Tag: sandwiches

Kahvi

The distance between Finland and Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula is nearly 6,000 miles, and neither place is particularly close to Phoenix. In terms of culture and climate, the three locations are also about as different as possible. That doesn’t stop them all from coming together in the Monorchid building at the north end of downtown Phoenix. Kahvi, a new coffee house named for the Finnish word for “coffee”, brings together a Nordic concept of cafe culture; a tropical theme associated with the beaches of Tulum, Mexico; and the steady development of Roosevelt Row.

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Throne Brewing & Pizza Kitchen

With the current brewery boom, craft beer producers have sprouted in nearly all corners of the  Phoenix Metro Area. After becoming established in their places of origin, a next step for many is to create a presence in or near downtown Phoenix with a taproom or pub. State 48 and Arizona Wilderness have both opened additional locations in the heart of Phoenix, and Pedal Haus will soon follow. Another beermaker, Throne Brewing, has expanded beyond its west side origins by acquiring the old Pizza People Pub, combining the existing food menu with its own beer.

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Ingo’s Tasty Food

A decade later than originally planned, an outpost of LGO Hospitality has finally arrived in downtown Phoenix. LGO stands for La Grande Orange, which originated on the east side of Phoenix with its gourmet grocery and pizzeria. A similar operation was planned for the CityScape development when it opened in 2011 but was abandoned at the last minute, ostensibly due to ventilation issues. More than 10 years later, another LGO brand, Ingo’s Tasty Food  has opened across the street from CityScape in the same developer’s Block 23 project.

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Daily Jam

Jam is no longer a word used just to describe a fruit spread for toast, extended musical improvisation, or congested traffic conditions. It has become a quick way of describing a person’s personal preferences, whether in music, food, or just about any aspect of life. For those whose jam is eating breakfast in downtown Tempe, Daily Jam has been around for a decade now to fulfill that need. With its morning mission, the restaurant stands in contrast to so many of its Mill Avenue neighbors with their focus on lunch, dinner, bar food, and late-night eats.

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Zookz

The food-obsessed sometimes debate the exact definition of a sandwich, and one facet of the discussion is the food’s shape. A typical sandwich is square-ish or maybe elliptical if rye bread is involved. Others can be more cylindrical if created with a baguette, and a sandwich built upon a bun can often be nearly a sphere. A round sandwich, shaped like a disc, is less common, but Zookz, a shop at Uptown Plaza, the recently renovated mid-century shopping center at Central and Camelback in Phoenix, has created its own brand identity around circular sandwiches.

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Walter Station

In both 2020 and 2021, the annual Burning Man event in Nevada has been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The yearly gathering will no doubt eventually return, but even without a densely packed temporary city arising over Labor Day weekend, Burning Man’s cultural impact can be felt in small and subtle ways. On Washington Street on the east side of Phoenix, Walter Station serves beer brewed on site with matching food and a loose connection to Burning Man, firefighting, and nearby Sky Harbor Airport, all in an unlikely combination that somehow works.

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Pino’s Pizza al Centro

In Italian, “pino” can be a diminutive for a longer name like Giuseppe, and “centro” can often mean downtown or the center of a city. Since every neighborhood can benefit from good pizza, why not have a place for it near the heart of Phoenix’s Midtown business district? With a location just a block west of the Thomas/Central light rail station, Pino’s Pizza al Centro seems a fitting name for a small pizzeria and Italian-American restaurant, especially when someone actually called Pino has been the proprietor for over two decades of continuous operation.

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Pane Bianco

For over a quarter century, Chris Bianco’s namesake pizzeria has garnered national acclaim, but Pizzeria Bianco ceased long ago to be his only venture. Another enterprise, Pane Bianco, has been around for nearly two decades. Pane Bianco began as a sandwich shop with just a handful of items available for takeout or consumption on picnic tables outside. Since then, it has gone through several transformations, trying on new identities but never losing sight of its core mission of serving minimalistic preparations of fresh, high-quality ingredients on fresh bread.

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JL Patisserie

Bread and pastry, long-established in the food traditions of so many cultures and nations, have recently become less desirable for some diners. Whether it’s paleo this, keto that, or gluten-free everything, it sometimes seems like cauliflower and chickpeas rule the day. As wonderful as vegetables and legumes are, they’re not the same as grains, making it a refreshing change to find an unabashedly traditional French pastry shop in the Uptown neighborhood of Phoenix. JL Patisserie is a second location building upon the success of an original store in Scottsdale.

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Superstition Downtown

Without a time machine, it’s hard to know for sure, but it’s often thought that the world’s oldest fermented beverage is mead. Since mead is made with honey, a sugar source that can be found naturally through foraging, its use to create alcohol could have easily predated the agriculture needed to grow grain for beer or cultivate grapes for wine. Just east of downtown Phoenix, Superstition Meadery has fittingly chosen an old building, the former Ong’s market, for a restaurant and shop focused on its signature beverage and complementary food.

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MATCH Market & Bar

2020 has been a terrible year for the restaurant industry, and while everyone has suffered, some of the biggest impact has been felt at hotel restaurants. With travel a fraction of what it was before, many properties have shuttered entirely while others have had to reduce operations. For hotel restaurants to survive, they’ve had to rethink their operations and adapt. In the case of the artsy FOUND:RE hotel at the north end of downtown Phoenix, its former full-service restaurant, MATCH, has reopened as a combination of a casual restaurant, a gourmet shop, and a bar.

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Spoonz

For many years, the downtown Phoenix menu seemed to be weekday lunches with a side of breakfast. So many establishments catered to employees of nearby office towers but saw little reason to stay open nights and weekends. Of course, that has all changed with new apartments and entertainment options in the city, and many of those lunch-only establishments have closed. The pandemic has added another challenge with so many people working from home, so it’s fascinating to see Spoonz, a sandwich and salad shop still operating on the office lunch model.

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