Interested in dating in Salt Lake City, Utah? This vibrant city tucked between the foot of the Wasatch Mountains and the Great Salt Lake is a great place to meet new people. The city is the home base of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS), which means you’ll find the Mormon Tabernacle at the city’s center.
Given the city’s Mormon population you’ll find that the vast majority of the city, and the state at large, observes Sunday as a holiday. Work is forbidden on Sundays in the Mormon church and so many stores and destinations are closed. This can make finding a place to go on a date challenging if you’re going out on a Sunday, so be sure to plan accordingly.
While the LDS population is large, the majority of the city’s residents are not Mormon and so the city offers many local dining hotspots. There’s great skiing in the winter and plenty of lake activities to do in the summer, making it a great place to visit and a great place to meet that special someone if you’re looking for love.
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Best Salt Lake City Dating Sites
For Singles: Match.com
Match is a great resource for singles in Salt Lake City. The biggest benefit to using Match is that you can filter matches by religion, so if you’re looking for love in or out of the Mormon church you can look for potential matches with ease.
Since Match is a trusted dating site, there are more locals on the site looking for fellow locals, and Match’s robust platform will connect you to people who share similar interests and allow you to explore at your own pace. The free site will let you search the profiles but you’ll need a paid membership to communicate with anyone you want to meet.
As a dating site, Match is one of the best services available because of the ability to upgrade to a paid account and find people who are serious about making connections. There is limited access to the site via the free version of the service, so if you’re serious it’s best to use the paid site to find people. Match offers monthly, 3-month and 6-month package deals with discounts available for the 3 and 6-month packages.
For Professionals: Elite Singles
Elite Singles is a great resource for people looking for serious matches in Salt Lake City, which is home to several prominent Mormon businesses in addition to many other corporations. Elite Singles is also known fo matching people together based on education, and since BYU is a huge name for Utah residents (it’s the official university of the LDS Church) it’s easy to find matches who not only share religious beliefs but also alma maters.
Many Elite Singles clients include CEOs, professionals and other titans of industry. They use a proprietary formula to match people to 3-7 matches each day, which means you can’t search openly on your own and must wait for the site to send matches each day. These matches tend to be college educated (this is a selling point for the site) with a slightly older clientele than the rest of the dating sites, usually in their 30s and older, and so this site is perfect for mature business professionals.
Elite Singles offers a free service with limited resources, and different levels of paid membership that offer more perks like unlimited communication.
For Seniors over Age 50: Our Time
Our Time is a great resource for mature relationship seekers in Salt Lake City. Though the vast majority of seniors in the city are already married, especially within the church, there are still quite a few seniors looking for love and Our Time allows them to find each other with ease.
Our Time offers an upgraded service that offers unlimited email and messaging between matches with packages ranging from one to six months.
For the LGBTQ Community
All of the top dating sites offer the ability to search for gay and lesbian matches, with Match being the most LGBTQ friendly thanks to the site’s easy to use interface. The ability to search listings and instantly connect (through a paid membership) helps to circumvent the lengthy process of waiting to be connected to people who match your profile.
Salt Lake City has a vibrant LGBTQ scene as we mentioned earlier, and there’s a large population of openly gay and bisexual residents. Downtown you’ll find lots of local hotspots to meet SLC gays and lesbians, and it’s possible to be out and proud in SLC despite the large LDS Church presence.
For Hookups: Adult Friend Finder
Adult Friend Finder is still a great place to find someone to hook up with for a night or weekend in Salt Lake City. You won’t find Mormons on the site because of their religious beliefs about premarital relations but you will find lots of other SLC residents on the site.
AFF offers plenty of people looking to have some fun with no strings attached. Like other sites, Adult Friend Finder has a free platform, but the upgraded version of the site comes with more profiles and more options to communicate with people who catch your eye.
Best Dating Apps in Salt Lake City
All of the major dating sites offer their services through an app, which is free to download and use, and it can be connected to your paid account. Both Match and Zoosk are great dating apps, as both offer the ability to search profiles and connect with people directly and that’s much easier on a smartphone than navigating questionnaires and surveys in order to meet people.
With all of the fun places to hang out and grab coffee or a drink in Salt Lake City, being able to search for potential matches on the go is a good thing.
Best Dating Bars for Singles in Salt Lake City
It’s important to note that Utah liquor laws limit the sale or service of alcohol to 10am through 1am. You’ll find many LDS-owned restaurants closed on Sundays to observe the holiest day of the week, so planning ahead is key.
