Part of Bianco's plan is taking over the adjacent storefront currently occupied by Lux Coffee Bar. The owners of Lux recently announced that they are moving to vacant quarters a few doors south, tripling in size and turning the coffee house into a "beverage-driven pub."
If the deal can be worked out, Bianco will use the expanded space to increase Pane Bianco's seating and open a retail bakery and cheese outlet. He's aiming to control all aspects of the bread-making, including milling his own flour. He's also begun seeking out artisanal cheese makers.


Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/thingstodo/...#ixzz1EKe4O9kK

I am far more excited for the spring roll bar/Vietnamese restaurant than pane bianco and another hipster bar.

Which Vietnamese place (and where) are you speaking of?

And, I heard another Thai place is going into the Orpheum Lofts Building downtown. This will be in addition to the Viet Kitchen in the same building and Thai elephant across the street on Adams.

Rice Paper almost next door to Coronado Cafe. They will have a bar, 16 different spring rolls, and bun, pho, com tam, etc. 50% of my diet is Vietnamese and I'm really excited to have a place near home... I don't count Viet Kitchen since it isn't very good and is really overpriced.

Rice Paper bringing new concept to central Phoenix
by Howard Seftel - Jan. 28, 2011 02:24 PM
Republic restaurant critic

Two San Diego sisters, Lan and Hue Tran, have identified a nifty, and heretofore unoccupied niche in the Valley restaurant market. And this May, in midtown Phoenix, they're going to fill it.
They're calling the place Rice Paper. It's an appropriate name: the specialty will be 17 different kinds of Vietnamese spring rolls, some wrapped in rice paper, and others deep-fried. Everything, they say, will be made from scratch, and made to order. Right now, the Trans are looking to price them at $2.75 each.
"We want to do a restaurant where people can sit around and eat and talk" says big sister Lan, 34. "But we didn't want to do sushi." Diners will be able to drink, too - Rice Paper will have a full bar.

The sisters will also spotlight banh mi, Vietnamese sandwiches on baguettes that will be baked fresh, in-house. They'll also offer pho, Vietnam's meal-in-a-bowl soup.
The sisters are not newcomers to the restaurant business - they grew up working in their father's Chinese restaurant in downtown San Diego.
Rice Paper will be located at 222


Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/thingstodo/...#ixzz1EKrxBriY

/\ OMFG, YAY! That's down the street from me in my hood. A May opening can be risky (slow summer months soon after opening).


7th Street is awesome (the options, not the streetscape itself).


EDIT: I hope they include some vietnamese characters for the sign to the restaurant. Rice Paper is an ok name, but to me places that have an "american" title seem less appetizing. If they included something that shows the ethnic component of the place in the sign, it would look cool. Sounds stupid, but I think would make it more successful. Especially in a diverse neighborhood like Coronado. Hopefully the place is "authentic" enough (or just good enough) that vietnamese/asians will go there too. That's the sign an ethnic restaurant is really good, if there are people of the restuarant's ethnicity patronizing the place.

You two need to drop it. The fact that you were still arguing about nothing into the second page and you have lame avatars making fun of each other speak volumes about the waste of time that was.

This conversation will now focus on development news like the title of the thread entails. Anyone who disagrees or makes another word otherwise will not like the results.

Dropped....

More info - and a pdf masterplan map for Gateway Community College new buildings.

http://www.gatewaycc.edu/About/MasterPlan/

Vietnamese uses a letter alphabet, btw.

Don't they have both? Either way, they could name put "Rice Paper" in vietnamese on their sign too, their letters (they have more accent marks) look cool too.

Nope, Vietnam was a French colony. English alphabet with accent marks. Most people in that neighborhood probably can't say bánh tráng.

but it would sure look cool.

I think it would normal like a viet restaurant. I hope it isnt really americanized.

Good find, its nice to see they're planning to eventually reorient the campus to interact with the LRT station.

One thing I don't get though is why they don't have more on site athletic facilities. According to what I could find online their soccer team plays at Rose Mofford park in NE PHX and their baseball team plays at Gene Autry park in East Mesa, that just seems retarded. There's a ton of undeveloped and under developed land in that area, it seems like they ought to work on acquiring some of it for a athletic complex.

Pretty interesting read:

http://www.azcentral.com/community/p...gy-future.html

wait. can you name a single hipster bar in phoenix? Maybe Bikini Lounge, but after that, erm? Not quite grounds to groan and throw your hands up at the prospect of another hipster bar, as you claim it.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Lost leaf, bikini, side bar...

so a bar room of 30-somethings drinking classic cocktails and wearing engaging women's hats constitutes a hipster bar? I think you're a biiiit out of touch, which is not entirely your fault given PHXs striking lack of this certain subculture. William Fn Reed initiated a scene that no one else appears to have perpetuated. Its really remarkable.

The gays and the hipsters. Remember that. Its fucking serum for a neighborhood's nascency, vandercook.

Why is it so bad that im not excited for more hipster bars? Its my personal preference, i didnT make ant derogatory remarks.

ah, yes, but your brooding, sarcastic post is insinuating it, innit? We see right through you, sir.

As for personal preference, well, its not really time for the central corridor to become selective. Its like a mfing dry county down there. Bowling alleys and comedy clubs? fucking please, that is like a page directly ripped out of San Diego's Guide to a Banal Entertainment District. Is anything organic like Roosevelt Row anymore? -- which BTW appears to be on life support in its own right. No one's going downtown for that shit. Give me a music district chock with hipsters, and we may be able to breath some spirit into something.

I think i even read somebody suggest an amatuer comedy night. Are you srsly serious? Can we have a Def Poetry Slam open mic too?