Posted Nov 3, 2021, 5:31 PM
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Join Date: Feb 2018
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By Corina Vanek - Reporter, Phoenix Business Journal
The founders of downtown Phoenix's Chico Malo restaurant have created a new hospitality brand and are taking over a large downtown restaurant space that has been vacant for more than a year.
Teddy Myers, one of the founders of the new hospitality group, Pretty Decent Concepts, said when Condesa, the former restaurant in the ground floor of the Renaissance Square office building failed after less than a month , it made sense for the building's ownership to partner with a group that had a track record of a successful restaurant in downtown.
“Opening a restaurant in downtown is not the same as opening one in Scottsdale,” he said.
Myers and his partners, Katie Myers and Thor Nguyen, brought on Jesus Figueroa - who has previously worked at Tarbell's, Café Monarch and Renata's Hearth - as head chef for the new restaurant, called Wren & Wolf. The group has been working on the concept since October 2020, about 10 months after Condesa closed.
“This will be like four restaurants in one, that is how I am envisioning it,” Figueroa said. “For breakfast, we will have items that are as quick as possible for people to get on their way to work. For lunch, we will make it possible for people to get in and out within the hour, but for dinner it will be a whole different style of dining, something sexy, masculine, comforting but also a little different. "
Figueroa said the restaurant is working on sourcing the best ingredients from local suppliers and is working with a local butcher to create a special grind of meat for burgers. Wren & Wolf will also have an emphasis on small plates and snacks.
Libby Lingua and Mitch Lyons, who both formerly worked at UnderTow, will lead the cocktail side of things.
Teddy and Katie Myers had worked with Nguyen before, when he worked as general manager of Bad Boy at CityScape.
The space, which is over 10,000 square feet on the corner of Washington Street and First Avenue, is being designed by Peter Bowden of Petermax, who also designed Bad Boy's Phoenix and Florida locations.
"In my opinion, this is the most ambitious project, on the restaurant side, in downtown Phoenix," Myers said. The previous restaurant design was kind of "cavernous," he said, and the new design has been created to feel more intimate and intentional. A lot of taxidermy has been added to the space, which Myers said keeps with the theme. Eventually, the group plans to add a patio for dining, but Myers said they will wait until light rail construction has completed right outside the restaurant .
Wren & Wolf will operate as a sister restaurant to Chico Malo, but they have two different groups of investors and operate under two different hospitality concepts.
For now, Myers said, the goal of Pretty Decent Concepts is to make Wren & Wolf a “huge success,” and once that happens, they will look to grow to more concepts. He said he would love to open another couple of restaurants within a mile or so radius.
Wren & Wolf is on track to open the week after Thanksgiving.
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