Straw Market SLC
“I’ll be honest, I knew that we would be together. I just knew it.” Rick Wilkinson was fourteen years old when he first noticed Juli Anne “Julez” Wilkinson at West High School. She was the quiet new girl from Oklahoma who barely knew anyone. He was the outgoing Salt Lake kid who seemed to know everyone. More than three decades later, sitting together inside Straw Market SLC in the Avenues, he still looks at her much the way he says he did then.
Their story began remarkably young, but perhaps what is most remarkable is everything that followed. Julez and Rick essentially grew up together, building a life centered on family, responsibility, and an unwavering commitment to showing up for the people they love. Along the way, they raised two boys, became grandparents much earlier than most and eventually found themselves behind the counter of one of the Avenues’ most beloved neighborhood breakfast spots.
Julez was born in Oklahoma and grew up with her mother and younger sister in a small town where life revolved around the three of them. Her mother worked at a power plant about thirty minutes away, and the girls learned early to take care of themselves and one another.
There was plenty of freedom. Julez had her own horse and was competing in rodeos by six or seven. She remembers being so small that during one event, after jumping off her horse and running to a goat to grab a tie, her mother had to give her a boost back into the saddle. “I don’t know how I placed,” Julez says. “But I did have fun.”
Some of her strongest childhood memories, however, happened in the kitchen. Julez's mother made freshly grated hash browns in a pan, French toast, and bacon that Julie remembers popping wildly on the stove. One morning, while her mother slept after working an odd shift, Julez, her sister, and their friends decided to surprise her with breakfast in bed. Years later, those same kinds of foods would become part of Julez’s everyday life.
When Julez was fourteen, her mother made a consequential decision. Julez’s uncles lived in Utah, and after visiting them, her mother began thinking about what a move might offer her daughters. In their small Oklahoma town, opportunities were limited. In Utah, Julez’s cousins were taking gymnastics and experiencing things her mother wanted for her own girls. So, she packed up her daughters - and their horse - and headed west.
Julez entered West High School quiet and shy, but gymnastics eventually led to competitive cheerleading and a much bigger world. Rick had something to do with that, too. When she doubted whether she should try out, he encouraged her. “You’re a gymnast. You’re an athlete. You could do that.”
Rick’s childhood had looked quite different. Born and raised in Salt Lake City, he was the middle of three children and spent his days riding his bike, playing outside with friends, and staying out until the streetlights came on - or until he could hear his mother calling him home. His father owned a locksmith business nearby, where Rick would eventually work as well. But Rick was forced to grow up in ways few young teens could imagine.
He became a father shortly after turning fourteen. His son’s mother, who was a few years older, had not realized she was pregnant until Erick was unexpectedly born at home. Almost overnight, Rick found himself facing adult responsibilities before he had even begun high school. His response says much about the man he would become.
Rick went to the state to determine child support and visitation. He remembers standing in front of a woman who could not quite understand why this young boy was there. She began explaining that perhaps he was entitled to child support. “No,” Rick told her. “I need to pay child support.” When she calculated that his obligation would be about twenty dollars a month, Rick protested again. “You can’t even get diapers for that.” He was already working with his father and mowing lawns, and he paid considerably more whenever he could, along with buying diapers and whatever else his son needed.
West High also required Rick to take child development classes as part of the arrangement that allowed him to attend school near his son. He did so for all four years and eventually worked with children in the school’s daycare. “I was such a young dad,” he says. “It gave me a lot of information.” There is no trace of complaint when he talks about those years. To Rick, fatherhood was simply something he needed to learn how to do.
A series of circumstances then brought Julez and Rick to the same school. Julez had initially expected to attend East High, but a planned home purchase fell through and she landed at West. Rick, too, would ordinarily have attended East, but because Erick’s mother was at West, he was granted a transfer.
And then Rick saw Julez. She had already quietly asked a friend who he was - while making it emphatically clear that she did not want an introduction. Rick took matters into his own hands and found her family’s telephone number in a directory and called her house. Julez’s mother answered, and called out, “Some guy’s on the phone,” Julez remembers her saying. “Maybe it’s your teacher or something.” It was not her teacher, but Rick, whose unusually deep voice made him sound considerably older than fourteen. She picked up the receiver and immediately wanted to know how he had found her number. They started talking anyway, and then they kept talking. Rick told her early on that he had a baby. She was understandably stunned, however, when Erick was about seven months old, Julez held him for the first time. She would go on to help raise him, becoming another mother in his life while remaining deeply respectful of the woman who had given birth to him. “I just always wanted her to feel that I wasn’t trying to take her space at all. No one can do that.” Instead, Julez concentrated on loving Erick. “I got to show him all the time how much I cared about him.”
