Sue Speidel of Orange Table in Scottsdale Has a New Venture

Sue Speidel ran the once-popular, now-closed breakfast spot Orange Table in Scottsdale. Orange Table's cult following will be pleased to hear that Speidel has been busy. She has been preparing for Inner Circle, her new breakfast-and-coffee concept set to open at 2515 North Scottsdale Road, near Scottsdale Road and Oak Street, the first week of November.

Speidel opened Orange Table in Scottsdale across from the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts in 2002. The cafe had a huge following until 2011, when Speidel sold the business. After that, Orange Table wasn't the same. It closed after a move to Tempe.

During her half-decade hiatus, she was a manager at Hotel Indigo in Old Town. She alo became an ultramarathoner. (You read that right.) She has done numerous 100-mile races, including the Javelina Jundred in Fountain Hills. Speidel plans to run in the Javelina Jundred again this year — the week before Inner Circle opens.

At Inner Circle, she will serve coffee, tea, and a variety of grab-and-go items.

She'll be brewing espresso and drip coffee using a custom blend from local Espressions Coffee Roastery. She will be steeping chai using her own mixture, which veers more spicy than sweet and leads with ginger. She'll be doing thoughtful eats and drinks, none too complicated.

"It's going to be back to the basics," she says. "More Italianized, less Americanized."

That said, some on-trend food and drink will crop up. Kombucha will be made in house and come in at least two flavors: traditional and ginger. There's talk also of a ginger-chile kombucha.

There will be a variety of food: soups, salads, and sandwiches. When we spoke, Speidel was in the middle of developing recipes for sesame noodles and curried cauliflower soup. She intends for folks to stop in, slurp morning caffeine, and grab to-go eats to unwrap later, for lunch. Options will include chicken and tuna salad, noodles, and overnight oats. Overnight oats will be soaked in coconut or yogurt; they will feature rotating seasonal fruits.

Speidel is calling her latest cafe venture Inner Circle because she intends for the place to be inclusive, for you and friends and anyone to stop there under any circumstance, whether meeting to talk house blueprints or to chill after the gym.

"The feel is going to be neighborhood and comfortable," Speidel says.

If her old venture is any prediction of her new, caffeine-loving folks should be excited.