On Downtown Mesa's Main Street, the Kitchens Stay When the Owners Leave

Outcast Doughnuts closed its shop next to Level 1 Arcade Bar on July 19, after three years of layered doughnuts and Dopecones on the corner of Main and Macdonald. About ten weeks later, Randy Gatewood signed a lease on the same space. He is the former Arizona Rattlers player who built Randizzle's from one burger-and-taco truck in 2019. Mouth by Southwest reported that the move "came together unexpectedly," and that the storefront was already almost fully equipped, so Randizzle's could skip much of the usual build-out.

The operators who left did not take their kitchens, bar tops and espresso stations with them. That equipment is what drew the next round of operators, and it is why the street spent 2026 swapping one tenant for another more often than going dark.

One building at Main and Macdonald, two departures and a replacement

The northwest corner of Main and Macdonald lost two tenants in the same July week. Rebel Wine Lounge closed at 104 W. Main St., Suite 107, after more than two years. Outcast Doughnuts closed its space in the same building. Both belonged to Incomparably Dope Venture Partners, which also owns Level 1 Arcade Bar and Alchemy 48, the speakeasy in the arcade's basement.

Co-owner Christina Goldsmith described the decision plainly to Phoenix New Times. Business had been inconsistent, the crowds they expected from new downtown apartments had not shown up, and it no longer made financial sense to wait. "We didn't expect to see anything happen overnight," she told the paper. "But we're two years into this particular location now, Outcast is three years in, and we have seen zero progress."

The group did not leave Main Street altogether. Level 1 Arcade Bar at 48 W. Main St. and Alchemy 48 are still open in Mesa. The group's 2027 plans for The Gilmore, near Val Vista Drive and Germann Road in Gilbert, include a reopened Rebel plus new locations of Outcast, Level 1 and the hidden cocktail bar. Phantom Fox Beer Co., another downtown Mesa neighbor, is also adding a second location there. Outcast also has a drive-thru location coming at Hayden and Thomas in Scottsdale and another planned near Eastmark in southeast Mesa.

Randizzle's Burger Bar is going into 104 W. Main St., Suites 103 to 105, the former Outcast space. The target was October, pending inspections. As of mid-October no opening day had been announced, so check Randizzle's own channels before walking over. Gatewood is also building a Phoenix restaurant at Seventh Avenue and McDowell, which is aiming for late November or early December. KTAR quoted the company's post explaining why Mesa came first: the space was "already almost completely equipped and could get us open much faster."

The same handoff, a few doors in either direction

The corner was not an isolated case. Two more West Main Street addresses passed straight from one operator to the next, and a stalled project at the east end of the street finally opened with three food businesses on its ground floor.

Stage 12 West is a music venue first. 12 West Brewing closed in June for what it called a "summer break," with a promise that a new concept would take over the building in the fall. The new venue opened Oct. 2. It comes from Jim Sampley of The Stillery and Duke's Roadhouse and Jolie Boucher of Jolie's Place, who opened Bourbon Jim's in west Chandler earlier this year. Mouth by Southwest reports that the venue promotes its professional-grade acoustics, high-fidelity sound and laser displays, and opened with a nine-item menu. Its speakeasy, Jolie's Secret, followed on Oct. 9.

Sidewalk Coffee + Bagel Co. is taking over 21 W. Main St. from The Salted Knot. According to KTAR, Salted Knot owners Maria Vassett and Chad Day found the buyer themselves and set their last day for Oct. 18. This will be Sidewalk's second location after Queen Creek. Owner Azadeh Purvis said permitting and hiring still have to be finished before an opening date can be set, and the Sidewalk website lists the Mesa address as coming soon.

Both new tenants already run businesses elsewhere in the Valley, Sampley and Boucher in Chandler and Purvis in Queen Creek, and both took over a space someone else had built out.

