For a decade, the northwest corner of Pinnacle Peak and Pima worked as a stop between other destinations. You went for a steak at Preston's, a coffee at Little Snitch, an errand at the General Store across the street, and then you drove somewhere else for the rest of the evening. That pattern is about to change.
Alma Scottsdale is targeting an Oct. 1 opening at 8700 E. Pinnacle Peak Road, the former home of Preston's Steakhouse, and the concept coming into that address is not a restaurant swap. It is a four-room stack under one roof, and it turns The Citadel from a stop into a destination for residents who have spent years driving south to Old Town for the same experience.
What Alma Is Actually Becoming
The old Alma most of North Scottsdale knew was the Old Town location, a single-room Southwest steakhouse with a good patio and a strong happy hour. That version is gone. The relocation follows the closure of Alma's Old Town Scottsdale location earlier this year, a move that put Alma closer to founder Sheila Bryson's other Soul Hospitality Group concepts, including Soul Café, Vic & Ola's, Pescada, and Little Snitch, the last of which already operates a few doors away inside The Citadel itself.
The new space is anchored by a Southwest-inspired steakhouse centered on wood-fired cooking and flavors from Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Northern Mexico, with a rooftop lounge called Copper Club offering live music and desert views, plus a tequila and mezcal bar pairing tastings with chef-created tacos and small bites. The build also brings back Barbwire Western Couture, a western fashion boutique Bryson previously operated, with clothing, jewelry, boots and hats inside the same building.
"We're building more than a restaurant. We're creating a place to celebrate, gather, explore, shop, toast, and make memories."
The reason that quote matters for residents is structural, not sentimental. Guests will be able to move between the different spaces while ordering from Alma's full menu, whether they are seated in the steakhouse, enjoying the rooftop lounge or visiting the tequila bar. A single reservation now covers what used to require three.
The Four Rooms, In Order
If you are planning an evening once the doors open, the sequence built into the floor plan looks like this:
- Barbwire Western Couture for the pre-dinner detour. A boutique inside a dining venue is unusual at this price tier in North Scottsdale, and it front-loads the property with a reason to arrive early rather than at the reservation time.
- The steakhouse as the anchor. Wood-fired, Southwest-leaning, priced for the corridor. This is the room that carries the reservation.
- The tequila and mezcal bar for the second seating, with tastings and taco-scale plates from the kitchen next door. Under one menu, this stops being an add-on and starts being a course.
- Copper Club on the roof, closing the night with music and a view back toward the McDowells. This is the piece the corner has never had.
The rooftop matters most. The Citadel opened in 1985 on the northwest corner of Pinnacle Peak and Pima, at what is now the geographic center of Scottsdale, and until this fall no tenant on the property had tried to program the sky above it. Copper Club is the first.
Why the Corner Was Ready for This
The Citadel is not new territory. It was designed by former Frank Lloyd Wright apprentice and Scottsdale-based architect Vern Swaback, and the Inn at the Citadel began offering guest rooms in 1991 under the ownership of Robert Keyes. The bones of a small hospitality village have been there for more than thirty years. What has shifted is the mix of tenants around it.
The center sits on the northwest corner of Pinnacle Peak and Pima Road with an average household income of $159,000 in the trade area, within two miles of DC Ranch, Troon, and Estancia. The buying power was always there. What the corner lacked was a single address that gave residents a reason to stay for more than one course. The Preston's building had aged out; its closure announcement cited the condition of the building and required repairs after more than 10 years in the space. Alma is inheriting a shell that already sat on a proven site.
Walk the block and the supporting cast reads well. Little Snitch brings a playful twist to Scottsdale's café scene with fresh pastries, craft coffee, and cocktails in a garden-chic setting, one property line from Alma's front door. Mastro's Steakhouse sits at 8852 E. Pinnacle Peak Rd, two-tenths of a mile from The Citadel, with LAMP Wood Oven Pizzeria at 8900 E. Pinnacle Peak Rd Suite C1 in the same short walk. Across the intersection, the General Store still runs the morning-coffee and Sunday-paper role it has held since well before curbside recycling existed in Scottsdale.
The point is not that the corner is dense. The point is that it is now legibly programmed across the whole day: coffee and pastries at Little Snitch, lunch at the General Store café, wood-fired pizza at LAMP, a serious steak at Mastro's, and starting in October, an all-under-one-roof evening at Alma. That is a resident's week, not a tourist's day trip.
How This Reshapes a Friday Night in 85255
The old Friday-night default for a lot of North Scottsdale households was one of three moves. Drive south to Old Town for a room with a rooftop. Drive west to Kierland for the same combination in a resort setting. Or accept a linear evening at Mastro's or the Four Seasons and go home.
Alma collapses that math. A household in Troon, Estancia, or the north end of DC Ranch is now within a five to ten minute drive of a property that runs a boutique, a steakhouse, a tequila bar, and a rooftop under one operator. That is the same room-count you would get at a Kimpton or a small SERHANT-adjacent hospitality build in a downtown market, and it is opening on a corner where restaurants have included 8700, Market Café, Marque Bar, Michael's, BICE, Preston's Steakhouse, Café Ted, Little Snitch and more without any of them ever attempting that stack.
For residents planning the fall, the practical read is this. If you have been in the habit of leaving the corridor for a full evening out, that habit was rational for years and is about to stop being. If you have already been eating at Little Snitch for weekend breakfast, you now have a reason to end the same day two doors down without moving your car.
The Soft-Open Question
Two variables are worth watching before you build an October reservation into a family calendar. Founder and CEO Sheila Bryson said the timeline could shift into early November depending on construction progress. And the ambition of the build, four programmed rooms rather than one, means a phased opening is more likely than a hard launch. The restaurant is currently targeting an October 1 opening, though Bryson said the reopening could shift into early November depending on construction progress, and Alma Scottsdale will be sharing updates on its Instagram page in the meantime.
Read that as a plan, not a delay. A stack this big does not typically light up on day one. The steakhouse and boutique will almost certainly open first; the rooftop and the tequila room tend to follow. If you are hosting out-of-town guests in October, hold a backup reservation. If you are hosting in November or December, this is the address to book.
The larger point for anyone who has lived within a few miles of Pinnacle Peak and Pima for more than a season: the corner is finishing a slow shift from a crossroads to a compound. That shift is why the Alma announcement is the single most consequential dining story on this side of the 101 this year, and why the next six months are worth paying attention to. When a corner starts programming its rooftops instead of its parking lots, the neighborhood around it has already changed.
If you would like to talk through how the shape of your specific stretch of North Scottsdale is changing, or you have a home nearby and are curious what a corner like this does to a resale story, ARC° Partners would be glad to sit down. Make a Move.
