Eleven years after he opened his first AAA Four-Diamond gourmet restaurant, chef Albert Hall has decided to call it quits.
His renowned Foothills restaurant Acacia Real Food & Cocktails will hold a reservation-only grand finale May 15. Hall notified staff members of the closure last week at the restaurant’s current location, an airy hillside spot on Skyline’s Gallery Row.
“To limp along is just not our style,” Hall said. “It’s just not how we do it. We would rather go out on a good note.”
Hall said that while the gem shows helped give the restaurant some of the best weekends they’d had, business in general suffered from low profit margins that come with purchasing high-quality ingredients. While the restaurant’s 2011 rebranding and move to 3001 E. Skyline Drive from St. Philip’s Plaza was ultimately a good thing, it still wasn’t enough “to pay the bills.”
“Someone is going to pick this place up and do a concept change, and it’s gonna be great,” he said. “I just don’t have a hundred thousand dollars to do a redo of the restaurant.”
Once considered one of Southern Arizona’s premier gourmet restaurants, Acacia became an instant hit in 2004 with its playful fusion of European technique and Southwestern dining. The original location at St. Philip’s Plaza earned a host of honors including the coveted AAA Four Diamond award.
Shortly after opening the St. Philip’s restaurant with his wife, Lila Yamashiro, Hall was named chef of the year for Southern Arizona by the American Culinary Federation of Chefs Association. The lifetime cook had his hand in several projects over the years including the Tohono Chul Tea Room and a casual sandwich shop, the Marketplace at Acacia.
Citing a struggling economy, in 2011 Hall moved his elegant white tablecloth restaurant up the road to the smaller space on Skyline, opening for business the very next day. The new Acacia sought to provide a more casual experience with an emphasis on nightlife, but without losing that sense of farm to table lifestyle.
“We were doing the local thing before it was fashionable ... the organic thing before it was fashionable,” he said Wednesday. “I’ve been doing this way too long to do something less than what I really believe in.”
Hall said that he has plans for a new “modern” concept, but isn’t ready to discuss it yet.
“I don’t think I’m gonna just disappear. (The Acacia family) has too much good stuff about us to do that.”
[Update: Hall recently announced on his Facebook page that he's moving to Bend, Oregon to head up the kitchen at the boutique Oxford Hotel.]
