Quarters Arcade Bar’s Sugar House outpost is powering down for good, with owners announcing the location will close permanently on May 31. The arcade-forward bar, which opened in 2022 as the second Quarters location, never quite escaped a perfect storm of long-running street construction, slow summer business, and rising rents, according to its owners. The final night of service is set for Sunday, May 31.
Co-owners Katy Willis and Michael Eccleston told The Salt Lake Tribune that “we aren’t able to keep it going,” pointing to construction, sluggish warm-weather traffic, and what they called “overpriced rent” as the key factors behind the shutdown. The Tribune reported that the Sugar House bar is scheduled to close after service on May 31.
Owners And Origins
Quarters started life as a downtown basement arcade bar before expanding into Sugar House. The company still lists both locations on its website. A 2022 licensing rundown from Gastronomic SLC tracked the Sugar House site’s state approval and planned opening that year, while the bar’s own materials outline Willis and Eccleston’s path from bartenders to co-owners.
Construction And Tight Margins
For Sugar House businesses, Quarters is hardly alone in feeling the squeeze. Business owners and reporters have pointed to multi-year rebuilds along Highland Drive and 2100 South as a major drag on foot traffic and revenue in the neighborhood. KSL recently detailed those construction woes and the hope that things might finally rebound once the dust and the cones clear.
Willis and Eccleston have linked that same construction mess, along with slow summers and steep rent, to the decision to pull the plug on Sugar House. The location will continue operating through Sunday, May 31, while Quarters’ original downtown bar remains listed as active on the company’s site and calendar.
