Sonoma Restaurant has finally closed.

Sushi Revolution has vanished and even the pending application for liquor license signs are gone.

Vitamin T is still stupid. People would go there after the game if it were open and they handed out flyers with maybe a coupon.

Did anyone actually ever go to Sonoma?

I never went there, and I think I know why now--a bunch of Yelp ratings on the awfulness of the place and a menu that screams a half-assed approach at everything else downtown. Plus going from hip hop club to dinner theatre seems a bit of a clusterfuck.

http://twitter.com/Sonomaaz seems a good lesson in not engaging 1,000 potential customers all the time. They abruptly stopped tweeting 8 months ago.

Local Breeze has been "slow" and reduced their hours since the Pita Jungle opened up. I'm waiting for their rollout of their new dinner menu.

I had totally forgot about Sushi Revolution. Methinks a young owner-to-be was in over his head.

I went to Sonoma a few times after it opened. It was never awful, but there was nothing to bring me back. If their final months, they extended the hours to include weekends, which was a good step, but with an uninteresting menu and schizophrenic ambiance, it wasn't enough. I've been told that the Bistro 202 place in the San Carlos hotel is run by the same people, although I haven't verified it.

I hope some competition in the northwest part of Downtown will make Local Breeze a stronger place. A new dinner menu would definitely help. Sometimes, I want something different than lavosh, a sandwich, or a salad in the evening. The main challenge for any restaurant at the Cavness House, though, is the small kitchen. It's hard for the cooks to keep up with the orders when the patio is full. We don't go there a lot because last time we visited, our brunch took an hour to arrive after we ordered. For adults lingering over coffee and the Sunday paper, I suppose that's fine, but for our kids, it was an endurance test.

I'm still hoping for Sushi Revolution to pull through. The new Pita Jungle had a lot of false starts before it finally opened.

But one thing that kept hope alive for pita jungle is the signs saying coming soon were never replaced by "for" lease.

At one time, it looked like they were. There was a big "for lease" sign on the doors facing the corner of 3rd Ave & Roosevelt just a few months ago. When I tweeted about it, I got a few replies from people saying it was for a different space within the Gold Spot building, even though it was on the door of the future Pita Jungle. Maybe I'm naively hoping that's what's going on with Sushi Revolution, but if the liquor license application was withdrawn, that's not a good sign.

One of those reviews on Yelp for Sonoma was mine, I'm sure. We went when they first opened and it was terrible. The roasted chicken was dry and the whole concept was terrible. You had to order at a counter and they brought the food out to you. Then they revamped and started doing the dinner theater thing which was more of a turn off. Then they partnered up with Breakfast Joynt (Northsight & 101) to do breakfast. Of course, as great as Breakfast Joynt's food is, Sonoma managed to fuck it up. First by underplaying the collaboration and then by doing everything on the cheap. Very frustrating. Glad it is gone.

I don't understand how the ostensibly well-attended dinner theatre at $40/head could have ever jived at a "fast casual" place.

Sonoma seems like it would've worked in North Chandler or Paradise Valley (Phoenix, not the town) or some similar average neighborhood free of competition from real food.

Unrelated but don i saw you on monroe and 2nd in your warp 7 car.

In the convertible with the top down, jamming to something festive like Metallica or Dio? :)

--don

I've read two separate rumors online that the Phoenix School of Law is moving to downtown from midtown. One rumor said it's moving to the former Phelps Dodge building, the other said it's moving to the Grace Court building on 7th Ave.

Has anyone else heard of this and know more info on it? The Phelps Dodge building would obviously be better for downtown so I'm hoping that's the one.

Some other news (rumors) from this article...

http://arizonadirtlawyer.blogspot.co...-overview.html

ASU's College of Law will join downtown in 2011 (this has to be way off, it would have been long under construction by now if it was the case)

1,130,000 sq ft of research and patient care facilities will begin development plans in 2011 on the BioMed campus.

CityScape has obtained financing for the Palomar hotel and it will open in late 2011 (not seeing this one either, it would be have to be rising already for this to happen and they don't building permits yet).

A 315 room hotel will be built at Luhr's sometime in 2013.

The City has recently acquired four parcels of land from a foreclosure sale with a combined area of 49,000 sq ft withint he Downtown Redevelopment Area. The area is located at a "key future light rail transit station. (Um...where will there be a key station in the future that is part of the Downtown Redevelopment Area?)

and Trump is planning a mile high builing in DT phoenix.

Im not sure exactly what the borders of the Downtown Redevelopment area are but Id imagine its something to do with the upcoming West leg for the LRT. Thats the next immediate phase after all. There are dirt lots South of Jefferson between 5th and 7th Ave's, so my guess is it would be in there somewhere.

Hmmm... where'd they put the 315 room hotel at Luhrs? Inbetween the two main buildings or behind where the parking garage is?

Dio or (hopefully old) Metallica???? Don, you are a man of many colors...nice. "Justice" is particularly good for open top driving, no? :tup:

The Luhrs plan was, hopefully in time is, to put a tower between the two existing buildings for a hotel. Would be cool to see a new silver tower between two old historic buildings!!!!!

I prefer to bump gansta rap with the top down.

Bad news... PastaBar has finally closed its doors.

http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bel...s_pastabar.php

It seems like for every cool new place opening downtown (FilmBar, Rum Bar) we have another closing (Verde and now PastaBar). Although I never been to PastaBar, it sounded like their service, location and pricing hurt them. Hopefully there is someone cool willing to fill in that nice corner.

I was really hoping to see this area (Central to 3rd St.) grow into a powerful entrainment center to match East Roosevelt area.

that's surprising PastaBar closed... well not surprising, but it was so good it's a shame. The part of the building it was in was terrible... if they had a more prominent location, I bet they woudl have survived.

Wow that does suck...but I can see why, I'm an example of it.

I've been there twice and loved it...and alway said "We have to go back to the place"...but never did. If I had to pinpoint it, I would say it was the location. It was just weird how it was stuck in the back of that building, just felt really isolated and uninviting. I agree, if it was in a better location, I think it would have survived. It's a shame.