"We did not want to make a mistake. We've all had our share of mistakes in life."
That's Lee Maen, co-founder of Innovative Dining Group, explaining why it took his team roughly a decade to settle on a Scottsdale address for BOA Steakhouse. He said it in March, when the opening target had already slid from "early 2026" to "early summer." If you have been trying to plan a dinner around BOA, or around Drake's Hollywood a few blocks away, you have probably felt that same patience tested. Meanwhile, three other restaurants that got far less fanfare when they were announced have been quietly serving dinner in Old Town for months.
That is the part worth knowing if you live here and are tired of reading "coming in 2026" every time you open a food blog. Old Town's restaurant scene is not moving at one speed this year. It is moving at two, and the loudest names are not the ones you can actually walk into tonight.
What you can already sit down at
Three of the most talked-about openings from earlier this year are done. The doors are open, the kitchens are running, and none of them require you to keep checking Instagram for a date.
Wolf by Vanderpump opened last December on the seventh floor of Caesars Republic Scottsdale, a roughly 6,500-square-foot room with a central bar and an eighth-floor veranda that looks out over the Camelback skyline. Cielito followed in February, a rooftop restaurant and bar on top of the AC Hotel Scottsdale Old Town, built around Sonoran and Northwest Mexican flavors with sunset views toward the mountain. And 40 LOVE, developed by Sean Mulholland and Avery Johnson Jr. in partnership with Niall Horan and DeAndre Hopkins, has also been open for a while now, quietly filling out its own corner of the neighborhood without the press blitz that followed the steakhouse announcements.
Add The Guest House, which took over the former Etta space at Scottsdale Quarter with a menu built around a wagyu steak program and tableside preparations, and you have four rooms that were "opening soon" a year ago and are now just part of the regular rotation. If you have not tried them yet, that is a choice, not a scheduling problem.
What is still a sign in a window
Then there is the other clock. BOA Steakhouse was first reported as an early 2026 opening back in January. By March, the timeline had shifted to "early summer," with Maen describing a search that had already stretched across ten years before the team landed on the former STK space at 7134 E. Stetson Drive. As of the most recent reporting on it, no firm opening date has been confirmed. Drake's Hollywood, the Old Hollywood-themed chophouse moving into the former Buca di Beppo at Scottsdale Road and First Street, has carried a "later this year" label since it was first announced in September of last year, and that language has not changed since.
Neither of these is a broken promise. Restaurant buildouts run long, especially for concepts this size. Drake's is filling 8,000 square feet with Art Deco chandeliers and a full valet setup. BOA's space includes two 30-person private dining rooms with full audiovisual capability, a 42-seat bar and lounge, and a 58-seat patio, which is a lot of finish work before a single steak gets served. The point is not that these restaurants are behind schedule. It is that they have been covered with the same present-tense energy as places that have been open for eight months, and if you are the one deciding where to book a table this weekend, that distinction is the only one that matters.
The neighborhood around the restaurants is on its own timeline too
Part of why 2026 feels like a year of constant announcements is that Old Town itself has been under a formal renovation plan on top of the private one. The city committed $40 million in fiscal year 2025-26 to Old Town infrastructure, covering things like the Brown Avenue parking structure expansion and a relocation of the Old Town Farmers Market to make room for it. For the current fiscal year, 2026-27, the city has outlined additional investment on top of that, including a second phase of streetscape beautification with new tree plantings and Fifth Avenue monument signs, plus a new Five-Year Economic Development Strategic Plan meant to align business development, tourism and destination marketing under one framework.
The city also created a new position, an Old Town Specialist, specifically to keep merchants informed as maintenance and construction projects roll through the district. That role exists because 2026 is Scottsdale's 75th anniversary, which is also drawing a heavier events calendar than usual, with Canal Convergence, the Fall Festival, Día de los Muertos and Scottsdazzle all returning alongside a new addition, the Every Woman's Marathon. None of that changes when you can get a reservation at BOA, but it does explain why Old Town has felt like it is mid-renovation on every level at once this year, from the sidewalks to the restaurant rosters.
If you want the one thing on the calendar that has not been touched by any of this, it is Scottsdale ArtWalk, which keeps its regular Thursday evening run through the Arts District with galleries staying open late along Marshall Way. While rooftops and steakhouses drift in and out of "opening soon," that weekly rhythm has not moved.
A grocery run gets a little shorter too
Not everything new in the area is about where to eat out. A second Whole Foods Market within Scottsdale city limits is targeting a fall 2026 opening at 7628 E. Indian School Road, in the former Fry's Food Store space at the Downtown East shopping center. The chain has started hiring for the location, though it has not announced an exact opening date. For anyone in south Scottsdale who has been driving past Old Town to reach the existing store near Mayo Boulevard, this is the kind of change that actually shortens a weekly errand rather than adding another name to a list of restaurants you are waiting on.
What this actually means for your next night out
If you are deciding where to go this month, the practical takeaway is simple. Do not build a Saturday night around a name you saw announced eight months ago without checking first. Wolf by Vanderpump, Cielito, 40 LOVE and The Guest House are open now and have been for a while, so if you have not made it in yet, there is no reason to keep waiting. BOA and Drake's are both still pre-opening as of the most recent updates, and given how long the timelines have already stretched, a call ahead or a quick check of their social accounts before you plan a night around either one will save you a wasted trip.
The bigger pattern is one worth remembering the next time a big new name gets announced for this neighborhood. Old Town has a habit of getting covered as if every project is on the same clock. It rarely is. Some spaces open fast because the buildout is simple or the operator has done it five times before. Others take longer because the group waited a decade for the right corner, or because the city's own construction calendar is running through the same blocks at the same time. Neither pace is a problem. It just means the neighborhood rewards residents who check before they plan, rather than residents who plan around a press release.
That is really the only difference between a great night out and a reservation that never existed.
If you are watching how Old Town keeps reshaping itself and want a read on what these changes mean for property values or timing a move in the surrounding neighborhoods, Kayla Kerulis tracks these shifts across Scottsdale and the East Valley as part of her regular market work. Reach out anytime for a complimentary market consultation.
