Pinnacle Peak And Pima Is About To Run Morning To Midnight

For more than a decade, the northwest corner of Pinnacle Peak Road and Pima Road meant one thing after dark: a table at Preston's Steakhouse, a two-hour dinner, then home. Preston's closed last year, citing the condition of the building and the repairs it would take to keep going. The shell sat quiet through the winter. What's moving into it this fall is not a replacement steakhouse. It's four businesses operating as one address, and it says something about how this whole stretch of North Scottsdale is being rebuilt.

ALMA Scottsdale, the modern Mexican restaurant that spent years in Old Town, closed that location earlier this year and is relocating to The Citadel at 8700 E. Pinnacle Peak Road, next door to Little Snitch, another concept from the same ownership group. The new build is called ALMA Southwest Steakhouse, and the name undersells what founder and CEO Sheila Bryson is actually putting into the space. Alongside the steakhouse, built around wood-fired cooking and flavors pulled from Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Northern Mexico, there's Copper Club, a rooftop lounge with live music, a tequila and mezcal bar pouring tastings paired with chef-made tacos, and Barbwire Western Couture, a western clothing and boot shop Bryson previously ran under her own name. Guests can order off Alma's full menu whether they're seated at the steakhouse, upstairs at Copper Club, or perched at the tequila bar. As Bryson put it in the project announcement: "We're building more than a restaurant. We're creating a place to celebrate, gather, explore, shop, toast, and make memories."

That's a different proposition than what stood there before. Preston's asked for a two-hour commitment on a Friday. Alma is built so a resident can grab a margarita on the roof, order tacos at the mezcal bar, and buy a hat on the way out, all without changing address.

What To Know Before You Book

Bryson has been public about the timeline since summer: an October reopening is the goal, with construction progress the only variable that pushes it into early November. As of this writing the restaurant's own channels still point to October, and dinner reservations are already open through almascottsdale.com. If you're planning a birthday dinner, a holiday gathering for out-of-town family, or just want first crack at the rooftop before word gets around, book now and treat the exact week as a moving target until Alma confirms it.

The Same Bet, Two More Corners Down The Road

Alma isn't an isolated move. Drive four miles south and you'll hit the corner of Loop 101 and Scottsdale Road, where Fox Restaurant Concepts opened The Henry on March 18, 2026. It's a 7,000-square-foot ground-up build with a front patio anchored by a statement fireplace, an open kitchen, an interior courtyard, and a walk-up coffee bar. That last detail matters more than it sounds. The Henry's other Valley locations, in Arcadia and Uptown Phoenix, run as brunch-and-dinner brands. Building a dedicated coffee counter into the North Scottsdale location is a bet that people who live nearby want a stop for a 9 a.m. coffee, not just a Saturday brunch reservation.

Head east to Hayden Road and Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard and the pattern holds again. Sonora Village added four tenants this year, and two of them are restaurants built around the same all-day logic. Akamaru Japanese Restaurant, from Chef Hiro, runs two distinct services under one roof: a lunch menu of onigirazu rice sandwiches and donburi bowls, then an evening switch to izakaya service with sashimi, tempura, and shareable plates. Next door, bb.q Chicken, the Korean fried chicken chain, opened with extra crispy recipes and a drink list that includes soju alongside beer.

None of these three openings, taken alone, would mean much. Together, they trace the same shape: a walk-up coffee counter built into a dinner brand, a lunch-to-izakaya switch under one kitchen, a steakhouse that also sells hats. The corridor that used to be organized around the destination dinner is being rebuilt around the everyday stop.

What A Decade-Old Steakhouse Tells You About What Changed

It's worth sitting with what Preston's actually was for ten years. A single dining room, a single service model, a single reason to drive there. That format worked when North Scottsdale's restaurant reputation ran on resort spillover and the occasional special-occasion dinner. It's a harder format to sustain now that three separate operators, in three separate corners of the same corridor, are choosing to build multi-use spaces instead. Whatever replaces the next closed restaurant along this stretch will likely follow the same logic: more than one reason to walk in, more than one time of day to do it.

The Other Half Of The Day Is Already Built, And Still Free

None of this changes what's been true about mornings here for years. North Scottsdale sits against the McDowell Sonoran Preserve, more than 30,000 acres of protected desert with over 200 miles of trail accessible from ten separate trailheads, including Lost Dog Wash, which climbs to the Tom's Thumb overlook. Pinnacle Peak Park itself has a 3.8-mile out-and-back trail with designated rock climbing sections, a short drive from the same intersection where Alma is building its rooftop. Gateway Trailhead, off Thompson Peak Road, runs the 4.4-mile Gateway Loop with roughly 700 feet of elevation gain, well marked and busy enough on weekends that hikers regularly step off trail to let mountain bikers pass. Farther north, Brown's Ranch Trailhead is the access point for the Jane Rau Interpretive Trail, named for one of the Preserve's original advocates.

That infrastructure isn't standing still either. In November 2024, Scottsdale voters approved a dedicated 0.15% transaction tax, running through 2055, specifically to fund parks and preserve maintenance, including trail upkeep and expanded volunteer support through the McDowell Sonoran Conservancy. The city's preserve budget is set to grow from roughly $3.1 million this fiscal year to $4.6 million by 2030, funding trail maintenance and new personnel dedicated to the Preserve rather than pulling from the general fund. The trails aren't going anywhere, and neither is the funding behind them.

Put the two things next to each other and the shape of a North Scottsdale week starts to look different than it did two years ago. A morning on the Gateway Loop or up toward Tom's Thumb, a coffee at The Henry's walk-up counter on the way to a meeting, lunch at Akamaru, and, once Alma's doors open this fall, a rooftop margarita at Copper Club. None of it requires a drive south to Old Town. That's not a small shift for a corridor that used to send its residents elsewhere for exactly this kind of day.

We spend a lot of time on this stretch of Pinnacle Peak and Scottsdale Road, watching which corners fill in and which ones sit empty a season longer than expected. If you're curious what a specific pocket of North Scottsdale looks like right now, from the dining corridor to what's listed nearby, Frank Realty Group is happy to walk you through it, no obligation attached.