays among them. Maybe you’re celebrating Best Friends Day today, or Go Skateboarding Day on the 21st. The 11th marks Corn on the Cob Day (feels important). And this year, both Father’s Day and Sushi Day fall on the 18th, so you could potentially get two birds with one sashimi stone. As for the Homeworks team, we’ll be happily celebrating for as many reasons as we can, but we feel it’s particularly important that for this month of Pride and Juneteenth, we show some local support in the right places.
There are so many benefits to shopping small—Salt Lake’s economy is strengthened, and more jobs created, when we make a habit of purchasing from local businesses (plus, we like to keep our tax dollars in Utah). So, in the spirit of ensuring that we support small, local enterprises while we celebrate the month of June, we wanted to offer a look at some of Salt Lake City’s LGBTQ+- and black-owned businesses that deserve your dollars.
A few great websites have done the work of compiling lists and recommendations...here's a small handful.
This Salt Lake Magazine article highlights a few LGBTQ-owned spots, covering everything from books to barbers and Mediterranean food.
Visit Salt Lake has put together a directory (in partnership with the Utah Gay Chamber) of LGBTQ+-owned businesses in and around our city, and they also have a page dedicated to celebrating SLC’s black community, including food, shopping, and culture/entertainment resources.
Black Lives Matter Utah includes an ever-growing list of Utah’s many black-owned businesses, as well as resources for education.
Salt Plate City is a pretty incredible blog if you’re seeking all the best places in Utah for meals that are worth both your time and money. They’ve done some deep diving, and the site has a page each for black-owned and LGBTQ+-owned restaurants all over our state.
