Months after closing the original Whiskey Roads at 2265 W. Ina Road, the club's owners are reopening in a much larger space at Foothills Mall that had been home to World Grille By Sega. About $1.2 million has been poured into the empty mall space.

 Ana Beltran, Arizona Daily Star

Whiskey Roads, the northwest-side country-music-themed nightclub, sports bar and restaurant, is opening in the Foothills Mall on Feb. 11, more than four months after closing its original location across the street.

The opening in the cavernous, long-vacant World Grille location comes days before the Super Bowl and weeks before the start of the La Fiesta de los Vaqueros Tucson Rodeo and the Cologuard Classic golf tournament. Whiskey Roads is the official nightclub for both events, said entertainment and marketing director Duhamel Cassell.

The new location, at 7401 N. La Cholla Blvd., is nearly three times as big as the 5,600-square-foot Romano’s Macaroni Grill space at 2265 W. Ina Road that Whiskey Roads occupied for just over two years. It closed last October amid some neighborhood noise complaints to state liquor board authorities, who on Thursday, Feb. 3, sided with the club.

But the biggest driver for moving, owner Fernando Gomez said, was that the club had become too popular for the space.

“The first night we opened we outgrew it, which was pretty awesome,” he said.

The new Whiskey Roads, at 7401 N. La Cholla Blvd., is nearly three times as big as the 5,600-square-foot space it previously occupied for just over two years.

Gomez and his partners Greg Wexler and Josh Arvizu invested about $1.2 million renovating the 15,000-square-foot mall space that had stood empty since World Sports Grille by Sega abruptly closed in March 2013 as it was approaching its fifth year in Tucson.

The sports bar/video game concept had been a test run for the gaming behemoth Sega when it opened in spring 2008. The company at the time announced plans to open similar venues around the country, but the concept never quite took hold and no other locations ever materialized.

Gomez said he and his partners updated the fire sprinkler, AC and heating systems; added a new bar, 20-by-25-foot stage and a sprawling wooden dance floor; installed a state-of-the-art sound system; and installed 42 TV screens — most of them 86 inches — throughout the building. Four of those screens create a video wall in the stage area where World Grille had its gaming room.

Whiskey Roads will roll out a menu of salads, burgers and classic entrees from grilled chicken and salmon to ribs and meatloaf.

They also added a second patio, bringing the restaurant’s seating capacity to 890; it was 269 at the original location, Gomez said.

Everything from the ovens to the mixers also have been replaced in the kitchen, where Gomez, the chef/operating partner for Whiskey Roads and its sister Putney’s Pitstop Sports Bar and Grill on North Oracle Road, will roll out a menu of salads, burgers and classic entrees from grilled chicken and salmon to ribs and meatloaf.

Whiskey Roads fits into plans to reimagine Foothills Mall as a mixed-use project that could include additional restaurants, a hotel and residential developments from Tucson-based Bourn Cos. and FHM Partners LLC. The developers bought the 52-acre mall in 2016 as it was reeling after many of its retailers fled in 2015 to Tucson Premium Outlets off of Intestate 10 and Twin Peaks.

About $1.2 million was invested to renovate the 15,000-square-foot Whiskey Roads space.

Brig Stevens of Bourn said the developers could release details of the plans in the next couple of months.

Whiskey Roads joins Foothills Mall’s five other restaurants — Tamarind Indian restaurant, Pappoule’s Greek, Sushi Garden and the national chains Outback and Applebees — and AMC Foothills 15 & Imax movie theater. it will open at 2 p.m. Friday, Feb. 11, and will be open from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. Wednesdays through Fridays and from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays after that. It will be closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

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Contact reporter Cathalena E. Burch at cburch@tucson.com. On Twitter @Starburch