The east end got a hotel where apartments were planned

The fourth address in the table was a different kind of handoff, and a much slower one. Crust Simply Italian and its hidden bar were first announced for downtown Mesa in 2023. The project stalled after the original developer, The Grid at Mesa LLC, filed for Chapter 11 in March 2024. Soltrust and Hospitality Capital Partners took over the stalled apartment project and redesigned it as a hotel. The 233, a 76-room Unscripted by Hyatt at 233 E. Main St., opened on Aug. 6, 2026, according to the City of Mesa.

Michael Merendino's Crust Concepts holds the ground floor with three businesses. Crust Simply Italian, the group's fifth Valley restaurant, has a 7,300-square-foot dining room with floor-to-ceiling windows facing a patio on Main Street. Bombolino, a coffee bar and gelateria, was added after the hotel asked for coffee. Its pastries come from Mesa's Buttered Up Bakery and its gelato from Glendale's Villa Dolce, and its signature order is the Bomba, a doughnut stuffed with gelato. Behind Bombolino is The Nightingale, a bird-themed speakeasy with its own private patio.

Merendino told Phoenix New Times that the location's draw is the shared building with the Hyatt and its closeness to Benedictine University and Arizona State University. "There's such an energy in the community down here," he said, "which is unlike anything in the Valley."

The two sets of owners describe the same street differently. One group waited for apartment residents who did not arrive in the numbers it needed. The other built its business around guaranteed traffic from a hotel and the morning crowd from two universities. Both accounts appeared in the same paper, less than three weeks apart.

The city is building the next set of kitchens

The City of Mesa is now applying the same logic on a larger scale. Main Street Market, a $6 million restaurant incubator, is under construction at 111 W. Main St. in a former A.J.'s grocery. It is paid for with the city's remaining COVID relief funds and run with Local First Arizona. When it opens in early 2027, seven first-time restaurant owners will each get a two-year lease in a shared food hall. The Downtown Mesa listing describes a shared commercial kitchen and commissary, space for business training and a public dining room where participants sell their food. The Mesa Tribune reports that the participants will be graduates of Local First's community kitchen who are already well along in building their businesses.

ABC15 reported that downtown already has about 50 restaurants. Against that number, seven new bays would add up to roughly one-seventh more downtown food businesses under one roof, each starting in a kitchen the city has already built. Randizzle's had the same advantage when it took over the Outcast space.

Where Main Street is through the end of the year

For anyone downtown between now and New Year's, these are the scheduled dates on and around Main Street:

1. Saturday, Oct. 24, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Haunting on Main brings trick-or-treating, games, crafts and cotton candy to downtown.
2. Oct. 24, noon to 10 p.m., and Oct. 25, noon to 5 p.m. The free Día de los Muertos Festival at Mesa Arts Center.
3. Friday, Nov. 13, 5 to 9 p.m. The Sunset Market, downtown's Second Friday event, with music, vendors and food at Macdonald and Main. That is the same intersection where Level 1 still operates and Randizzle's is moving in.
4. Friday, Nov. 27, 5 to 10 p.m. The free Merry Main Street kickoff and Christmas tree lighting, starting with a holiday market.
5. Nov. 27 to Dec. 30, nightly 5 to 10 p.m. The Mesa Temple Christmas lights at 101 S. LeSueur, free admission.
6. Nov. 28 and 29. Mannheim Steamroller Christmas by Chip Davis at Mesa Arts Center.
7. Friday, Dec. 11, 5 to 9 p.m. The last Sunset Market of 2026.
8. Dec. 16, 18, 19 and 21. Mesa Arts Center's holiday run: Dave Koz & Friends, GENTRI Christmas, Cirque Musica Holiday Wonderland, and Mickey Guyton & Friends Holiday.

The Merry Main Street ice rink has not posted its 2026 schedule. The hours on its page are from last season.

At BVO Luxury, we follow which Main Street storefronts change hands and who takes them over, because those changes affect the blocks around them. If you'd like to talk through what this round of new tenants means for your part of Mesa, contact us.