After nearly 15 years of calling St. Philipβs Plaza home for his twin Italian restaurants, Daniel Scordato is moving, taking his pizzeria a mile down the road to East River Road and North Stone Avenue.
Scordato will open Scordatoβs Pizzeria in the former home of Mr. Kβs Barbecue sometime between December and March, when his lease at St. Philipβs expires. The move comes a year after he relocated his Italian restaurant Vivace from St. Philipβs to the foothills.
Scordato said the move will give him more kitchen space to expand his Italiancentric menu of pizzas and pastas.
βI need a bigger kitchen,β he explained. βWhen we opened here, part of it was because I was staying at Vivace and we could use the kitchen there. Now that weβve moved, we need to have a bigger kitchen.β
βI do like St. Philipβs Plaza,β he said, calling the move a business decision. βThe cost involved (in expanding the kitchen) and the time frame of having to close down, it just wouldnβt be practical. Itβs very hard to take an area and redo it completely. If it was just a matter of doing a few things, but it just was not practical β¦ and cost-effective,β he added.
Scordato opened the pizzeria under the name Pizzeria Vivace in 2009 as a sister restaurant to Vivace, which had been in St. Philipβs Plaza since 2001. In March 2014, he moved Vivace to the former Anthonyβs in the Catalinas at 6440 N. Campbell Ave.
Mr. Kβs, opened at 4911 N. Stone Ave. by Tucson barbecue pioneer Charles Kendrick in 2011, closed two years later, a casualty of a corner that has not been kind to restaurants in recent years.
Mr. Kβs was once an outpost of the national Chiliβs Bar and Grill chain. Other restaurants, mostly national chains, that have come and gone in the Stone Avenue retail corridor, between East River and East Wetmore roads, include Ruby Tuesday, Black-eyed Pea and On the Border Mexican Grill & Cantina.
On the Border, across River Road from Mr. Kβs, was leveled several years ago to make way for a Quick Trip convenience store. The Black-eye Pea building in the same plaza as Mr. Kβs still stands, vacant years after it was home briefly to several ventures, including a brewery restaurant.
Scordato dismisses any suggestion that the area is not conducive to restaurants.
βWeβre moving our restaurant just down the road. The others changed entire new concepts and did something from scratch. We already have a following,β he said. βIf I was opening from scratch, I may be a little more worried.β
Scordato said his new landlord is allowing him to make cosmetic changes to the interior of the nearly 6,000-square-foot building over the next several months.
He will not start paying rent until he opens the restaurant, he said.
Scordato said his new partner in the pizzeria is David Babiarz, who has a long history with the Scordato family and its restaurant operations.
