Milt’s Stop & Eat: Moab’s Oldest Restaurant Has Been Flipping Burgers Since the Uranium Boom

Moab has changed a lot since 1954. The uranium miners gave way to river runners, then to mountain bikers, jeepers and visitors from all over the world headed to Arches and Canyonlands. But one thing on Millcreek Drive has stayed remarkably the same: the little walk-up burger stand called Milt’s.

Opened in the middle of a boom

Milt and Audrey Galbraith arrived in Moab in 1954, right in the middle of the uranium boom, when prospectors and miners were pouring into town. Milt was a World War II Navy veteran who had earned the Distinguished Flying Cross. On Labor Day that year, the couple opened a burger stand.

In the boom years, Milt’s reportedly ran around the clock, seven days a week, feeding miners coming off shift. According to local accounts, it fed Hollywood too, as Moab became a favorite filming location for Westerns. The Galbraiths ran the stand for more than two decades before selling it in the late 1970s.

New owners, same counter

Milt’s passed through a few sets of hands over the following decades. In 2007, professional endurance athlete Danelle Ballengee and chef B.C. Laprade bought the stand. They were careful about what they changed. The original countertop and flooring stayed, and the interior kept its classic diner look.

What they did change was the food behind the counter. Milt’s moved toward local and organic ingredients, with grass-fed beef from a nearby ranch, local dairy and seasonal produce, and added bison burgers to the menu. Ballengee summed up their respect for the original in a Moab Sun News tribute to the founder: “He made it just right in 1954.”

The post-ride ritual

Milt’s sits on the road toward the famous Slickrock Trail, which makes it a natural stop for mountain bikers rolling back into town hungry. Today it’s widely called Moab’s oldest restaurant, and the menu still centers on what made it famous: burgers, fries and milkshakes, served from a walk-up window.

How to do Milt’s right

• Get a grass-fed burger. The classic cheeseburger is the move, or try the bison cheeseburger.
• Don’t skip the shake. There are around 20 flavors, plus root beer floats.
• Go green chile. Fries topped with green chile are a favorite with regulars.
• Time it after a ride. It’s on the way back from Slickrock, and nothing tastes better after a day on the trail.

Moab’s visitors come for the arches and the slickrock. The ones who know better also come for a burger at a counter that has been serving them since the uranium days.

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This spotlight draws on reporting from the Moab Sun News, Moab Happenings, Fox 13 and Visit Utah. Top photo: Phil Whitehouse, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.