Designing a Restaurant Bar in Utah: What DABS Means for Your Layout
/In most states, you put the bar where it looks best. In Utah, the law has an opinion too. The Department of Alcoholic Beverage Services (DABS) sets rules that decide where alcohol is poured, how it's measured and whether you can get a license at your address at all. Design around them from day one, not after the millwork is built.
Check the address before you fall for the space
A restaurant can't hold a liquor license within 200 feet of a church, school, public park, playground or library in a straight line, or 300 feet by walking distance. For a bar the walking distance doubles to 600 feet. As of May 2026, restaurants can ask for an exception when the nearby location is a park, playground or library, but it takes a local public hearing and state approval. Measure before you sign.
The dispensing area: 10 feet or 42 inches
The Zion Curtain is gone, but restaurants still have to keep the pour out of the dining room. A full-service restaurant license gives you two ways to do it:
The 10-foot buffer. The dispensing area sits at least 10 feet from the dining area.
The 42-inch barrier. A permanent barrier at least 42 inches high, with at least 60 inches from its inside edge to the nearest edge of the dispensing structure.
That 10 feet or 60 inches has to come from somewhere in your floor plan. On a tight footprint it's often the single biggest layout decision in the room, and it affects where guests can sit near the bar. This is where a designer who has worked behind a bar earns their fee: you want the rule met without the room feeling fenced off. A bar designed from the bartender's side works better for the guest, too.
Measured pours shape the back bar
Full-service restaurants and bars have to pour primary spirits through an approved calibrated dispensing system, capped at 1.5 ounces per pour and metered. Guns, towers, stationary heads, ring activators and insertable spouts all qualify. The system you choose changes the back bar: where bottles live, how deep the shelves are, and how fast a bartender can move during a rush.
The plans DABS wants to see
DABS reviews the space on paper, too. Your license application comes with plans and documentation showing where alcohol is stored, where it's dispensed and where guests can drink it, including any patio. Getting that package right is part of the design work, and it's a step many owners are left to figure out alone. It pays to work with a designer who has prepared DABS submittals before.
Food still has to carry the business
A full-service restaurant license requires at least 70 percent of gross revenue from food. That's a business question, but it's also a design one: a kitchen too small for the menu makes the math harder.
Timing the inspection
DABS inspects the space before the license is finalized, so the bar needs to be built as it will operate: walls up, back-bar refrigeration and draft or dispensing equipment in their final positions. Plan your construction schedule so the bar isn't the last thing finished. If a patio is part of the plan, include it from the start; adding it later is a separate update to your license.
Get it right on paper
A bar that meets the rules and still pours fast, looks good and keeps guests close is a design problem, not a compliance form.
Building a bar in Utah? Let's talk before you finalize the layout.