Brick & Mortar Hot Sauce Locations in Salt Lake City, UT (Revised)

Update 04.12.15

Two and a half years removed from the original post of this, so we are well due and we have some changes...

When we last left off, we had basically Grove Market and a place called Chili & Max in a mall downtown slinging the sauce. Grove Market, while probably still having the largest collection of any brick and mortar in the state, in terms of different kinds of sauces at least, had a definite stock rotation issue and several of their sauces were discolored. I, regrettably, have not been back to re-check the store, partly for that issue, but partly also because I had already acquired every single sauce they had that was of interest to me at the time. It is on my agenda to re-visit, at some future point and once I do, I will update this then. Chili & Max is long gone, lost to the whims of declining mall visitors and revenue.

There are a couple new players into this arena, though, that I've discovered lately. One of them is in an area called Cottonwood Heights (basically a suburb to the SE of Salt Lake City) called World Market. This is a fairly large chain and they had a decent selection of hot sauces, of which I took full advantage. Most of them were also pretty fresh, with only one of them even remotely close to the expiration date. The downside to this store is the selection can be really hit or miss, but not to the extent of a Big Lots or normal grocery store.

Speaking of those, nearly all of them have really started to elevate their hot sauce offerings. The heat range there tends to be a fairly mild Habanero sauce, but at least they're making progress, in sheer selection of different types within that heat level, if nothing else.

The other big player is an import shop called Pirate O's. This one comes pretty close to giving Grove a run for its money, in terms of different brands of sauces, with lots of novelty sauces, as well as a very cool idea, which is smaller sized bottles of stuff, so you don't wind up with a 5 oz. bottle you have to chuck if you hate the sauce. The downside to those bottles, of course, is it can be challenging to get the sauce out of those little openings, but this is still a very good way to try a bunch of sauces for relatively cheap. I didn't take advantage of those smaller bottles yet, but I may do that. This store also goes from mild Jalapeno and Tabasco all the way up to several of the absurd extract sauces. Not content to stop there, they also have a full selection of hot BBQ, salsa, wing and other associated sauces, dry rubs and they don't stop there. Snacks ranging from spicy nuts all the way to beef jerky and Death Rain chips are all represented. In many, many ways, this place is a chilehead's dream and several sauces I found here I've seen nowhere else, including online. They could definitely use a few different brands there, such as the Danny Cash stuff, but they do a very, very nice job. It was definitely the most impressive section of this type, including Grove, given how far into the related areas this place has put on the shelf. This is the first - and so far, only - must for chileheads I've found along the I-15 corridor. It also is the furthest south hot sauce place I've yet found...at least in Utah.