Every Saturday the Uptown Farmers Market sets up north of Uptown Plaza, the shopping center at Central Avenue and Camelback Road. Inside the plaza, one storefront already belongs to a former market vendor, and a second is weeks from joining it. Along the same stretch of Camelback, a coffee business that spent years in a trailer and a burger counter that began in a shipping container have also signed for permanent space.
Most of the food businesses on their way to this corner in fall 2026 first built a following without rent, walls, or a fixed address. The market is the most direct route into the plaza, and the first permanent locations still work the way the temporary versions did.
Let's Toast Made the Move First
Let's Toast opened its first brick-and-mortar shop at Uptown Plaza on May 16, 2026. Phoenix New Times reported in May that it was serving customers six days a week. Husband and wife Sumin Kim and Sean Atkinson founded it, and the menu is built around Korean BBQ breakfast sandwiches. Uptown Plaza's directory calls the Bulgogi Cheesesteak the fan favorite.
Atkinson told New Times that the pop-up years had lasted "almost three years" before the shop opened, and that the Uptown Farmers Market was the business's most consistent location over that time. New Times put the market about a mile from the new shop and reported that Atkinson hopes market customers will find them in the neighborhood. On a Saturday morning that month, the same outlet found a line winding around Uptown Plaza, with Kim, the co-owner and head chef, building bulgogi ribeye sandwiches behind the counter while Atkinson took orders.
The hours still lean toward the weekend. The shop's official site lists the following:
- Address: 100 E. Camelback Road, Suite 164
- Tuesday through Friday: 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- Saturday: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
- Sunday: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- Monday: Closed
Saturday is still the longest day. ABC15's May report listed weekend hours running to 6 p.m. on both days, so it's worth checking the Sunday closing time before a late visit.
DiMaggio's Took the Long Way Back
DiMaggio's also started at the market, but it reached the plaza by a longer route. Phoenix New Times traced it back to 2021, when Brandon and Michele Gioffre started A Taste of Italy as an Uptown Farmers Market vendor. They sold hand-pulled mozzarella, cannoli, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil. A year later they took over the former home of The Blind Pig in Scottsdale and expanded into New York-style Italian cooking. Developer Frank DiMaggio became a partner in 2024, and the restaurant changed its name.
The Uptown restaurant will be its second location. The first is at The Grove in McCormick Ranch, at 7300 N. Via Paseo del Sur. The new space is Suite 152, the former Lou Malnati's, where the Chicago-style pizzeria served for nearly nine years. Uptown Plaza's directory describes DiMaggio's as an elevated New York-style Italian-American restaurant with a private dining room, set in the plaza's courtyard. New Times named hand-pulled mozzarella, veal parmesan, chicken parmesan, and spicy rigatoni among the dishes.
In mid-September, What Now Phoenix reported that co-owner and executive chef Brandon Gioffre had confirmed a late-October target. As of October 24, the restaurant's website still listed the Uptown address as "Coming Soon," and so did the plaza's directory. Until an opening day is announced, late October is a target, not a reservation date.
A Trailer and a Shipping Container Are Lined Up Next
The next two graduates did not come from the Saturday market, but they followed the same path from a temporary setup to a permanent one.
Jared and Jackeline Olesen launched Gathered Grounds in 2019 as a mobile coffee trailer for events and pop-ups. When the pandemic canceled markets in 2020, they leased an empty parking lot in the West Valley and ran the trailer there every day. They began looking for a brick-and-mortar space in 2021. Jared Olesen told What Now Phoenix why a central location mattered:
"For years, we've always had people travel all over to visit us in our trailer out in the West Valley. So to have something more central, I'm very excited about that."
The café will open at 4 W. Camelback Road, in the former Dutch Bros stand at Central and Camelback. The owners hope to hold a two-week soft opening in January 2027 before they announce a grand opening date.
