It’s been a month since SugarHouse Pub reopened on May 31, and every night, the new owners say past regulars have told them how glad they are that they can visit the bar again.
Before May, SugarHouse Pub, at 1994 S. 1100 East in Salt Lake City, had been closed for about six months.
In an emergency order last December, the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Services (DABS) had suspended alcohol sales at the bar, following a law enforcement operation on Nov. 22 that found evidence of underage drinking on the premises.
Paul Maritsas and his daughter Xenia Maritsas bought the SugarHouse Pub business earlier in May and are working to purchase the building itself.
They are currently in the change-of-ownership process with the DABS, said agency spokesperson Michelle Schmidt.
Paul and Xenia Maritsas “are able to operate the bar due to an interim management agreement which allows them to operate under the previous owner’s liquor license while the change-of-ownership process is underway,” Schmidt said.
The new owners said they want to “create a community” around the neighborhood bar, which is now open three nights a week for people to enjoy a cold beer or a game of pool.
“There is a lot of love that’s been put in this place, and we felt that,” Xenia Maritsas said. “And I feel really excited about how much more we can pour into this place to make it even better.”
From Speedway Cafe to Sugar House
Paul Maritsas already knows a lot about creating community.
In the 1980s, he was a musician in two local punk bands, Massacre Guys and Angle, that he said had trouble getting booked because they didn’t play cover songs.
So, in 1986, Maritsas turned a warehouse at 505 W. 500 South, which was under an overpass at the time, into the Speedway Cafe, an iconic all-ages music venue where bands were free to play original music.
“We had a lot of fun,” said Maritsas, whose goal “was to pair up local musicians with national tour acts, to give more notoriety to our vast amount of talent that we have here in Utah.” He added that the venue “was successful in that way.”
Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune The Stench performing Speedway Cafe.
By the time the venue closed in 1991, the Speedway Cafe had seen touring bands like Soundgarden, DRI, Bad Religion, Circle Jerks, Bad Brains, The Cramps and more.
Financially, the Speedway Cafe was a “bust,” Maritsas said. Xenia Maritsas added, “that’s not what it was about.”
“It was all about community and building up something alternative to what was in Utah at the time,” Paul Maritsas said.
Fast-forward to April 2024, and Paul and Xenia Maritsas were talking about starting a business together, whether it would be another music venue, a bar or an event center, Paul Maritsas said.
They started looking at different locations around town, and found out that a developer had bought the old Speedway Cafe building with a plan to resurrect it.
“So then our wheels really got turning,” Xenia Maritsas said. “Then we got really interested.”
Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune Kevin Seconds sings for 7Seconds at the Speedway Cafe.
Six months went by as Paul and Xenia Maritsas made plans to reopen the Speedway Cafe as a music venue, bar and restaurant, with the building now twice as big as it was in the ’80s.
“We were all very excited about the project, but the deeper and deeper we got into the building and the logistics of it all, it became apparent that it wasn’t going to be something that we could actually do,” Paul Maritsas said.
The Speedway Cafe building required a new roof and seismic upgrades to the foundation, among other repairs, which all “got a little bit too big for us to chew,” Xenia Maritsas said.
“But we didn’t lose faith,” Paul Maritsas said. “We figured that there might be something else out there. So we looked around.”
They made offers on a couple of places that didn’t go through, and encountered new buildings that didn’t feel like them, plus older buildings that they didn’t have the “bandwidth” to work with, Xenia Maritsas said.
And they didn’t find a spot that “felt like home,” Maritsas said, eventually getting to the point where they thought they should put their search on hold.
Then she happened upon a flier with a listing for the SugarHouse Pub building.
“We cold-called, and it was another human being that owned this place, instead of a development group in San Francisco, which is what we were constantly up against,” Maritsas said.
“And so we were able to establish that connection with him, and we felt the love and the heart that he put in these walls,” she continued.
And they bought the business, eager to own a part of a neighborhood that they love, one that’s growing but also being demolished, Maritsas said.
“I love the historic feel of Salt Lake, and I feel like it’s slowly being developed by people that aren’t from Salt Lake,” she said. “And so the fact that we could have a little piece of this, a little corner of this, is very beautiful.”
Curating ‘special moments’
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Sean Riker tending bar at Sugar House Pub in Salt Lake City on Thursday, June 26, 2025.
SugarHouse Pub is open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. The new owners say they plan to expand those hours as fall approaches.
The other days of the week, Paul and Xenia Maritsas have been busy hiring new staff, sprucing up the bar and making sure everything is clean and in working order.
However, “one thing we’re not trying to do is come in here and change everything,” Xenia Maritsas said. “There’s Sharpie on the bathroom walls, and we like that, because it’s layered history.”
The beloved pool tables in the back are also staying.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Sugar House Pub in Salt Lake City on Thursday, June 26, 2025.
They might rename the bar, after the attention it got at the end of 2024, but they’re still “feeling out if the stigma is going to be an issue or not,” Maritsas said. “So far, it doesn’t seem like it is, and I like the name.”
Given the investigation into underage drinking, which resulted in 186 criminal citations being issued to people under 21, she said they purchased a “top-of-the-line” ID scanner, with the requirement that everyone who comes through the door has their ID checked.
“My grandma’s been here twice, and we’ve scanned her both times,” Maritsas said.
If someone comes in who looks younger than 23 and doesn’t have a Utah driver license, they will be questioned. “I’ve asked to see Facebook pages,” Maritsas said. “We’re doing everything humanly possible to prevent people that are underage from coming in.”
Later this summer, Paul and Xenia Maritsas plan to open the north half of the bar, which is a smaller, more intimate space that has been closed since 2020.
That mirror-filled, lounge-like space was what was considered SugarHouse Pub when it first opened in 2010, before the original owner expanded into what became the south half of the bar.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Sugar House Pub in Salt Lake City on Thursday, June 26, 2025.
Paul Maritsas calls the north side the “jazz side,” and the south side the “rock ‘n’ roll side,” as far as vibe goes, and each has their own bar. He said he would like to incorporate live music into SugarHouse Pub in some way, but that idea is still being developed.
In the meantime, the two of them are focusing on getting to know the people who have loved SugarHouse Pub since the old days.
“To hear those stories about the special moments that people have experienced in these walls, and to be able to curate those again in the future, gets us really excited,” Xenia Maritsas said.
