For years, an evening in Old Town Scottsdale meant a car. Dinner on one block, drinks on another, a gallery stop that only made sense if you were willing to give up your parking space. That equation quietly changed this year. Six new restaurants have landed inside a small rectangle between Scottsdale Road, Camelback, Stetson Drive, and Third Avenue, and four of them sit on second floors or higher. Layer the Scottsdale Gallery Association's Thursday ArtWalk on top of that, and a resident's summer night is now planable on foot in a way it simply wasn't in 2024.
That is the shift worth understanding if you already live here. The rest of this post is a field guide to it.
The Rectangle You Can Now Walk Across
The new arrivals cluster tightly. Six new concepts are landing inside a walkable rectangle bounded by Scottsdale Road, Camelback, Stetson Drive, and Third Avenue, and four of them are on second floors or higher. That geography, more than any single menu, is the news.
Here is the current inventory of what's open or arriving inside that footprint:
| Venue | Where | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Wolf by Vanderpump | Caesars Republic Scottsdale, 7th floor | Already open on the seventh floor of Caesars Republic Scottsdale, 6,500 square feet of rooftop space with a dramatic central bar and a globally inspired menu that extends to an eighth-floor veranda. |
| BOA Steakhouse | Scottsdale Waterfront | Set to open in the first half of 2026, kitchen led by Executive Chef Brendan Collins, with a Four Sixes Ranch partnership anchoring the menu with a signature 18-ounce dry-aged ribeye. |
| 40 LOVE | Old Town | A restaurant lounge from co-founders Sean Mulholland and Avery Johnson Jr., developed in partnership with Niall Horan and DeAndre Hopkins. |
| Above All Else | 7134 E. Stetson Drive, 2nd floor | Taking the second floor of the space formerly occupied by STK |
| Drake's Hollywood | 3828 N. Scottsdale Road | Moving into the former Buca di Beppo, 8,000 square feet with red leather booths and Art Deco chandeliers; the Scottsdale location will feature a valet-only entrance. |
| DEPWAH | Old Town stretch | Later this year, a French-Vietnamese concept with a rooftop lounge and espresso bar focused on Vietnamese coffee and matcha. |
| Cielito | Rooftop, AC Hotel Scottsdale Old Town | Opens in February 2026 in Old Town Scottsdale and is a rooftop restaurant and bar atop the new AC Hotel Scottsdale Old Town. |
Read those addresses together and the picture gets clearer. 7107 E. Sixth, 7117 E. 3rd, 7134 E. Stetson, 3828 N. Scottsdale, Scottsdale Waterfront. On a map, that is a fifteen-minute perimeter.
Why The Rooftops Are Stacking Now
Old Town's rooftop story is not new. What is new is who is building here. The December opening of Wolf by Vanderpump drew national coverage and confirmed something that the Camelback corridor openings also suggest: Scottsdale is no longer the market where national concepts test a cautious second location. It's where they bring the flagship version.
That framing changes how a resident should read the openings. BOA is not a satellite. For Innovative Dining Group, this is a homecoming, they operated Sushi Roku at W Scottsdale for fifteen years before stepping back. Their return with a Michelin-veteran chef and an exclusive ranch partnership signals a full-scale, top-tier build rather than a market test.
There's also a quiet lesson in what's being replaced. The former STK space became Above All Else. The former Buca di Beppo is becoming Drake's. Roach's former cabinetry showroom is becoming Ari & Lloyd. Old Town's summer inventory turn is happening inside existing shells, which is worth remembering the next time a longtime tenant goes quiet on a lease. If you've lived here long enough to remember Buca as a family-birthday standby, the change is less a demolition and more a swap of the guest list.
Thursday Still Belongs To The Galleries
The rooftop cluster is loud. The ArtWalk, quieter and older, is the reason a Thursday night in Old Town works as a full evening rather than a single dinner reservation.
For 52 years, the event has been hosted by the Scottsdale Gallery Association, making it the longest-running art walk in the country. Held nearly every Thursday evening from 7 to 9 p.m. in partnership with the city of Scottsdale, the SGA's weekly ArtWalk highlights the finest art in Scottsdale, featured throughout more than 30 galleries and two museums: Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and Western Spirit: Scottsdale's Museum of the West.
The one to build a summer plan around is the seasonal Gold Palette. On Thursday, July 9 from 6:30 to 9 p.m., the Summer Spectacular Gold Palette ArtWalk takes place throughout the Scottsdale Arts District, which runs along Main Street from Scottsdale Road to Goldwater Boulevard and north of Indian School Road on Marshall Way to 5th Avenue.
