Midvale • Historic Main Street looks a lot different than it used to.

In 2018, when Erick Romero moved into a house that’s about a minute’s walk from Main Street, he said too many buildings had broken windows and the area looked like a “ghost town.”

“Everything was just withering away,” he said.

In 2022, when new owners bought the 100-year-old theater and named it The Pearl on Main, the street was “scary,” said Peyton Wunderli, who took over the theater with John Simianer.

“When we came, there was no streetlights,” Simianer said. “None of these businesses were active at night. So we were kind of like the lone wolf out here.”

But after years spent improving other infrastructure, the city installed new streetlights, and two big-time businesses took a chance and opened on the shabby three-block stretch, joining the several Latino businesses and tattoo shops that were already there.

A pizzeria called The Bambino — a reference to the 1993 shot-in-Utah film “The Sandlot” — opened in a historic building on Halloween in 2024. And two doors down, in the drug store that was famously shown in the movie, the Salt Lake City-based plant store Cactus & Tropicals opened its third location.

Here’s how this historic street first lit up Salt Lake County and then fell into literal darkness, and then emerged back into the light again, rediscovering its identity as a “community hub.”

The ‘experience’ of Midvale Main Street

With most of its original buildings going up between the early 1900s and the 1950s, the walkable portion of Midvale’s Main Street used to be an “economic hub of the Salt Lake Valley,” said Kate Andrus, director of the Midvale Redevelopment Agency.

The site of a J.C.Penney, Main Street was where people would come to do their back-to-school shopping, for example, Andrus said.

But with the construction of the 7200 South and Interstate 215 interchange in the 1970s, “it essentially cut off Main Street from the rest of the valley, and with that came the decline of a lot of the businesses in the area,” Andrus said. “And so what was left was a lot of vacant buildings.”

Hollywood seemed to take a shine to Main Street’s charm, despite its state of neglect. Vincent Drug, shown in “The Sandlot,” was even a shooting site for several classic horror titles, including two films in the “Halloween” franchise in the 1980s, and the TV miniseries “The Stand” in 1993.

In those years, there was an effort to revitalize the street, said Midvale Mayor Dustin Gettel, but that plan “fell to the wayside.”

Another plan started to take shape in 2020, though, when the city started using interlocal agreement financing to allow the RDA to reinvest a percentage of new property tax revenue into infrastructure, housing, business development and placemaking initiatives on Main Street, which was designated as a project area, Andrus said.

The vision was to return to that classic Main Street feel, officials said, but with a revival that would make it a “community hub” that younger people as well as longtime residents would want to visit.

Calling Main Street an arts, culture and food district, the city opened the Midvale Main Art House in 2024 (a variety of classes are available) and has also organized several community events to attract people to the stretch.

In 2022, the city created the annual Los Muros on Main mural festival; this year, artists from all over the world created six new murals on building exteriors up and down Main Street. And on Oct. 24 from noon to 2 p.m., the city will hold Trick or Treat on Main Street, a free event where kids can trick-or-treat at participating businesses, and families can enjoy a costume contest, magic tricks and a DJ set.

The city also improved the sidewalks, Andrus said, and built the Midvale City Food Truck Plaza at the north end of the street. The city is currently working on a mid-block plaza proposed to go in at the southeast corner of 2nd Avenue and Main Street, Andrus said, as a place where it could hold markets.

Festival lighting is now strung across the street, making it a welcoming place even after dark.

“I don’t think a lot of people know that this street exists until they’re here,“ Andrus said. ”... We’re just trying to bring people to the area. We want the street to be a community space, not just for people to shop, but for people to come, gather, engage with art or entertainment or food — we want it to be an experience.”

What do people think of the changes?

Today, new businesses are sprouting up along Main Street, including Blacksmith Ice Cream Co.; The Honeysuckle Coffee Co. and T.H. Barbecue Co. (same owners, same building, separate businesses); and Big Tortas, near mainstays like Old Town Tavern and El Potrero Market that have been on the street since before the latest revival was conceptualized.

It’s easy to make a visit to Midvale Main Street more than just a quick outing. During the day, visitors can grab a coffee at Tres Gatos, go to a pottery workshop at Kal’s Clay & Crafts, and then stop at El Potrero for dinnertime essentials.

