Los Angeles Times

Evermore resets the theme park with an interactive, theatrical pivot

PLEASANT GROVE, Utah - The future of theme parks might just be in a Salt Lake City suburb. This is where you will find Evermore, where one of its star attractions is not a state-of-the-art coaster nor a thrill ride populated with scenes from a recent superhero movie. Instead, it is a tavern called the Crooked Lantern.

To get to the Crooked Lantern, one of the oddest and liveliest bars west of the Mississippi, you must dodge the druids near the town border, walk past the aviary without being distracted by the woman with a baby dragon and hang a left at the gaggle of buzzing faeries.

They'll want to chat - faeries are a chipper lot - but it's best to get inside the pub's doors before one gets led astray. Faeries lie. Everyone here seems to know that, especially the ghosts. And everyone is welcome.

This is evident by the troll-like figure awaiting a chess player in the corner. That's not an insult - he may very well be a troll, the sort who lives under a mystical bridge rather than the more modern breed found on social media.

Whether you are a regular or entering the Crooked Lantern for the first time, expect to receive a friendly and loud greeting, likely from the bartender Suds McBride. Crowds are attracted to Suds, who walks atop the bar and likes to tell guests about the time he was swallowed whole by a fish - the 4- or 5-foot monster that lies dead, intestines out, in

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