What was Famous 48?
Famous 48 was a neighborhood tavern that changed its address once and its meaning twice. It belonged to Square One Concepts, the Scottsdale company of founder S. Barrett Rinzler, whose Cold Beers & Cheeseburgers and Bourbon & Bones are Old Town fixtures, and it ran from October 2017 to June 2025.
It opened in Old Town, in the 3,000-square-foot room on Scottsdale Road where Square One’s seafood restaurant Crab & Mermaid had lasted from March 2016 to May 2017. The name was a nod to the lower 48 states, and the menu was regional American: half-roasted chicken, BBQ baby back ribs, roasted pork loin, fish and chips, plus a creative cocktail list, craft beer and wine. The room got leather horseshoe booths, wood high-tops with tufted leather stools, a full indoor-outdoor bar with a walnut countertop and patterned tile, and a patio with couches and fire pits.
In December 2018 it moved north to a bigger space at The Shops at Gainey Village, 8989 N Scottsdale Road, Suite 608, in Gainey Ranch. The new room had 36 TVs, a big open-air patio with two outdoor fireplaces, games and lounge seating, and it borrowed the award-winning burgers from Cold Beers and steaks from Bourbon & Bones. After five months closed for COVID-19, it reopened on September 18, 2020, as Famous 48 Arizona’s Local Kitchen & Bar: the 48 now meant Arizona, the 48th state.
It closed in June 2025, reported by Phoenix New Times among that month’s closings, and the press we found does not name a successor in Suite 608. Our verdict: Famous 48 was a comfortable, well-run sports tavern with a good patio and a long happy hour, and it spent eight years looking for an identity sharper than that.
What the menu and the room were
Start with the Arizona starters. The 2020 menu, the one most regulars knew, opened with skillet cornbread, Four Peaks nachos and Southwest egg rolls. At the 2018 Gainey Village opening, the chef’s picks were bacon jalapeño deviled eggs, the drunken “wino” bread and those egg rolls, and the skillet cookie was the dessert people mentioned.
The Arizona-named mains. After the 2020 reopening the menu read like a road map: the PHX Caesar and a Scottsdale Chopped salad; the Famous Burger, an AZ Veggie Burger, a Western Prime Dip and the Havasu Hot crispy fried chicken sandwich; and entrées including the FLW Filet, the Route 66 Ribeye, a Border Bowl, grilled salmon and the Kingman Chop, with Southern-fried or Havasu Hot chicken. The 2017 Old Town opening had leaned the other way, toward Nashville hot chicken sandwiches, baby back ribs, shrimp Louie and Doritos nachos, per New Times. The published record we found does not give prices.
Timing. Happy hour ran Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. throughout. At the 2018 move the hours were 11 a.m. to midnight on weekdays and 9 a.m. to midnight on weekends, with weekend brunch from 9 to 2 in high season. After the 2020 reopening it was dinner only, 3 to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 3 to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
The room. The Gainey Village space ran about 4,500 square feet, with the horseshoe booths, walnut bar and patterned tiles carried over from Old Town, art referencing Arizona landmarks and historic figures, and colors the 2020 release described as adobe-pink sunsets and pale brown dusty roads. The draw was the patio and the screens: Square One sold the 36-TV audio-visual system as the best sports viewing in the area.
Neighbors. It sat at the northeast corner of the center, which also holds Hash Kitchen and Lure Fish House, so it drew the Gainey Ranch and Paradise Valley crowd that eats out often, exactly the customer Rinzler said he was moving north to find.
A tavern in search of a reason
Famous 48 is a small case study in how Scottsdale restaurant groups use a space. Square One’s Old Town block on Scottsdale Road already had Cold Beers & Cheeseburgers and Bourbon & Bones when it tried a seafood house, Crab & Mermaid, in March 2016. That closed in May 2017, and that summer Square One announced it would develop a concept better suited to Old Town. The answer was a tavern with a regional American menu and fire pits on the patio, open from 11 a.m. to midnight, which opened that October.
It lasted about a year downtown. In December 2018 Square One moved the name to Gainey Village, where Rinzler said the area was filled with customers who ate out often and wanted comfort food in a casual but stylish room with the best sports viewing around. In our reading, that was a fair bet on the late 2010s suburban market: the resort and country-club neighborhoods along Scottsdale Road wanted a big patio and a game on, closer to home than Old Town.
The pandemic forced the third version. Closed for five months in 2020, it reopened on September 18 with refreshed interiors and a new subtitle, Arizona’s Local Kitchen & Bar. “We have a new beginning with the reopening of Famous 48,” Rinzler said, adding that the downtime had let them recraft the menu. The national theme gave way to a state one, and the hours shrank to dinner.
It closed in June 2025. Phoenix New Times listed it in its July roundup of restaurants and bars that had shut in June, describing a tavern that served classic bar staples with a Southwest spin, beer, wine and craft cocktails. No reason was reported, and we did not find a statement from Square One. The record also does not tell us what will take Suite 608.
Honest assessment: Famous 48 was never bad and never essential. The patio was genuinely good, the starters were the best of the menu, and the 2020 rebrand was the most coherent version of the idea. But a tavern whose name had to be explained twice was always going to depend on its location, and in Gainey Village the location was not enough on its own.