For most of the past year, the building at 8700 East Pinnacle Peak Road sat dark. Preston's Steakhouse had run there for more than a decade before closing in 2025, citing the condition of the building and the repairs it would take to keep the doors open. If you drove past it on your way to Troon North or up toward the Preserve, you got used to seeing an empty parking lot where a busy one used to be.
This fall it fills back in, but not as a steakhouse in the way anyone in the neighborhood would recognize. And once you notice what's replacing it, you start seeing the same pattern show up three more times in the same few square miles this season.
One Address, Four Reasons to Stay
Alma Scottsdale, from founder and CEO Sheila Bryson's Soul Hospitality Group, is targeting an October 1 opening in the old Preston's shell, though Bryson herself has said construction could push that into November. Worth keeping in mind if you're planning a specific night around it rather than just watching the block.
What's going in isn't a like-for-like replacement. The plan is a Southwest-inspired steakhouse built around wood-fired cooking and flavors pulled from Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Northern Mexico. Above it sits Copper Club, a rooftop lounge with live music and desert views. Below that, a tequila and mezcal bar pairs tastings with chef-made tacos and small bites. And tucked into the same building is the return of Barbwire Western Couture, a western boutique Bryson ran before, selling clothing, jewelry, boots, and hats. Guests can move between all of it, ordering off Alma's full menu whether they're seated at the steakhouse, up on the roof, or perched at the tequila bar.
Bryson put it plainly in her announcement:
"We're building more than a restaurant, we're creating a place to celebrate, gather, explore, shop, toast, and make memories."
That's the piece worth sitting with. This corridor has mostly sold single-purpose destinations. You picked Preston's for the steak, and that was the whole decision. Alma is built so the decision to walk in doesn't require deciding what kind of night you're having first.
The Same Idea Shows Up Twice More
Once you see it at Alma, it's easier to spot elsewhere this year.
- The Henry, a Fox Restaurant Concepts build at Scottsdale 101, opened March 18 as a ground-up 7,000-square-foot space designed for indoor-outdoor dining. There's a front patio anchored by a fireplace, an open kitchen, an interior courtyard, and a walk-up coffee window. It's a building meant to hold you from a morning coffee run through a dinner reservation without ever needing to leave the property.
- Sonora Village, at Hayden Road and Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard, added four new tenants earlier this year. Akamaru Japanese Restaurant, from Chef Hiro, runs two entirely different services out of the same room: lunch built around onigirazu rice sandwiches and donburi bowls, and an evening izakaya of sashimi, tempura, and shareable plates. Next door, bb.q Chicken opened with its extra-crispy Korean fried chicken and a drink list that includes beer and soju, making it as much a stop for a drink as a meal.
Three unrelated buildings, same brief this year. Give people a reason to stay past the first course.
The One That Took Longest to Admit It
The clearest version of this idea isn't a restaurant at all. It's a golf property.
When Scottsdale Golf Retreat at Troon North was first announced in October 2025, it was pitched as a 26-suite boutique compound on a 2.7-acre parcel just west of the Troon North clubhouse. Twenty of the suites are four-bedroom units running around 1,615 square feet, with six smaller two-bedroom units at roughly 700 square feet, spread across eight low buildings. The plan included a guest lounge with a media center, a 650-square-foot pool, an in-ground spa, an outdoor kitchen, and two fire features, with Troon North's own Dynamite Grille handling onsite meals. A dedicated staff was set to handle everything from dinner reservations to tee times to custom desert outings, all from one address.
The property was projected for an early 2026 opening. That date has since moved. According to the retreat's own site, the grand opening is now scheduled for October 2026, with a 360-day booking window open for arrivals starting that month. Whatever slipped in construction or timing, the concept itself hasn't changed. It's the fullest version of the pattern showing up at Alma and Sonora Village, just built as a place to sleep instead of a place to eat. Golf, lodging, dining, and concierge service bundled so a guest never has a reason to drive off the property.
Where the Old Model Still Wins
Not everything worth knowing about this fall is chasing the same playbook, and the contrast is useful.
Mastro's Steakhouse, near the Preserve and steps from Pinnacle Peak Country Club, was just named Best Steakhouse in Arizona Foothills Magazine's Best of Our Valley 2026. It has nightly live music, no patio seating, and an upscale dress code it doesn't apologize for. It works precisely because it has never tried to be four things at once.
Four Seasons Resort Scottsdale at Troon North took a different route this year after bringing on new Executive Chef Gregory James, who has reimagined menus across the resort's dining venues. Talavera keeps its fire-driven signature cuisine, Proof leans into elevated American classics, Saguaro Blossom does poolside coastal Mexican fare, and Onyx Bar & Lounge handles cocktails and small plates. That's four fully separate identities under one roof rather than one blended concept. Specialization, not consolidation. Both strategies are live in the same square mile this season, and neither one is wrong.
The Preserve Never Needed a Redesign
Everything above is new construction, new tenants, new chefs. The McDowell Sonoran Preserve isn't chasing any of it, because it never had to.
The Preserve's trail network runs well over 200 miles across trailheads including Tom's Thumb, which climbs through a series of switchbacks to the granite spire named for Tom Kreuser, the first Arizona Mountaineering Club member to summit it, and the Gateway Trailhead off Thompson Peak Parkway, home to the roughly 4.4-mile Gateway Loop and the paved, ADA-accessible Bajada Nature Trail. The McDowell Sonoran Conservancy, a volunteer organization founded in 1991, still runs free guided hikes and naturalist programs each month, the same offering it's had for decades.
What has changed is the money behind keeping it in shape. Scottsdale voters approved a new Parks and Preserve transaction tax in November 2024, and the funding tied to it is going toward trail maintenance and Conservancy support as the weather turns and trail traffic picks back up. No rebrand needed. Just more resources aimed at the one amenity in this corridor that already did exactly one thing, and did it well enough that nobody asked it to do more.
That's the real shape of the season. Some buildings on Pinnacle Peak Road spent the last year figuring out how to hold you longer. The trail up Tom's Thumb never needed to.
If you're spending more time this fall walking these same streets and trailheads and find yourself curious about a property nearby, or just want a second opinion on what a specific block or community is really like day to day, the Bob Nathan Team AZ has been paying attention to North Scottsdale far longer than any single restaurant lease. Request a private consultation whenever the timing is right for you.
