"Downtown Tempe is a very hot place to be and a lot of restaurateurs and bar owners are looking here for their next big location," Tempe Mayor Corey Woods told Phoenix New Times. "2026 is going to be very exciting for Mill Avenue and downtown Tempe." Woods's remarks set the stage. What makes this year notable is who is showing up to build.
In recent years, that same three-block stretch of Mill Avenue lost its two most trusted sit-down restaurants. Rula Bula and House of Tricks, the two spots downtown regulars pointed newcomers toward, both departed, leaving Caffe Boa as one of the few European-style restaurants still serving downtown. A few blocks south, Devil's Advocate, the sports bar at Rural and University that had anchored a mostly college crowd for 15 years, closed in December to make way for a high-rise apartment complex. Mellow Mushroom also left its Mill Avenue location. For a stretch, downtown Tempe had many places to drink and fewer sit-down dining options.
That gap is why this August matters. It is not just that new restaurants are opening on Mill Avenue. It is who is opening them.
Mill Avenue's August openings and other plans
The openings and plans currently on the calendar:
- Roman God of Fire, the wood-fired Italian concept from celebrity chef Scott Conant and Pretty Decent Concepts, was scheduled to open Aug. 7 at the corner of Mill Avenue and Rio Salado Parkway inside Hayden Ferry Lakeside.
- RePUBLic Tempe, a sports bar and cue club concept from C.A.S.A. bar creator Scott Price, is taking over the former Mill Cue Club and Zuma Grill spaces just south of Sixth Street on Mill Avenue, with an August 2026 target.
- Price is also expanding C.A.S.A. itself, adding dine-in and walk-up service to the existing bar around the corner, on the same August 2026 timeline.
- Culinary Gangster, the Chicago-born burger brand, is building out a spot on the southeast corner of Mill Avenue and Fifth Street, directly below Varsity Tavern. Owner Ricky Raschillo had hoped for a March opening, but said the team would wait out the summer for an August debut if renovations ran long.
- Phantom Fox Beer Co., fresh off its two-year anniversary in Mesa, is moving into the former Illegal Pete's space on Mill Avenue with an attached pizzeria called Goat and Ram.
Behind those five, more had already been dated for earlier in 2026 or remains planned for later this year: Novel Ice Cream was slated to move into the relocated Harry Walker House next to Tempe City Hall, the same building that once housed House of Tricks, with a projected opening this past spring. Glai Baan's owners have announced plans for a second concept inside the historic Moeur House on Seventh Street, though a firm date has not been set. Julian Wright's Carmen is planned for the former Anoche Cantina space at Centerpoint on Mill.
Second bets, not first tries
A notable pattern among these openings is that almost none of these are first-time operators testing whether Mill Avenue can support a restaurant. They are proven operators making a second or third bet on the same street.
Pretty Decent Concepts, the group behind Roman God of Fire, is not a startup. As of fall 2025 the group already operated seven restaurants and bars across Phoenix and Tempe, and had set a goal of reaching twelve distinct venues by the middle of this year. Roman God of Fire is not their entry into the market. It adds another location to a group already operating in Phoenix and Tempe.
Julian Wright is even more direct about it. He has been on Mill Avenue for three decades and already owns Pedal Haus Brewery and the dual-bar Devil's Hideaway and Idle Hands nearby. Carmen is not his first swing at this street. It is, by his own count, his "ninth or 10th concept on Mill Avenue."
"I personally like really walkable districts, where you have synergy with other bars, restaurants and other events," Wright said in Tempe News. "I think Tempe is one of the best places to live in Arizona, even though I don't think it always gets the credit for that."
Scott Price's RePUBLic is not a new bar owner arriving downtown either. He already runs C.A.S.A. around the corner, and the expansion is happening at the same time as the new concept, which reads less like diversification and more like doubling down on a block he already operates on. Culinary Gangster's Tempe move follows the same shape: the brand already has a Scottsdale location and a downtown Phoenix outpost before betting on Mill Avenue specifically.
Repeated investment is one perspective on the market. Operators with existing restaurants nearby bring experience to their new Mill Avenue locations. Those operator histories offer one useful perspective as the plans develop.
What it means if you already live here
None of this requires a car or a special trip. Retail followed the same pattern earlier in the year: Lizard Head Trading Co. opened its doors on Mill Avenue in March, on the same weekend as the Spring Tempe Festival of the Arts, and Downtown Tempe's own business tracker lists Green Corner, Retail Therapy, and Window Coffee Bar all opening within the same four-month stretch between November 2025 and March 2026. The restaurant wave is arriving on top of a retail wave that was already building.
If you are planning an August night out, a few practical notes worth knowing before you go:
- Roman God of Fire was scheduled to open Aug. 7 at the Mill and Rio Salado Parkway location, at the north end of the strip and closer to Hayden Ferry Lakeside than the college bar cluster.
- RePUBLic and the expanded C.A.S.A. both sit within the same block just south of Sixth Street, so expect that stretch to get considerably louder and busier once both open.
- Culinary Gangster's exact date depends on how renovations under Varsity Tavern wrap up. If you want to know before you drive down, checking ahead is worth it since the owner himself has said the timeline could slip into late summer.
- For anyone driving in rather than walking from campus or a nearby building, the city's Tempe TRiP tool shows real-time parking availability, which is worth a look before circling Mill Avenue during a Friday night crunch.
The corner to watch after August
One way to read these changes is that several Mill Avenue openings are coming from operators with experience elsewhere in the Valley. That is a different kind of bet, and it is one worth watching past the ribbon cuttings. If Roman God of Fire opened as scheduled on Aug. 7 and the remaining plans move ahead, the five listed projects could add five sit-down and bar offerings to Mill Avenue, though Phantom Fox Beer Co. has no firm opening date; that would build on a retail wave that already landed earlier this year. How these openings shape Mill Avenue's restaurant mix is a question worth revisiting once the fall semester brings ASU's full population back downtown.
For now, the block looks different than it did a year ago, and the people paying to make it look that way have already tested this street once and came back for more.
If you are watching downtown Tempe for reasons beyond dinner plans, whether you are weighing a move here or wondering what these changes mean for property values on or near Mill Avenue, Mark Palacio has been working East Valley real estate long enough to have watched more than one restaurant cycle come and go. Let's Connect if you want a local read on what a stretch like this means for the neighborhood around it.