For a night out, visitors can stroll from, say, The Bambino — with its beautiful patio — for dinner to Blacksmith Ice Cream Co. for dessert, followed by a drag show at The Pearl and a beer and pool at Old Town Tavern, where the staff said scenes from an episode of the TV show “Marshals” were recently shot.

Zane Collins has been tattooing on Main Street for about nine years. In 2022, he opened his tattoo studio Wormwood in a private space inside another studio, and eventually ended up in his current location inside a former antiques store.

Collins said he was drawn to Main Street because of its murals and historic buildings, and the fact that it’s “tucked away.” Plus, he said there’s a strong tattoo community on Main Street, made up of artists who have worked together and then opened their own studios along the street.

He said he enjoys watching Main Street “get the attention that I think it deserves.”

“The foot traffic and just people kind of out and about in the area is really nice to see because it’s such a really cool, unique street,” Collins said.

Some of the newest members of the neighborhood, Jenn and Tim Biffert, opened their third location of The Honeysuckle Coffee Co. — with an attached window for T.H. Barbecue Co. — on Main Street in September.

They moved to Utah from North Carolina. Jenn Biffert said Main Street’s “old charm” felt like the South.

The couple wanted everyone to feel like they could come enjoy coffee, including families with kids, so they put play areas in all of their cafes, Biffert said.

To build the coffee shop, they took down a house built in 1890 that was no longer structurally sound, and constructed the building on the site in the same style. The garage in the back became their bakery.

Throughout the whole process, she said the city made it easy to set up a new business. An incentive from the city helped the couple finance the project.

Part of what made the location a good fit for them is the city’s new emphasis on community events along Main Street, Biffert said.

Sharay Juarez is one of the owners of the Mexican market El Potrero, along with her dad and three siblings, and she’s worked in the store since she was 15. She’s now 26.

When El Potrero moved to Main Street in 2017, from its first location behind where The Bambino is now, the street was “very lonely,” Juarez said.

She said the only foot traffic on the street back then would be their customers, as well as diners at nearby restaurants.

“We were just always hoping new businesses come,” Juarez said.

Now that the street is bustling again, she said El Potrero has seen a big “diversity shift” in its clientele, where not only Latinos are shopping at the market.

“We’ve been really grateful, and we’ve been really honored to witness all this growth,” Juarez said, but she worries about gentrification.

“It is a little bit scary,” said Juarez, who has seen some old homes get torn down to make way for new buildings along Main Street.

Resident Erick Romero, who serves on the Midvale Community Council, said gentrification is also in the back of his mind.

Most of his neighbors are elderly, on fixed incomes, he said, and he worries that rising property values could result in higher property taxes that they can’t afford.

“There’s always that concern of being pushed out,” Romero said.

Mayor Gettel said that “our priority has always been to ensure that current residents aren’t priced out of their homes and that existing businesses have the same opportunity to thrive.”

“We’ll keep pursuing affordable housing options and small business incentives, not just on Main Street, but throughout the city,” Gettel continued.

Regarding property tax concerns, the mayor said 90% of property taxes go to taxing entities “outside our control,” but he said the mayor’s office is committed to keeping the city’s share as low as possible, while protecting essential services and helping seniors find resources.

‘It’s been there for so long’

On a recent Wednesday afternoon at Old Town Tavern, a handful of regulars sat or stood along the bar, talking and cracking jokes as they drank beer.

Tyson Dillman took over ownership of the bar with his two brothers after his dad, late owner Lane Dillman, died a couple of months ago. Tyson Dillman said the new townhomes, condos and businesses being built are “bringing the day life and the nightlife back to Main Street.”

“This place gets pretty hustling and bustling at night,” he continued. “So we’re liking that aspect of it.”

Bartender Krista Martinez, who says Old Town Tavern is a “home” for many people, said there’s a lot of camaraderie among the businesses on Main Street.

“Even though a lot of it’s new and a lot of new people are coming in, we’re still getting that old school vibe of everybody is helping each other and talking about each other and sending business back and forth to each other,” she said.

Old Town Tavern’s future is uncertain though, because Lane Dillman put the “five-star dive bar” up for sale before he died.

The latest? The sale is going through, Martinez said, “so new owners soon.”

“I’m really hoping that they keep [the bar] where it’s at, how it is, because it’s been there for so long,” she said.