That instinct - to make room rather than take it - seems to have guided much of Julez and Rick’s life together. After high school, they worked, established a home of their own and continued building their life together. In September 2000, their son, Tanner Blaze, was born. “Well,” Julez remembers thinking, “we’re doing the family life. That’s what we’re doing. Look at this beautiful surprise that we have presented to us.”
Rick eventually settled into countertop fabrication and templating, while Julez largely stayed home with Tanner, determined to be present for a childhood she knew would pass quickly. He played basketball through high school, and she and Rick rarely missed a game. “I wanted to be able to be there as much as I could. Before you know it, he’s going be a grown man.”
When Tanner began working at Starbucks, he started around four in the morning so he would have the remainder of the day for basketball. Julez suddenly realized that if Tanner could work those hours, perhaps she could, too. She began looking for a baking job that would allow her to finish early in the day. An advertisement on KSL caught her attention - Straw Market was seeking a baker and manager.
Julez called Nic Lighthall, who was in the process of buying the business from its original owner, Lee McDonald. Nic wanted someone who could run the Salt Lake location while he managed another Straw Market in Pleasant View. Nic looked at Julez’s résumé and questioned her lack of work experience. Julez was ready with a quick response. “I am a mother. I buy the groceries for the house. I keep all of our schedules straight. This is what moms do. I can run this kitchen.”
Nic hired her and she began working at Straw Market in September 2019. She told Nic that she and Rick had occasionally talked about owning a doughnut shop, bakery, or coffee shop someday, perhaps when they were approaching retirement. She thought the job might give her a taste of restaurant life. Nic joked that maybe he would sell her the place in ten years, but then he reconsidered, and suggested maybe in five years. It had only been three months when, on January 6, 2020, Nic called and said that he was ready to sell now. By February 1, Julez and Rick had completed the paperwork, licensing and inspections and taken over Straw Market SLC.
Six weeks later, dining rooms across Utah shut down. The timing could hardly have been worse for the Wilkinsons, but they did what they had already spent a lifetime doing - they adjusted. Tanner had begun cooking at Straw Market shortly before his parents purchased it. With Rick’s countertop work slowing, the three decided to pull together and keep the restaurant going as a family.
There were days when only a handful of customers walked through the door. Because they had owned the restaurant for such a short time, Julez and Rick did not qualify for much of the early assistance available to established businesses during COVID. They opened lines of credit, kept cooking, and waited. “We just wanted to be here if anyone needed food.” The people on the Avenues responded. Neighbors walking their dogs stopped for takeout, people called in orders and the family managed to hold on until business slowly began returning.
Then, in September 2020, a social media food reviewer walked through the door, and Tanner recognized him immediately. He ordered a sausage breakfast burrito and one of Straw Market’s cinnamon rolls, filmed a short video and posted it. By the following day, it had been viewed hundreds of thousands of times, and there were lines stretched out the door and around the corner.
Julez suddenly went from wondering whether anyone would come in to making as many as two hundred cinnamon rolls in a day. Customers arrived asking for precisely what they had seen online - the sausage burrito and cinnamon roll - and when people discovered that the cinnamon rolls happened to be vegan, another audience found Straw Market. Longtime customers reacted with mock horror - “Don’t tell them about our secret little place in the Avenues,” some wrote. For several months, the little restaurant was packed.
The name Straw Market predates the Wilkinsons. Lee, the original owner, told Julie it was inspired by old markets where farmers brought produce, meat and other goods into town and spread fresh straw beneath their makeshift stalls. The straw signaled that fresh food had arrived. Julez and Rick kept much of Lee’s original menu and several of its recipes, including the cinnamon rolls based on a recipe from Lee’s grandmother, while adding their own touches.
Breakfast burritos remain one of Straw Market’s signatures, filled with scrambled eggs, cheddar cheese, freshly grated hash browns and a choice of bacon, sausage, or sautéed vegetables. There are pancakes, French toast, omelets, crepes, and sandwiches, including a popular BLT with hash browns tucked inside. The potatoes are grated fresh each morning, and nearly everything can be adapted to suit a customer’s preferences, including vegan options.
For Julez, there is an unmistakable connection between what she serves today, and her mother’s breakfast. Decades later, Julez is still feeding people much the same way. College students return years afterward and tell her that Straw Market kept them fed when money was tight. Regulars are greeted by name, and some affectionately refer to Julez as “Mom.” “I’ve always loved feeding people, when you’re cooking, you’re putting your heart into it.” At Straw Market SLC, Julez and Rick have created the kind of place they have spent a lifetime creating for one another - a place where people are welcomed, cared for, fed and made to feel that there will always be room for them at the table. “Food brings people together,” Julez says. “It’s really special to see people become at home at a place that’s not their home.”
