The Salt Lake ValleyThe Royals can clinch a playoff spot in Sandy tonight, Trader Joe's opens in West Jordan, and Little Shop plays the Murray Theater
Plus a curry bowl in Millcreek, a pumpkin drop off the Trolley Square water tower, and a sphinx hiding behind the houses on 500 South.
Good morning, Salt Lake Valley.
The Utah Royals play their last home game of the regular season tonight in Sandy, and a win puts them in the playoffs. Last week we sent you to the Kansas City game, which they lost 2-0, so tonight is the second try. Below is which seats stay dry, plus the rest of a weekend that gets a lot better after tonight.
Today is the damp one: scattered showers this morning, then a chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon and evening, with a high near 59. Showers are still possible overnight, with a low around 42. Saturday is partly sunny with a high near 56 and a low around 40, and Sunday is mostly sunny and 57, so save the outdoor plans for the weekend.
📍 30 seconds in the valley⏱️ 8 min read
- ⚽Watch the Royals try to clinch at home tonight
- 🛒Trader Joe's opens in West Jordan at 9 this morning
- 🗿Find the sphinx with Joseph Smith's face off 500 South
⭐ The Big One
Best game of the weekend
Watch the Royals try to clinch a playoff spot in Sandy tonight
The Utah Royals, the valley's NWSL women's soccer team, host Seattle Reign FC tonight in their last home game of the regular season. Both teams have two games left and neither has clinched. Utah sits sixth with 46 points after last Saturday's 2-0 home loss to Kansas City, and Seattle holds the eighth and last playoff spot with 43.
The math is simple for Utah. North Carolina, the first team outside the line, has 42 points and can't get past 48, so a Royals win tonight puts them at 49 and in the playoffs. Seattle needs the points just as badly, which should make for a loud second half.
It's also the last Matchday Market of the season, with local makers, clothing, packaged food, and youth entrepreneurs set up from 90 minutes before kickoff until the final whistle.
Our take
Buy a sideline seat. The roofs cover the east and west sidelines, but the sections behind the goals, roughly 8 to 12 and 26 to 31, sit out in the open, and those are usually the cheap ones. With showers and storms possible all evening, a few extra dollars for a seat under the roof is the best money you'll spend tonight.⚠️ Heads up: Lightning stops play, so bring a jacket for a wait. The club points people to TRAX, either the Sandy Civic Center or Historic Sandy station, and the Historic Sandy park-and-ride saves you the lot fee.
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📰 Around the Valley
Trader Joe's opens in West Jordan this morning
West Jordan's Trader Joe's opens at 9am today on the southeast corner of 7800 South and 5600 West, near the Mountain View Corridor and diagonal from the Smith's Marketplace. It's the chain's 10th store in Utah and comes two weeks after the Herriman store opened Oct. 9. The opening celebration has music and samples, and the store will keep 9am to 9pm hours every day after that.
Strawberry Reservoir took in about a third of its usual Colorado River water
Just over a quarter of the water used in Salt Lake, Utah, and Wasatch counties comes from the Colorado River Basin, much of it through the Central Utah Project. That water runs through more than 100 miles of tunnels and pipelines from the Uintas, under the Wasatch, and down Spanish Fork Canyon, where a north pipeline carries it to Salt Lake County. In a typical year about 100,000 acre-feet flow into Strawberry Reservoir. This year it was just over 37,000.
📅 This Week
Worth it, and the cheaper of the two
Catch Little Shop of Horrors at the Murray Theater
Murray Theater's own production of the Ashman and Menken musical opens tonight, directed by Nolan Mitchell, with a 12-piece orchestra playing live. Several of the cast grew up in Murray. It's the second Little Shop in the valley this month, after the Pioneer Theatre run on campus we wrote up Monday.
Our take
Bring cash. Tickets are $22 in cash and cards add a processing fee. The theater only has 333 seats, and the 2025 renovation added a real orchestra pit on an elevator lift, so the band sounds close no matter where you sit.⚠️ Heads up: There's no Sunday performance, so if your weekend is Sunday-only, the next chance is Monday night.
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Worth it if Comatose was your high school album
Hear Skillet play the Comatose album at The Union
Skillet's tour marks 20 years since Comatose, their 2006 album. Frontman John Cooper has said a big part of the show is songs from that record, including some the band has never played live.
Our take
Tonight's showers make an indoor show the easy call. The deep cuts are the reason to go, since a 20-year tour is the one time a band digs out songs it skipped the first time around.⚠️ Heads up: The Union is mostly cashless for drinks and merch, and bags get searched at the door, so leave the big backpack in the car.
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Worth it Saturday, once the rain is gone
Walk Festival Transylvania at Millcreek Gardens on Saturday
The garden center on 900 East turns its grounds into a haunted forest and a row of Transylvania scenes every night but Sunday through Oct. 30. The walk takes 40 minutes to an hour and ends at the Spooky Hollow Munchery. This year Count Dracula and Frankenstein are running for mayor of Transylvania, and you might get a vote.
Our take
This is the one for kids who scare easy: no blood, no gore, no jump scares. Most treats at the Munchery are $1, so hand each kid a few singles for cookies, hot dogs, and hot chocolate. Saturday is partly sunny and drops toward 40 after dark, so bundle up.⚠️ Heads up: No pets, and keep the costumes on the tame side. Gory ones aren't welcome.
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Worth it for little kids
Watch pumpkins come off the Trolley Square water tower Saturday
Trolley Square's Fall Fest is one hour of trick-or-treating through the shops, plus a pumpkin drop from the old water tower for anyone brave enough to send one over the edge.
