Why he matters
Scottsdale’s steakhouse identity has a surname, and it starts with Dennis Mastro. In 1999 he opened Mastro’s Steakhouse at Pinnacle Peak and Pima roads, in what was then the far north edge of town: big prime steaks on sizzling plates, a piano lounge, a warm butter cake for dessert. The formula went to Beverly Hills and beyond, and the Scottsdale steakhouse became a national genre.
What confuses people now is the name. The family sold Mastro’s in 2007, and the chain has belonged to Landry’s since 2013, so the three Mastro’s rooms in Scottsdale are not Mastro family restaurants. The family’s restaurants today carry other names: Dominick’s, Ocean 44, Steak 44 and, since 2025, Durant’s, all owned by Prime Steak Concepts, the company Dennis’s sons Jeff and Mike run with him and Scott Troilo. The Mastro steakhouse note sorts out which room is which.
Where to find his mark today
The sold Mastro’s. The original near Pinnacle Peak, Mastro’s City Hall in Old Town and Mastro’s Ocean Club at Kierland Commons. Landry’s owns them.
The family’s rooms. Dominick’s at Scottsdale Quarter (2011) and Ocean 44 beside Fashion Square (2018), with Steak 44 and Durant’s in Phoenix.
Before Mastro’s
The family came from New Jersey. Dennis and Jane Mastro and their four children moved west for Dennis’s restaurant ambitions and settled in Scottsdale, where in the 1980s they opened a steakhouse called What’s Your Beef. In 1991, with his son Mike and family friend Scott Troilo, Dennis opened Maloney’s, a pub that spread to nine Valley locations and stayed popular for about 25 years. By the end of the decade he was ready for something bigger.
The empire and the sale
Mastro’s Steakhouse opened at Pinnacle Peak and Pima in 1999, and the family grew the group to seven restaurants, including a seafood-forward sibling, Mastro’s Ocean Club. In 2007 they sold it to private equity firms Kinderhook Industries and Soros Strategic Partners; Restaurant Business has put the price at $150 million. A noncompete kept the family out of the business until it expired. In May 2013 Landry’s bought Mastro’s Restaurants, and it has run and expanded the chain since.
The family came back in 2011, at Scottsdale Quarter, with Dominick’s Steakhouse. Mastro’s then-owners sued, calling it a copycat; the case was dismissed in 2013 after Landry’s bought Mastro’s. Steak 44 followed in 2014 at 44th Street and Camelback in Phoenix, then Steak 48 in Houston and Chicago, named for Arizona as the 48th state, and Ocean 44 in December 2018 on the former Harkins Camelview site beside Fashion Square.
The full story
By 2019 the division of labor inside Prime Steak Concepts was settled: Jeff Mastro as chief executive, his brother Mike, fourteen months apart in age, as president in charge of development, Scott Troilo in a consulting role, and Dennis as the founder in an advisory one. Jeff told an interviewer that year that their father’s advice had been not to grow too quickly. The company grew anyway, and as of October 2026 its own site lists Steak 48 in Beverly Hills, Charlotte, Chicago, Del Mar, Houston and Philadelphia, Ocean 48 in Newport Beach, and in the Valley Dominick’s, Ocean 44, Steak 44 and Durant’s.
Durant’s, the 1950 Central Avenue steakhouse in Phoenix, was the surprise. Prime Steak Concepts bought it and closed it in February 2025, renovated it for ten months, and reopened it on December 17, 2025. The same year the company bought the former Chart House on Camelback Lake at 7255 E McCormick Parkway, which had closed after four decades, with plans to build a new restaurant from the ground up. Jeff Mastro said he and Mike grew up a few blocks away in McCormick Ranch. In 2025 the opening was targeted for fall 2026; as of mid-October 2026 this page could not confirm a name or an opening date.
Two gaps. This page gives no birth year for Dennis Mastro, because none of the sources it checked state one. And it cannot give the 2013 Landry’s price, which was not disclosed. The plain answer to the question most people search for is that the Mastro family owns Dominick’s, Steak 44 and Ocean 44, and Landry’s owns Mastro’s.