Stoop Kid's owner, Steve McMillen, opened it in 2020 at The Churchill, 901 N. First Street in downtown Phoenix. It served bagel sandwiches and coffee in the morning and burgers later in the day. Its next kitchen will be inside The Joy Lush Club, the taproom Kate and Mike Fasel run at 24 W. Camelback Road. In September, Phoenix New Times reported that the bar's existing kitchen was getting a hood and fryer so it could cook Stoop Kid's lacy griddled burgers, fries, and desserts. The reopening was projected for late September. On October 20, What Now still called the Joy Lush kitchen "planned," in a story about Stoop Kid's third location at Jefferson House in downtown Peoria. The Uptown counter is still in progress.
The Storefronts Keep the Habits of the Stall
These businesses were built to serve a line of people quickly, from a small footprint, often outdoors. Their permanent spaces are set up the same way.
Gathered Grounds will work out of a building of about 420 square feet with no indoor seating. A 1,000-square-foot covered patio, with misters for summer and heaters for winter, will be the seating area. The property owner is adding 20 parking spaces, and Gathered Grounds will hold some of them for mobile orders and run a separate pickup window for app customers. Olesen said the menu will narrow to "limited options, but higher quality." The plan keeps the trailer's strengths of speed, a short menu, and outdoor seating, and adds shade and parking.
Stoop Kid is moving into a bar that already had a kitchen, which let it move in quickly. When Joy Lush Club reopens with the burger counter, it will add lunch hours, and customers will order food and drinks together. "We didn't want to overcomplicate it by having two separate order situations," McMillen told New Times. Fasel has applied for a liquor license that would add cocktails to the beer and wine list, and New Times reported that longer late-night hours will follow once the bar's offerings expand. A shared counter inside someone else's business is still a pop-up arrangement, made permanent.
DiMaggio's shows the other end of the path. It started as a market stand selling mozzarella and pantry goods. Five years later it is opening in the plaza's courtyard with a private dining room. It is the one graduate here that has grown into a full-service restaurant, and it spent four years in Scottsdale before coming back.
Who Else Is Arriving, and Where Things Stand
Not every new name at this corner came up through a stall. The Sleepy Whale Taproom opened its second location at Uptown Plaza on July 31, 2026. The bottle shop and bar has been a fixture in Downtown Chandler since summer 2019. Co-owner Tony Fatica summed up the move to Phoenix New Times with "It fits us." The Uptown location's page lists these hours: Monday 3 to 9 p.m., Tuesday and Wednesday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Thursday through Saturday 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., and Sunday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
A few blocks south, Joyride served its last meal at 5202 N. Central Ave. on August 2. Its replacement, Lado A Lado, is a partnership between Upward Projects and Chiwas Hospitality, the group behind Tacos Chiwas and Espiritu. Chefs Armando Hernandez, Nadia Holguin, and Roberto Centeno plan wood-fired cooking inspired by Sonora, inside the mid-century building with its tree-shaded patio. ABC15 reported in July that it would open this fall. The restaurant's own site now reads "Coming This Winter" and describes live-fire Northern Mexican dining paired with a coastal raw bar.
| Business | Address | Started as | Status as of October 24, 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Let's Toast | 100 E. Camelback Rd., Suite 164 | Uptown Farmers Market vendor | Open since May 16, 2026 |
| The Sleepy Whale Taproom | 100 E. Camelback Rd., #160 | Downtown Chandler bottle shop and bar | Open since July 31, 2026 |
| DiMaggio's | 100 E. Camelback Rd., #152 | Uptown Farmers Market vendor, 2021 | "Coming Soon," late-October target |
| Stoop Kid at The Joy Lush Club | 24 W. Camelback Rd. | Counter at The Churchill, 2020 | Kitchen still described as planned |
| Lado A Lado | 5202 N. Central Ave. | Joint project of two established restaurant groups | "Coming This Winter" |
| Gathered Grounds | 4 W. Camelback Rd. | Mobile coffee trailer, 2019 | Soft opening targeted for January 2027 |
Four of the six businesses in the table started in temporary formats, and two of those four came straight from the Uptown Farmers Market. Both market graduates took years to get to the plaza. Let's Toast spent almost three years doing pop-ups first, and DiMaggio's went through five years and a Scottsdale restaurant. The vendors at this Saturday's market are a reasonable preview of who could take the next vacant space.
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