Our take
Bring your own pumpkin. Last year the toss didn't include one. Saturday comes in partly sunny, so the drop shouldn't get called for weather the way it might today.⚠️ Heads up: Last year's rules banned full-face masks and toy weapons, so pick the costume with that in mind. Then walk a block and a half east for Gilgal Garden, below.
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Skip it tonight unless the rain quits
Skip Halloween at Conservation Garden Park if the storms hold
The water-wise demonstration garden in West Jordan holds a free Halloween night with trick-or-treating past the decorations, voting on the community-carved pumpkins, and a dog costume contest.
Our take
It's all outdoors, and today's forecast has scattered showers and storms into the evening. Grab the free ticket anyway and decide at 4, since it costs nothing. The decorations stay up through Oct. 31, so a dry afternoon next week gets you most of the look without the soggy costumes.⚠️ Heads up: Tickets go through the garden's Eventbrite page, so you can't just walk up.
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🏟️ The Scoreboard
Utah football puts its 12-game streak on the line against Houston
The Utes beat Colorado 27-24 in Boulder last Saturday to stay unbeaten. Houston comes to Rice-Eccles for homecoming after a 35-32 win over Oklahoma State, with College GameDay on campus that morning.
Real Salt Lake won on the road for the first time since March
RSL went to Kansas City and won 3-1 in MLS soccer, with two goals from Morgan Guilavogui and one from Sergi Solans. They're chasing a playoff spot with four games left, and the next one is at home Saturday.
The Mammoth held off Pittsburgh and host Tampa Bay Saturday
Utah beat the Penguins 5-4 at home Monday, with Clayton Keller, Nick Schmaltz, Kevin Stenlund, and Nate Schmidt each scoring once and adding an assist. Thursday night's game in Seattle wrapped up after we went to press.
🍴 Eat & Drink
Worth it, especially after Transylvania
Order a curry bowl at Makam's in Millcreek
Makam's is a fast-casual Indian counter on 3900 South where you pick a curry and get it as a bowl over rice with salad. There are plenty of vegan and gluten-free options, and the naan is made fresh.
Our take
Get any bowl with rice and salad, $13.99, and make it the coconut korma, which is vegan here, so one order works for the whole table. Add a side of naan. It's four blocks south of Millcreek Gardens on 900 East, so it's dinner after Saturday's Transylvania walk.⚠️ Heads up: Online ordering stops around 9:15, so if you're picking up after the haunted forest, order before you leave.
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Details → 💡 Hidden Gem
Worth the 20 minutes
Find the sphinx with Joseph Smith's face behind 500 South
Gilgal Sculpture Garden sits in the middle of a block of houses and businesses, so most people drive past without knowing it's there. A masonry contractor named Thomas Battersby Child Jr. started building it in his backyard in about 1945, at 57, and kept going until he died in 1963. The best-known piece is a sphinx carved with Joseph Smith's face.
The garden has 12 original sculptures and more than 70 engraved stones with scripture, poems, and other writing. When it was about to be sold for development in 2000, a group called Friends of Gilgal Garden lined up an option to buy it. The property sold for $679,000 and went to Salt Lake City. It reopened as a city park on Oct. 21, 2000, 26 years ago this week.
Our take
Grab a walking-tour brochure at the garden so you know what you're looking at. Half the fun is reading the carved stones.⚠️ Heads up: Winter hours started this month, so it closes at 5. Get there by mid-afternoon Saturday if you're coming from Trolley Square.
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🎟️ Also Happening
Hear Tchaikovsky's Fifth
The Utah Symphony plays Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 tonight and Saturday, Oct 24, at 7:30pm at Abravanel Hall in Salt Lake City.
Celebrate Durga Puja in South Jordan
The Bengali Association of Utah's three-day festival runs tonight through Sunday, Oct 25, at the India Cultural Center of Utah in South Jordan.
See salt 18 at the UMFA
Mexico City artist Amor Muñoz's show opens Saturday, Oct 24, at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts on the U campus in Salt Lake City, but go Sunday when there's no game-day parking.
📰 Valley News
A Poplar Grove affordable building trades studios for two-bedrooms
The Westmore, planned for 45 N. Chicago St. in Poplar Grove, has new plans with 109 apartments instead of 119, but the number of two-bedroom units has more than doubled, from 19 to 40. It's six stories, and every unit is income-restricted, with an average rent level set for households at 60% of the area median income. A demolition permit filed in August would clear the four buildings on the site.
Suncrest is asked to go easy on water through today
Draper crews started a new construction phase on the water system along Traverse Ridge Road this week, with the work scheduled through Friday. The system serves Suncrest and the Draper neighborhoods on the Utah County side, and the city has asked people there to use water carefully. Service stays on as normal, but outages are possible if people use too much.
The new Highland High auditorium is getting its foundation
Crews rebuilding Highland High in Sugar House have been pouring the foundation walls for the new auditorium on the east side of the site, even through this month's heavy rain. The new school is going up on the north side of campus while students keep using the current building. The project is estimated at $300 million and should be done around 2030.
The Debate
💙 Good Neighbor
Nominate the person who helped this week
If a neighbor did something specific that made your week easier, reply with their name, city, and what they did. We may feature them in a future issue.
Nominate a neighbor →If you only do one thing this weekend, go stand under the roof at America First Field tonight and watch the Royals try to lock up the playoffs. If tonight's storms keep you home, save Saturday for the pumpkin drop at Trolley Square and a walk through Gilgal Garden a block and a half away.
Reply and tell us whether you're braving Trader Joe's opening day or waiting until the lines die down.
— The Salt Lake Valley crew
Got a tip, a new opening, or an event? Just reply, we read everything.
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Read past issues · Refer a neighbor · Advertise with us