What was Saint Urban?
Saint Urban was a neighborhood wine bar at 8260 N Hayden Road, Suite A-100, in the Mercado at Hayden shopping center at Hayden and Royal Palm roads, in the heart of McCormick Ranch. Chef and restaurateur Christopher Collins opened it on Friday, November 22, 2024, in the space Phoenix Magazine identified as the former Rockefeller’s. It was the fourth concept his company, Common Ground Culinary, ran in the same center, after Collins Brothers Public House, Grassroots Kitchen & Tap and the ice cream counter Sweet Provisions.
The name honored Saint Urban of Langres, the patron saint of winemaking, and the wine was the organizing idea: about 30 rotating wines by the glass, all from West Coast vineyards, and, by one magazine’s account, every bottle on the list also poured by the glass. The food followed the wine west. Collins sourced charcuterie meats and cheeses from California, Utah and Arizona and oysters from northern Washington, and he built the menu around shareable plates: bruschetta, boards, a raw bar he called the Saltwater Saint, and a Santa Maria tri-tip sandwich modeled on the Cardiff Crack at Seaside Market in Encinitas, where two of his brothers live.
The room was about 2,000 square feet with 77 seats inside and a 48-seat covered patio, designed by Jennifer Reynolds of Ideation Design Group: black granite bar, chandeliers, a back-lit brass mirror, eclectic wallpaper under formal crown molding. Collins pitched it to the neighbors as unpretentious yet well appointed, a place to come several times a week. “We want you to hang out,” he told Phoenix New Times. “I’m not here to turn and burn tables.”
It was also a second attempt. The first St. Urban had run upstairs from The Neighborly in Uptown Phoenix for about a year before closing in June 2023. The Scottsdale version lasted longer, nearly two years, and closed as a restaurant on September 28, 2026, when it became the Saint Urban Private Dining Room. Our verdict: a well-designed, well-sourced wine bar that the neighborhood liked, in a center that could not quite support a fourth room from the same owner.
What the menu and the room were
Start with bruschetta and the raw bar. The opening menu offered bruschetta in several versions, among them prosciutto with herbed goat cheese, avocado and lime with pickled red onion, spicy capocollo with truffle goat cheese, whipped ricotta with macerated tomatoes, and stracciatella with house jam and arugula. The Saltwater Saint section carried West Coast oysters three ways (fresh shucked, broiled Rockefeller, or Supreme), shrimp cocktail, a hamachi and grapefruit crudo, sashimi of Nordic salmon or yellowfin ahi laid on a frozen block of pink salt, and sweet sesame rice topped with salmon or ahi. A sous-vide plancha artichoke from Spain, served with garlic aioli, was the vegetable people photographed.
Then the tri-tip. The house signature was a marinated Santa Maria tri-tip, sliced onto Noble bread with aged white cheddar, steak sauce and garlic aioli, or served as an entree. Other handhelds included a Nueske’s BLT on Noble sourdough. New Times later described a range from wings to a 45-day-aged New York strip. Dessert was short: a flourless chocolate torte with espresso cream and salted caramel, and a ricotta and berry trifle on angel food cake.
Drink by the day. Monday was Wine & Dine, any bottle with a board for $30. Wednesday put the raw bar at half price all day. Sunday ran happy hour from 11 a.m. to sunset. Cocktails included The Glow Up (Tito’s, Lillet, pamplemousse) and the Arizona Rising, made with butterfly pea-infused Casamigos blanco, and every beer was from an Arizona brewery. The “Girl Dinner,” any salad (Collins recommended the Caesar) with truffle shoestring fries, had started as a happy-hour gag at Collins Brothers and carried over; In Business Magazine listed it at $16.
The room. The entrance sat back from the parking lot behind an archway sign and a short garden walk, which is why a reviewer called it secluded despite the strip-center address. Inside were booths and a granite bar; outside, the covered patio with two eight-person communal tables. It was cashless, taking cards and gift cards only. Reservations went through OpenTable, where it held about 4.7 stars from more than 300 reviews, and the happy hour was the most praised thing in them. For the area’s other options, see our happy hour guide.
Two saints, one owner, and a crowded corner of Hayden Road
Christopher Collins is the most prolific restaurateur McCormick Ranch has had in the 2020s. Common Ground Culinary, founded in 2011, runs Grassroots and Collins Brothers in the Mercado at Hayden, Wally’s American Gastropub at Gainey Ranch, The Macintosh and The Neighborly in Phoenix, and a catering and provisions business. When a lease opened in the center, Collins told New Times, it felt like the right moment to bring back the saint. “This is our neighborhood,” he said. “When I do open up a new concept, it’s like the neighbors find out before my staff.”
The first St. Urban had been a chic, floral cocktail lounge above The Neighborly in Uptown Phoenix, opened in fall 2022 and closed in June 2023. Collins blamed, in part, running two concepts under one roof. The Scottsdale room was meant to fix that: its own entrance, its own patio, its own identity, “totally new branding, with a new menu and vibe.”
It ran for just over twenty-two months. On September 28, 2026, a statement from the group said Saint Urban had “transitioned to Saint Urban Private Dining Room, available for holiday parties, memorable events and life’s most important moments.” New Times called the closure abrupt; diners with reservations were rebooked at other Common Ground restaurants, and event dates were already booking through the end of 2026 and into 2027. The statement gave no reason, and the record does not say whether sales, staffing or simple overlap with the owner’s other rooms made the decision. Collins was busy elsewhere: he opened the multi-concept hub One Sixth inside Phoenix’s Bond office building in June 2026 and announced Cowboy Seafood for midtown Phoenix that fall.
The closing fit a hard year on this stretch of Hayden Road. Campo Italian Bistro, in the same 8260 N Hayden address, closed in July 2026 after five years. In the same month Saint Urban went dark, Vecina opened at 8300 N Hayden in the old Z’Tejas, a sign that this corner keeps turning over its rooms rather than emptying them.
Honest assessment: Saint Urban was a good wine bar with a real point of view, West Coast bottles, West Coast oysters and a sandwich with a story, and the reviews show its regulars liked it. What it did not have was a reason to exist separately from the three Collins rooms a few doors away, and the owner seems to have reached the same conclusion. As a private dining room it may do exactly what the space does best.