The Red Door SLC
The Red Door SLC is very well known for its wide assortment of martinis and its swank design. The bar is fun and flirty with an old-school prohibition vibe. There’s definitely a playful feel to the place and there is always someone to talk to at the bar.
Avenues Proper
Avenues Proper is housed in a converted industrial space, but once you’re inside it’s impossible to tell. One of the biggest draws for the place is that it serves a large selection of beers that can only be found in Utah. That means that you’ll always find lots of locals around enjoying the state beers. Their menu includes mac and cheese, which is always a plus. The only downside is that it’s only open six days a week.
Whiskey Street
Whiskey Street is located Downtown and definitely has a more upscale vibe to it. In addition to the expected assortment of drinks guests can enjoy things like bourbon bacon caramel popcorn. There’s a conversation starter right there. The locals tend to avoid this bar because the Downtown office workers tend to use Whiskey Street as their watering hole, so if you want to meet a more upscale crowd this is the place for you.
Speed Dating in Salt Lake City
EventBrite offers a calendar of speed dating events across Salt Lake City each week and you’ll find that there are quite a few events planned at any given time. The events are open to everyone but some are geared toward specific groups. You’ll see smaller independent groups as well as larger speed dating companies, all rounded up and gathered on the same convenient calendar. These events are ideal for locals looking for a meaningful connection or for anyone looking to meet new people. Keep in mind, though, that most of these events do have fees attached to them.
Salt Lake City Dating Events & Clubs
Meetup offers a number of singles groups in Salt Lake City, and they all offer events within their respective groups that cater to that group’s interests. In fact, they have events almost every night!
As mentioned above in the Speed Dating section, EventBrite offers all kinds of dating events for a wide range of Salt Lake City residents.
Between EventBrite and Meetup you’re bound to find something that suits your interests, especially with the wide range of activities in Salt Lake City. There’s something for everyone.
Dating Chat Rooms in Salt Lake City
Sometimes you just need someone to talk to, and possibly connect with, if the spark is there. Though they might be considered outdated, chat rooms are still popular with lots of people and there are a few in Salt Lake City that offer a selection of people to talk with. Some of the top dating chat rooms in Salt Lake City to check out are WireClub and Chat Hour.
These are free services but be forewarned that it’s a mixed bag of people that you’ll find so be prepared to do some searching for people who meet your interests.
Personals in Salt Lake City
Like chat rooms, most of the personals sites in Salt Lake City are hookup sites, but the personals are often different in that some offer people who aren’t as familiar with the mainstream dating sites (or who don’t want to pay for them) and so they’re resorting to the most basic form of online dating. They also offer the ability to post free ads for other people to see.
Most personals feature very direct requests for hookups or encounters, so if you’re looking for a more substantive connection then Match or another paid service is really where you need to be.
ClassifiedAds and Do You Like offer free personal ads with the ability to upgrade. There isn’t much offered by way of security because none of these are actual dating sites, and as a result they’re a mixed bag of serious inquiries and hookup requests.
Things to Know about Salt Lake City Dating
Salt Lake City is the hub of activity for the entire state, whether or not you follow the Mormon religion. While the city is considered to be inclusive and progressive, diversity is something that Salt Lake City really needs to work on.
Population
Salt Lake City has the largest population of any city in Utah and is one of the largest cities in the Great Basin area. The population of Salt Lake City is 192,000 but the outlying metropolitan area is estimated at 1.14 million. The city has 6.75% of the state’s total population, which really puts the size into perspective.
The city is fairly evenly split between the sexes, with men slightly edging the women 51.52% to the women’s 48.48%.
Demographics
74.7% of the population only speaks English, with 15.5% speaking Spanish.
- African American: 2.02%
- American Indian: 1.3%
- Asian: 5.3%
- Hispanic: 22.3%
- Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander: 1.74%
- White: 73.68%
- Two or More Races: 3.07%
- Other 12.82%
Religion
Salt Lake City is the home of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS Church) and as such there is a high concentration of church members in the city and state. In fact, LDS members make up 62% of Utah’s total population, though the number in Salt Lake City proper are estimated at less than 50%.
Is the city Gay/Lesbian Friendly?
Despite being located in a heavily Mormon region, Salt Lake City proper is actually considered to be a very gay friendly city with a very large openly gay or bisexual population, estimated at 7.6% in 2006.
Wrap Up
Salt Lake City is a great place to meet people. As the largest and most progressive city in the state it’s the place where you can find people who share your interests or who might be looking for as escape from their day to day lives. Navigating the ins and outs of the LDS Church and its influence might be tricky for new arrivals to the city but once you get the rhythm of the city you’ll be dating in Salt Lake City in no time.
