After years hidden behind cones, closures, and road construction on 2100 South, a familiar name is back in Sugar House. Again.
“We’re not Fiddler’s Elbow,” explain the new owners, Jimmy and Jordanna Brown. “We’re Fiddler’s.”
The reopening of Fiddler’s is more than the revival of an iconic bar. For the Browns, it’s about restoring momentum to a neighborhood that never lost its soul, only its access.
“It’s been five years of challenge,” says Jordanna. “People have forgotten that this is a vibrant neighborhood and there’s a lot to offer. They just kind of stopped coming. You just didn’t want to drive down that street.”
Yet Sugar House has always been a destination, even when it’s been hard to reach.
“Besides opening this restaurant, my husband and I just want to bring Sugar House back to a place where people can come shop and dine,” Jordanna explains.
Since reopening, the Browns have helped organize collaborative campaigns with nearby pubs and shops. From Halloween bar crawls to holiday shopping pushes, neighborhood businesses are coming together to remind Salt Lake that Sugar House is open again.
“Instead of telling people, ‘Stay in my bar and don’t leave,’ it’s more like, go taste what the neighbor has to offer,” Jordanna continues. “It makes it a destination and everybody wins that way.”
Legacy That Spans Generations
For Jimmy, the connection to Fiddler’s is very personal. “I grew up in the neighborhood three blocks away,” he says. And nearly everyone in his family worked in the building at some point.
“My dad was the manager of Salt Lake Pizza & Pasta. My brother was a busser. My mom was a server. One of my sisters worked at Fiddler’s for seven or eight years.”
As a kid, dinner often meant walking down to the restaurant to eat while his mom worked.
Yet Jimmy never worked in the historic building until he became the new owner.
In the Business of Hospitality
For the Browns, reopening Fiddler’s wasn’t a casual business decision.
“This is our job. This is our future,” Jimmy says. “We’re not some rich dudes who opened a bar because it sounded fun.”
Jordanna continues, “We’ve done restaurants for many years, and we’ve done corporate jobs.”
After leaving corporate work, Jordanna returned to bartending in Park City — where she’d worked in her twenties — and rediscovered what she loved about hospitality.
“It just felt good,” she says. “Talking to people. Taking care of people.”
So, the Browns decided to take a leap.
“We saw this building for lease, and the light bulb just clicked,” she recalls. “I just needed to have something on my own, where I could put all my skills and call it my own.”
They signed the lease in mid-February and officially reopened April 28, 2025 after months of cleaning, remodeling, and reviving a massive space that had been vacant for nearly half a year.
Familiar, But Different
Walking into Fiddler’s today, longtime patrons will recognize the feeling of the old neighborhood, even though nearly everything else has changed.
The menu, for one, is tight, intentional, and scratch-made. “We created a simpler menu where we utilize most of our ingredients between different dishes,” Jordanna explains. “You can’t waste anything.”
Everything is made thoughtfully and often gluten-free by default.
“All our sauces, dressings, soups are gluten-free,” Jimmy explains. “But it still tastes like it’s not.”
Pizza anchors the kitchen and is designed to be served both at the bar and next door in the family-friendly Sugar House Pizza space. “If it’s not a good solid pizza, it doesn’t work,” Jordanna says.
Old Fiddler’s favorites make appearances in new form: French onion soup, burgers, fish and chips, the turkey sandwich.
“They’re not exactly the same recipe one-for-one,” she continues, “but it’s our new take on that classic item.”
Built for Everyone
With the goal of making Fiddler’s a place for everyone, the Browns have crafted the offerings and feel to reflect that philosophy.
“We never wanted to position ourselves on the high end,” she says. “Never at the low end. We want to be right in the middle.”
It’s why you’ll find everything from affordable weekday lunch specials to rare whiskeys and craft cocktails.
“Some people are buying a $3 Coors Light on a Tuesday,” Jordanna explains. “Some people want a $14 cocktail or a $40 shot. We want a little bit for everybody.”
Because to them, Fiddler’s is the neighborhood living room. “This really is a place where everybody is welcome,” she says.
Fiddler’s hosts trivia nights, bingo, brunch, sports watch parties, and private events. But the bigger picture is still long-term.
“We want the neighborhood to succeed,” Jordanna concludes. “Because we see that’s how we succeed.”
After years of disruption, the return of Fiddler’s feels like a homecoming. An intentional nod to nostalgia with a bright future.
“Come to Sugar House,” she says. “There’s so much going on here.”
And now, finally, there’s a reason to stop again.
Feature Image: New owners of Fiddler’s Jordanna and Jimmy Brown. Photo by John Taylor.
