If you get your coffee at Little Snitch, you've probably clocked the building next door. The Preston's Steakhouse sign is long gone, but the space has sat quiet for the better part of a year, tucked into the same stretch of The Citadel at 8700 E. Pinnacle Peak Road. Construction crews have been in and out. Something is clearly happening. What's happening is that Alma, the modern Southwest restaurant that used to sit on Scottsdale Road in Old Town, is moving in, and it's bringing more with it than a new menu.
The Building Everyone's Been Watching
Preston's ran in that spot for more than a decade before it closed last year, citing the condition of the building and the repairs it needed. That left a hole at the corner of Pinnacle Peak and Pima Road, one of the more recognizable intersections in this part of Scottsdale, and it's stayed empty long enough that regulars at Little Snitch next door have had time to wonder what would eventually replace a decade-old steakhouse.
The answer, according to founder and CEO Sheila Bryson, is not a like-for-like swap. Alma is rebuilding the space as Alma Southwest Steakhouse, a wood-fired concept built around flavors from Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Northern Mexico. But the steakhouse is only one piece. The same building will also house Copper Club, a rooftop lounge with live music and desert views, and a dedicated tequila and mezcal bar offering tastings paired with chef-created tacos and small bites. Bryson is also bringing back Barbwire Western Couture, a western fashion boutique she previously operated, selling clothing, jewelry, boots, and hats inside the same structure.
The design lets a single visit move in different directions. Guests can be seated in the steakhouse, drift up to the rooftop lounge, or post up at the tequila bar, all while ordering off Alma's full menu no matter where they land. That's a different proposition than what Preston's offered. A decade-old steakhouse asked you to commit to one table for the length of a dinner. This corner is being rebuilt to hold you for longer, across more than one kind of evening.
The Date Keeps Moving
If you're the type to book a table the moment a restaurant reopens, hold off on locking in a specific night just yet. Bryson's team has been targeting an October 1 opening since the announcement went out over the summer, but she's also said publicly that construction could push it into early November depending on how the build finishes out. Reservations are open now, but neither date has been confirmed as final.
That gap matters if you're the one hosting out-of-town family for the holidays. Alma's rooftop Copper Club is a reasonable answer to the question of where to take visiting relatives for something that isn't a standard dinner reservation, but plan around a window rather than a single night until the date firms up.
The Same Family Already Runs Your Mornings Here
Here's the part that's easy to miss if you only think of this corner as one building. Little Snitch, the coffee and brunch spot that's already become a regular stop for people in this part of North Scottsdale, comes from the same restaurant family as the incoming Alma. Bryson's Soul Hospitality Group also runs Soul Cafe, which opened in 2011, Vic & Ola's, which opened in 2019, and Pescada, which opened in 2022. Little Snitch, the newest of the group before Alma's return, opened in 2024.
That means the corner of Pinnacle Peak and Pima isn't gaining an unrelated new tenant. It's consolidating under one operator who already has a coffee counter running there every morning. Once Alma reopens, the same corner covers both ends of a day: Little Snitch for coffee and brunch, Alma and Copper Club for dinner and a rooftop drink after dark. That's a specific kind of change. It's not a new restaurant appearing in a vacant lot somewhere new. It's an existing local operator finishing a project on a corner they already partly own.
This Corner Isn't the Only One Filling In This Year
The Citadel isn't the only piece of North Scottsdale that's gained something new to eat this year, and the pattern elsewhere looks a little different.
At the southwest corner of Loop 101 and Scottsdale Road, The Henry opened on March 18, 2026, in a ground-up, 7,000-square-foot building with an indoor-outdoor layout, a front patio with a fireplace, an open kitchen, and an interior courtyard. What's worth noting is the addition of a walk-up coffee bar, a feature The Henry hasn't had at its Arcadia or Uptown Phoenix locations, where it's always operated strictly as a brunch-and-dinner spot. Adding a coffee counter here is a bet that residents in this stretch will treat the space as a daily stop rather than a once-a-week reservation.
Further west, at Hayden Road and Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard, Sonora Village added four new tenants earlier this year: Akamaru Japanese Restaurant, bb.q Chicken, Floor & Decor, and Dollar Tree. Akamaru, from chef and owner Hiro, runs two distinct services out of one kitchen, a lunch built around onigirazu rice sandwiches and donburi rice bowls, and an evening izakaya menu of sashimi, tempura, and shareable plates. Next door, bb.q Chicken brought its Korean fried chicken format to the center, along with a drink menu that includes Korean soju alongside standard beer.
None of these additions are connected to each other in ownership the way Little Snitch and Alma are. They're separate leases, separate operators, separate buildings. But they add up to the same underlying shift: this stretch of North Scottsdale gained several places this year that are built for repeat, everyday visits rather than a single special occasion. The Citadel's version of that shift happens to be unusually visible, because it's the same family filling in both ends of the day on one corner, in a building that sat empty long enough for the whole neighborhood to notice.
If you've been driving past that empty storefront next to Little Snitch for months wondering what was going in, now you know. The harder question, for anyone hoping to book a table for a specific date this fall, is when exactly the doors open. Right now, that's still being written on the fly, one construction update at a time.
If Pinnacle Peak and Pima is your regular loop and you're curious what a corner like this eventually does to property values nearby, Shawna Warner and the rest of The TEAM track these shifts across North Scottsdale as part of their neighborhood work, and they're always glad to talk through what it means for your specific street.
