For awhile there, it started to look like we were going to choke on all the new restaurant openings in Scottsdale. To be sure, a ton of 'em have already opened (as you already know if you even occasionally read Chow Bella!), and plenty more are coming down the pipeline.
But while originally it looked like the onslaught of new Old Town eateries -- at SouthBridge as well as on the other side of Stetson -- would've happened by now, there's news of postponed openings from Peter Kasperski's camp. Consider this more time to digest all the newcomers.
According to original predictions, Mexican Standoff, featuring creations from Cowboy Ciao chef Bernie Kantak, should've opened by now. It will tentatively open in early May. The move of chef Nobuo Fukuda's Sea Saw, along with the opening of his izakaya Shell Shock, is also getting pushed back -- to July. And pastry chef Tracy Dempsey's sweet-centric Confection, which will move into Sea Saw's old space, won't open til August or later.
Is it the economy, stupid? (Uh, lame attempt at humor.)
Maybe, but don't freak out -- this kind of thing happens all the time in the unpredictable world of restaurants. And generally, I don't bother to report on every nitpicking little shift in the winds, but in this case, it's a whole chunk of delayed debuts that inquiring minds want to know about.
On the upside, this helps the Valley continue to break away from its history of damn-boring summers, when snowbirds and students would skip town, and nothing culturally interesting would happen until September or October. And selfishly, since all the scrounging and deprivation that enables my annual trip to Japan probably won't be enough to get there this summer, the opening of Shell Shock sounds like a fine consolation prize.
