Restaurant in St. George, Utah
Restaurants in St. George and Washington County — the full-service dining category, and how the seasons and visitor traffic shape eating out here.
The general listing
This is the catch-all category for restaurants that do not sit neatly within a single cuisine — full-service American dining, contemporary kitchens, hotel and resort restaurants, and places whose menus span more than one tradition. The more specific categories in this directory cover individual cuisines; this one is where the rest live.
The seasonal pattern
Dining here follows the visitor calendar, and the visitor calendar is the reverse of most of the country. Spring and autumn are peak: the weather is superb, the National Park Service reports that 65% of Zion's visitors arrive between April and September, and a great many of them pass through St. George. Restaurants are at their busiest, patios are at their best, and weekend evenings need booking.
Midsummer, when highs average near 102°F, is the quiet season. Tables are easier, and outdoor dining is an early-morning or after-dark proposition rather than an all-day one. Winter is mild and steady, sustained by seasonal residents and golfers.
A town that changed quickly
St. George's dining scene has expanded substantially in a relatively short period, which produces a mixed landscape: long-established local institutions alongside newer restaurants aimed at a visitor market that did not exist at this scale two decades ago. Both are worth exploring, and the two are not always distinguishable from the exterior.
Practical points
- Book ahead on spring and autumn weekends.
- Sunday closures are common in this region — check before traveling.
- Ask about patio availability and shade if you are eating outdoors in the warmer months.
- Resort restaurants are generally open to non-guests; it is worth asking.
Restaurant in St. George
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Anasazi Steakhouse & Gallery
Locally owned steak and seafood restaurant on Sunset Boulevard, built around hot-rock dining: volcanic stones heated for six to eight hours arrive at the table on heat-proof stoneware, and guests sear their own steak to taste. Cheese and chocolate fondues round out the menu, and the kitchen was among the first in the region to serve dry-aged beef. The dining room doubles as a gallery, hanging work by southern Utah photographers and metal artists that is available to buy.
1234 W Sunset Blvd, St. George, UT
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Bangkok Thai Express
Casual Thai kitchen on the north-east side of St. George serving curries, noodle dishes and stir-fries for dine-in and takeout. It is a small, straightforward operation rather than a full-service dining room — the kind of neighborhood Thai place that has multiplied across Washington County as the valley has grown, and one of several Asian kitchens now working the newer retail strips away from downtown.
955 N 3050 E, Ste C3, St. George, UT
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Benja Thai and Sushi
Thai and sushi restaurant in Ancestor Square, at the corner of St. George Boulevard and Main Street, established in 2010 and run by Benja together with her husband and children. The kitchen pairs Thai curries and noodle dishes with a long list of specialty rolls — an unusual double bill that has made it a downtown fixture. The same family operates a second St. George restaurant, Benja's Thai Garden.
2 W. St. George Blvd, St. George, UT
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Bombay Cafe
Southern Utah's first Indian restaurant, family-owned since 2011 and serving halal Indian and Pakistani cooking from a storefront on Tabernacle Street. Curries, biryani and tandoor-cooked breads and meats make up the core of the menu, the tandoor being a clay oven fired hot enough to cook bread against its wall in seconds. Tabernacle Street runs a block off Main through the oldest part of the city, among its small independent businesses.
40 W Tabernacle St, St. George, UT
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Burger Theory
Gourmet burger restaurant inside the Holiday Inn beside the St. George convention center, open to the public rather than to hotel guests alone. Patties are formed fresh daily and can be ordered from the house list or built to order, alongside craft beer, sandwiches and shared plates. Its position on Crosby Way puts it on the hotel and convention strip south of the Black Ridge, a short distance from the interstate.
1808 S Crosby Way, St. George, UT
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Cappeletti's Restaurant
Family-owned Italian restaurant that opened on Tabernacle Street in the summer of 2010, run by Andres and Lorena Cappeletti with their three children. The cooking is Italian by way of Argentina, which is the family's own background, and is built on handmade pasta and sauces made daily from recipes Andres learned from his mother. The dining room sits in the historic downtown grid a block off Main Street, in a rustic, Florence-inspired room.
36 E Tabernacle St, St. George, UT
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China Palace
Family-owned Chinese restaurant on Bluff Street, serving St. George since 1994 and one of the longest-running independent restaurants in the city. The menu works the American-Chinese standards — General Tso's chicken, orange chicken, chow mein — as a sit-down dining room rather than a counter. Bluff Street has turned over heavily in the decades since it opened, which makes the restaurant one of the older survivors on the strip.
195 S Bluff Street, St. George, UT
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China Palace Chindo
Chinese restaurant on Sunset Boulevard on the west side of St. George, serving traditional favorites alongside chef-prepared dishes that do not appear on most local menus. Sunset Boulevard runs west out of the city toward Santa Clara and Ivins and is the main commercial route on that side of the valley, which puts the restaurant closer to the west-bench neighborhoods than to downtown.
