On September 24, a demolition crew started tearing into the 1970s interior of an office building at 7501 E. McCormick Parkway. That was the first physical step in a $70 million redevelopment called The Lakefront at Scottsdale. Two days later, Phoenix Business Journal and a handful of other Valley outlets confirmed a much smaller story unfolding about a mile and a half away: a 12-seat restaurant named Dash, opening in November near the corner of Hayden Road and Mountain View, from a chef who has lived in McCormick Ranch for 17 years.
Both are new restaurants landing in the same neighborhood within days of each other in the news cycle. They start from almost opposite premises about what McCormick Ranch is actually missing.
The redevelopment at the lake
The Lakefront at Scottsdale sits on a roughly 100,000-square-foot site that dates to 1978, previously known as Forever Corporate Plaza. Scottsdale-based developer Diversified Partners closed on the $25.5 million purchase of the property in late May, and the first phase of construction converts 60,000 square feet of that old office space into restaurants, retail, and a new 10,000-square-foot corporate headquarters for the developer itself.
Four food and beverage tenants have already signed leases: La La Land Kind Cafe, V Modern Italian, SUSHISAMBA, and Frost Gelato, with a fifth concept to be announced once building permits clear. Three of those restaurants are getting patios between 3,000 and 4,000 square feet, positioned to look out over the water and toward Camelback Mountain. According to ABC15, Walt Brown Jr., CEO of Diversified Partners, called the site a "crown jewel that no one had access to because it was a corporate office" at the groundbreaking, framing the project as an attempt to open up a piece of the neighborhood that residents could see but never actually use. Sherri Mayhew, who lives across the street from the site, told ABC15 she's looking forward to walking over for coffee with a view of Camelback Mountain rather than getting in the car.
The detail that matters most for anyone timing a visit: the developer's own target is to have the first restaurants open by November 1 of next year, more than a year after the groundbreaking that just happened.
The smaller bet, a mile down the road
Dash comes from chef Matt Carter and business partner Brian Raab of Broken Plate Hospitality, the team behind three restaurants that have run in the Valley for more than two decades: Zinc Bistro, The Mission, and Fat Ox. Dash is their first new concept in ten years, and it's landing at 9619 N. Hayden Road, Suite 101, on the southeast corner of Hayden and Mountain View, inside McCormick Ranch itself.
Carter has lived in the neighborhood for 17 years. He's said he spent close to ten of them driving past that exact corner wanting a real neighborhood spot to exist there. The restaurant seats just 12 people inside, with another 40 on the patio, plus online ordering and curbside pickup for people who want the food without the seating.
According to Phoenix New Times, Raab said, "This is our most approachable concept to date. I can do tequila shots with you at The Mission and pour Negronis at Fat Ox, but Dash is the ultimate neighborhood hang to grab a morning coffee, catch up over lunch or share a bottle of wine at sunset and then take one home with you."
The menu leans into that all-day, low-key premise. Mornings bring coffee and pastries from longtime Fat Ox pastry chef Lisa Graf. Midday shifts into an elevated BLT built with Nueske's bacon, salt-cured tomato, and a mayo mixed with bacon scraps and tomato powder, alongside Roman-style pizza and rice bowls. Dinner moves to Portuguese-style charcoal chicken and charcoal-roasted potatoes off a custom grill, finished with soft serve made from a dried Hokkaido milk base. Dash also doubles as a small market, stocking Zinc's mac and cheese, Fat Ox's polenta, The Mission's chips and guacamole, and hand-shaped pastas to take home. The bar starts with beer and wine, with batched cocktails planned for later.
What the gap in timelines actually tells you
Dash needs roughly six to eight weeks between its public announcement and its opening. It's a single leased suite, a 12-seat dining room, and a team that already runs three other kitchens in the Valley. The Lakefront needs more than a year, because it's converting 60,000 square feet of office space on a site that dates to 1978, building multiple restaurant patios from the ground up, and bringing in national and international brands like SUSHISAMBA that carry their own design timelines and rollout processes wherever they open.
Neither approach is the better one. They're solving different problems for the same zip code. McCormick Ranch has never been short on recreation. The community was built around seven man-made lakes, more than 25 miles of bicycle paths connected to the Indian Bend Wash Greenbelt, two golf courses, and several interior parks. What it hasn't had much of is walkable, everyday dining inside its own boundaries. Residents have long driven south toward Fashion Square or north toward Kierland and the Scottsdale Quarter for a meal. Both of these projects are, in their own way, an answer to that gap. One answer is a destination-scale redevelopment anchored by recognizable restaurant brands. The other is a 12-seat room built by someone who already lives there and wanted somewhere to get a sandwich without leaving the neighborhood.
What that means before the year is out
For McCormick Ranch residents, only one of these two stories turns into an actual dinner reservation this year. Dash is expected to open in November, inside the neighborhood, with a menu designed around routine trips rather than special occasions. The Lakefront, by the developer's own timeline, will still be a construction site through the winter and well into next year. Anyone picturing a lakeside coffee run with a Camelback Mountain view before the holidays is looking at the wrong project. That patio is a 2027 plan.
What's actually available this fall is smaller and closer to home: a 12-seat room on Hayden Road, run by a chef who has been thinking about that exact corner for a decade.
If you want the next update on when Dash actually opens its doors, or how the Lakefront's patios come together once the fencing comes down, Tanya Rhoades is keeping an eye on McCormick Ranch as closely as anyone. Let's Connect.