A few of the July 9 stops worth targeting:
- Anticus Fine Art, 3922 N. Scottsdale Rd. Anticus presents Common Threads: Where Distinction Becomes Connection during the ArtWalk.
- Wilde Meyer Gallery, 4142 N. Marshall Way. "Canvas Chronicles: A Visual Journey" will be on display for the month of July with a reception during the ArtWalk, featuring a group show of talented artists, including Jeremy Serna, Manny Valenzuela, Michelle Andres and more.
- The Signature Gallery. Presents the Sonoran Oasis group show, with an exceptional collection of works on display by select artists, including renowned painter Charles Pabst, ethereal impressionist painter Manuel Avendano, acclaimed bronze sculptor Raymond Gibby, contemporary impasto painter Cara Moran, premier landscape painter Reid Richardson.
If July 9 doesn't work, the weekly ArtWalks still run through the summer, and restaurants, museums and free trolley and/or horse-drawn carriage rides are available during ArtWalk to transport visitors from numerous free parking areas throughout the Scottsdale Arts District and Scottsdale Downtown.
A Sample Thursday, Planned On Foot
Here is what a resident-friendly evening on July 9 could look like, using nothing but sidewalks:
- 6:00 p.m., park once. Leave the car in one of the free ArtWalk lots off Marshall Way. You will not touch it again until the night ends.
- 6:30 p.m., Marshall Way galleries. Start at Wilde Meyer, work south to Anticus. The Gold Palette hours are longer than a standard Thursday, and the galleries are air conditioned, which matters in July.
- 7:45 p.m., dinner in the rectangle. Depending on whether Above All Else on Stetson has opened its doors that week or you'd rather book Wolf by Vanderpump's rooftop at Caesars Republic, both are inside a five-minute walk of the gallery corridor.
- 9:15 p.m., a nightcap somewhere higher up. DEPWAH's rooftop or Cielito atop the AC Hotel gives you the second-story view that makes an Old Town summer night feel different from an Old Town winter one.
- 10:30 p.m., walk back to the car. The whole route sits inside a loop small enough that no one in your group is calling a rideshare for the last quarter mile.
A practical footnote for the first weekend of any big debut: Skip Drake's on the first two weekends. A valet-only entrance on Scottsdale Road at First Street during a national-brand debut is the definition of a room to visit on a Wednesday in month two.
Beyond The Rectangle
Not every summer evening has to happen inside the walkable core. A few reasons to point the car north or east on the nights you want something quieter:
- La Miel de Agave, Hilton Village. Scottsdale's Hilton Village is now home to a third outlet of this modern Mexican restaurant that features aguachile, green chile enchiladas, quesabirria tacos, elote and more, at 6107 N. Scottsdale Rd.
- Frank & Lupe's, The Shops Gainey Village. After closing in 2025, popular Scottsdale New Mexican restaurant Frank & Lupe's has resurfaced in The Shops Gainey Village, with the new owner continuing to use the Bernal family's recipes, at 8787 N. Scottsdale Rd.
- Sip & Shop Summer Market at Hotel Valley Ho. Friday kicks off with an exclusive 3-course dinner featuring top Old Town Scottsdale chefs, complete with demos and wine pairings, and Saturday brings live music as you sip, sample, and shop your way through the market, June 19 and 20.
- Din Tai Fung, Scottsdale Fashion Square. Known globally for its soup dumplings, opening April 20, at 7014 E Camelback Rd Suite 608. Technically inside the walkable perimeter, but the wait times so far argue for treating it as a destination dinner rather than a spontaneous stop.
What This Changes For A Summer Night
The takeaway for anyone already living here is not that Old Town has new restaurants. It is that the new ones are close enough to each other that the neighborhood, for the first time in a while, rewards residents who plan an evening on foot over residents who plan one in a car.
That is a real change in how the neighborhood behaves at dusk. The rooftops give you a view. The Thursday galleries give you a reason to be out before dinner. And the perimeter is small enough that you can pair the two without a driving plan, a valet line, or a second parking spot.
If you've been in Old Town for a decade and stopped following the openings, this is the summer to look again.
At The Mitchell Group, we spend as much time walking these neighborhoods as we do writing about them. If a Thursday evening in Old Town has you thinking about what a Scottsdale address might look like for your own family, or you just want a warm, human take on what your current home is worth in this market, we'd love to hear from you.