1255 W Sunset Blvd Suite 6, St. George, UT
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Cliffside Restaurant
Upscale-casual American restaurant perched on the cliff above Bluff Street beside the Inn on the Cliff, with a patio looking out across the whole St. George valley. The view is the reason the building sits where it does, and the patio is the seat most people ask for. The kitchen took Best of State honors in each year from 2016 through 2020 and has held a TripAdvisor Travelers' Choice award.
511 S Tech Ridge Dr, St. George, UT
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Cracker Barrel Old Country Store
National chain pairing an American comfort-food restaurant with an old-country retail store, founded in 1969 by Dan Evins on Interstate 40 outside Lebanon, Tennessee — a combined filling station, restaurant and shop built for the new interstate traveler. The St. George location follows the same pattern on Convention Center Drive near the freeway, serving scratch-made breakfast all day alongside Southern lunch and dinner classics, with a gift shop of candy, toys and country goods at the front.
1736 S Convention Center Dr, St. George, UT
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Don Pedro's Family Mexican Restaurant
Family-owned Mexican restaurant on Valley View Drive in the Green Valley area, serving made-to-order dishes in St. George for more than twenty years. Green Valley sits west of the city center below the black lava ridge — one of St. George's older established neighborhoods and the site of its first resort development — and the restaurant has long been a fixture of that side of town.
567 S Valley View Dr, St. George, UT
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Durango's Mexican Grill
Fast-casual Mexican grill that opened in 2003 and has traded from the same building on Red Cliffs Drive ever since, making it one of the longest-standing restaurants on that corridor. Tacos, quesadillas, salads and burritos are built to order at the counter, and the kitchen also handles catering. Red Cliffs Drive is the retail spine of the city's north-east side, and most of what surrounds the restaurant arrived after it did.
245 N Red Cliffs Dr, St. George, UT
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Green Iguana Mexican Restaurant
Family-owned Mexican restaurant opened in September 2016 by father and son Gama and Ricardo Arreola, in the Red Cliffs retail corridor on the north-east side of St. George. The kitchen works the traditional plates — carne asada, carnitas, chile verde, enchiladas, chimichangas — as a full-service dining room rather than a counter operation, and draws both local trade and travelers coming off the interstate.
250 Red Cliffs Drive #14A, St. George, UT
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Irmita's Casita Mexican Restaurant
Family-owned Mexican restaurant that began in 1993 in a modest room at 500 South and Bluff Street and has moved several times within St. George since, now trading from 700 South. Traditional and Tex-Mex plates make up the menu — quesadillas, sizzling fajitas, smothered burritos, mole — and much of its custom has followed the family from address to address across three decades.
95 W 700 S, St. George, UT
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Lonny Boy's Barbeque
Hurricane barbecue restaurant run by Lon Allen and his son Scott, trading since February 2012 — first as a roadside stand and then, as the queues grew, from a building across the street. Pulled pork, brisket, ribs and smoked chicken come off the smoker, and the loaded 'Frychos' are what it is best known for. It took the Best of State award for Texas-style barbecue four years running, from 2013 through 2016.
980 W State St, Hurricane, UT
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Los Tapatios Mexican Restaurant
Locally owned restaurant on Bluff Street serving Jalisco-style Mexican cooking — the regional tradition of Guadalajara and the state around it, which is where the word tapatío comes from. It is a sit-down dining room working the classic plates rather than a counter operation or a fusion menu, on the busy stretch of Bluff south of the downtown grid.
987 S Bluff St, St. George, UT
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Lotus of St. George
Pan-Asian restaurant and cocktail bar on River Road, opened by a pair of St. George brothers who run several restaurants in the city. The kitchen works across Chinese, Thai and Japanese cooking rather than specializing in one, pairing traditional dishes with modern technique, and the bar carries premium sake. River Road is the main north-south route along the eastern side of St. George.
1501 S River Road, St. George, UT
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Nonna Ina Italian Restaurant
Family-owned Sicilian restaurant on Valley View Drive, run by an Italian family and built as an intimate dining room rather than a large one. The cooking is regional rather than generic Italian-American, and the plating is deliberate; carbonara finished tableside inside a wheel of cheese is among the dishes it is known for. Valley View runs through the Green Valley area on the west side of the city.
567 S Valley View Dr Suite 1, St. George, UT
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Panda Garden
Family-friendly Chinese restaurant on 900 East, a short way off St. George Boulevard, offering a broad menu for dine-in, takeout and delivery. It works the full range of American-Chinese cooking rather than a single regional style, which is the usual format for neighborhood Chinese restaurants across Washington County, and sits close enough to downtown to draw walk-in trade.
212 N 900 East, St. George, UT
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Pho 101 Vietnamese Cuisine
Family-owned Vietnamese restaurant on Sunset Boulevard, known for generous bowls of pho and for fresh spring rolls. Pho is a long-simmered beef noodle soup and the dish most Vietnamese kitchens are judged on. Sunset Boulevard is the principal commercial route on the west side of St. George, running out toward Santa Clara, which puts the restaurant among the everyday shopping rather than in the tourist center.
929 W Sunset Boulevard, Suite 1A, St. George, UT
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Pho Vietnamese Cuisine
Vietnamese restaurant in the Promenade at Red Cliffs, the retail center on the north-east side of St. George, serving pho, grilled pork banh mi and fresh spring rolls. Banh mi is a baguette sandwich descended from the French colonial period in Vietnam, and it is not widely available elsewhere in Washington County, which is a good part of the draw.
245 Red Cliffs Drive, Unit 006, St. George, UT
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Red Fort Cuisine of India
Full-service Indian restaurant on 1470 East, part of a small group trading under the same name elsewhere in the region. Tandoori cooking anchors the menu — meat and bread cooked against the wall of a clay oven at very high heat — alongside chicken, lamb and shrimp curries. It is one of only a handful of Indian kitchens in Washington County, and among the few with a full tandoor.
148 S 1470 E, St. George, UT
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Rusty Crab Daddy Seafood Restaurant and Bar
Locally owned Cajun and Creole restaurant on Bluff Street built around the seafood boil — crab, shrimp and crawfish served in a bag tossed with butter and Cajun seasoning, and eaten with your hands. It is a format far more common on the Gulf coast than in the Utah desert. A full bar runs alongside the dining room, which is still comparatively uncommon among independent restaurants here.
932 S Bluff St, St. George, UT
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Sakura Japanese Sushi and Steakhouse
Japanese restaurant off St. George Boulevard that has served the city since 2001, when chef and owner Johnny began putting out sushi in a market that had very little of it. It runs both formats under one roof: a sushi bar, and teppanyaki tables where the cooking is done in front of the guests. It remains one of the longest-established Japanese kitchens in southern Utah.
81 N 1100 E, St. George, UT
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Siam Sapp Thai Cuisine
Thai restaurant on State Street in Hurricane, which traded previously as Mekong Kitchen. The owner grew up in a village in southern Thailand and learned to cook there, opening the restaurant after finding how much appetite there was locally for the food. The menu reaches past Thai standards to pho and mango sticky rice, and it is one of the few Asian kitchens in the eastern half of Washington County.
847 W State St, Hurricane, UT
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The Painted Pony
Upscale New American restaurant in Ancestor Square at the corner of St. George Boulevard and Main Street, known locally as 'the Pony'. The kitchen changes its menu with the seasons and works with hormone- and antibiotic-free beef and free-range chicken; the dining room hangs contemporary regional art and opens onto a patio. The scrap-metal horse standing outside was built from some 850 pieces by the southwestern artist Matt Clark.
2 W St George Blvd, St. George, UT
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Utah's Rib & Chop House
Steakhouse and bar on Convention Center Drive serving aged Certified Angus Beef steaks, baby back ribs marinated a full day before slow-cooking, and fresh seafood. The group began in Livingston, Montana in 2001 under Burke and Melissa Moran and has since spread across the Rocky Mountain states; it is run today by Finally Restaurant Group of Bozeman. The St. George dining room keeps a dog-friendly outdoor patio with a fire pit.
1676 S Convention Center Dr, St. George, UT
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WINGERS Restaurant
Utah-founded roadhouse chain, begun in 1993 with a single diner in Bountiful by brothers Eric and Scott Slaymaker. Its Original Amazing Sauce — sweet and spicy, and now sold by the bottle — is what the chain is built on, poured over wings and over the hand-breaded Sticky Fingers that came out of it. The St. George restaurant is on River Road on the eastern side of the city.
188 S River Rd, St. George, UT
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Wood Ash Rye
Chef-driven restaurant and bakery inside The Advenire, the Autograph Collection hotel on St. George Boulevard that was the city's first full-service luxury boutique hotel when it opened in 2019. The concept came from chefs Shon Foster and Jason Neeley of Sego in Kanab, and the seasonal menu draws on southern Utah's pioneer cooking traditions and regional sourcing. Its in-house bakery, &Rye, makes the breads and pastries from scratch. Salt Lake Magazine named it its best restaurant of 2024.
25 W St George Blvd, St. George, UT
Frequently asked questions
When do I need a reservation in St. George?
Spring and autumn weekends, particularly evenings. Those months bring the heaviest visitor traffic — the National Park Service reports 65% of Zion's visitors arrive between April and September — and coincide with the most pleasant weather, so popular restaurants fill and waits get long. Booking a few days ahead makes a real difference during that window. In midsummer, when the town is much quieter, walking in is usually straightforward.
Is outdoor dining good in St. George?
Excellent for a large part of the year, and genuinely unpleasant for the rest of it. From roughly October through May a patio here is one of the better things about the town. In midsummer, with highs averaging near 102°F, outdoor tables work early in the morning and after dark and not much in between. If you are eating outside in the warm months, ask about shade and misting when you book — several places are set up for it.
Are restaurants closed on Sundays here?
Many businesses in this region close on Sundays, restaurants included, though it is far from universal and larger chains and visitor-oriented establishments frequently stay open. It catches visitors out regularly enough to be worth checking the hours for a specific restaurant rather than assuming, particularly outside the main tourist corridors and particularly if you are driving some distance.