What is Soul Fire Tacos?
Soul Fire Tacos is the taco counter that Dana Dumas opened a few doors from her brunch restaurant SugarJam The Southern Kitchen, at 15111 N Hayden Road, Suite 120, in a strip center on Hayden Road just north of Raintree in the Scottsdale Airpark. It cut the ribbon at 11 a.m. on Saturday, February 21, 2026, after a build of about two years, and it is still serving in October 2026, Tuesday through Saturday.
It is small on purpose: about 900 square feet and 24 seats, counter service, order at the register or online. Dumas, who grew up in New York and New Jersey, started selling jam-filled sugar cookies at farmers markets in 2011, became a licensed commercial baker, and opened the 5,000-square-foot SugarJam in January 2021. Soul Fire is the third eatery under her company SJ Concepts LLC, and the first that is not about breakfast. The idea, in her words, is “Southern soul with Southwest fire”: Black Southern cooking and Mexican street food on the same tortilla. “Black and Brown cultures have always had synergy,” she said in the opening release. “In a world where we are more divided than ever, I want to show the fire that happens when we come together.”
The chef is Johnnie Dixon, a former Ohio State wide receiver and national champion who spent time on NFL practice squads and in the USFL and has coached high school football at Hamilton High. He curated the menu with Dumas: beer-battered catfish tacos with chipotle remoulade and Southern slaw, short rib birria braised four to five hours and griddled in a cheesy tortilla, jerk shrimp with mango-pineapple salsa, tequila-lime wings, Cuban black bean soup, and the Soul Roll-Changa, a fried roll of mac and cheese, candied yams and collard greens that is the dish people come in asking about. Nothing is microwaved.
Who it is for: the Airpark lunch crowd that cannot get a SugarJam table on a Saturday, the SugarJam regulars who wanted dinner, and anyone curious what a soul-food taco is. Our verdict: a smart, inexpensive, genuinely new idea in a city full of taco shops, worth the detour at lunch, and better than its tiny room suggests.
Ordering at Soul Fire Tacos
Hours. The website lists Tuesday 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Wednesday 11 to 7, Thursday through Saturday 11 to 8, closed Sunday and Monday. That is a change from the opening schedule, which ran Sunday 11 to 5 with a chicken-and-waffle taco special, so the Sunday special went with the day. The phone is (480) 454-2490; there are no reservations, and the 24 seats go fast between noon and 1.
The tacos. Everything is priced à la carte, so build what you want. The short rib birria is $8.99 with a 2-ounce consommé for $1.99 more; the smothered birria chicken is $5.99 (consommé $2.99); beer-battered catfish $6.99; jerk shrimp with avocado crema $6.99; Bay Bay shrimp, panko-fried with slaw and remoulade, $6.99; a sweet-and-savory vegan taco of sweet potato, griddled peppers and pico $5.99; and a carne asada taco with pico and lime. The Taco Combo is the value: any two tacos for $16.99 or three for $18.99 with cilantro-lime rice, Cuban black beans, slaw and a fountain drink. On Taco Tuesday take $2.50 off two or $3.50 off three. A Taco Flight of two each carne asada, jerk shrimp and chicken birria street tacos is $18, no substitutions.
The bowls. The Soul Bowl is the Southern side of the menu: a protein over mac and cheese, collard greens, candied yams and a corn muffin. Fried catfish, two pieces, in lemon pepper, Stepper Johnnie’s Hot or the house Soul Fire seasoning, is $18.99; short rib, jerk shrimp, Bay Bay shrimp and carne asada are $16.99 and smothered chicken birria $15.99. Rice bowls with black beans, slaw and pico run $12.99 to $15.99.
Start with the Soul Roll. The Soul Roll-Changa is $10.99, onion gravy $1.50 more, and it is vegetarian. Nachos Supreme on Tajín chips with queso fundido and avocado crema is $11.99, chips and Soul Fire salsa $5.99, chips and guacamole $4.99. Sides: Mexican-soul street corn $5.99, collard greens $5.99, Cuban black beans $4.99. Drinks are aguas frescas (horchata, hibiscus, seasonal lemonade) at $4.50, canned sodas and red or blue Kool-Aid; the menu lists no alcohol.
What to skip. The rice bowls are fine, but the tacos and the Soul Bowl are the point, and the catfish taco is the best single thing here. Finish with a SugarJam pie: the bakery case is a few doors down, and the two businesses share a parking lot off Hayden, five minutes from Scottsdale Airport and the 101. Catering is through the website.
A soul-food taco shop in the Airpark
SugarJam gave Dumas a following and a problem. Phoenix New Times reported customary two-hour waits on weekends, the restaurant had dropped dinner service to protect its staff, and she had said she had no plans for a second SugarJam. Soul Fire is what she built instead: a counter-service shop that takes the parts of her kitchen that travel well, the collards, the mac and cheese, the catfish, the candied yams, and puts them on tortillas, in a 900-square-foot bay in the same strip center. The build took about two years. Dumas has said that everybody has a seat at her table.
Dixon is the other half. A former Ohio State receiver who grew up in Florida, he has said he wants to show he is “more than an athlete,” and his birria, short rib slow-cooked four or five hours, is the dish he picks. The daily specials announced at opening (Taco Tuesday, mole chicken Thursdays, Fish Fridays, Soul Roll-Changa Saturdays) are the rhythm of a neighborhood lunch counter, not a chef’s restaurant, and the opening promotion was a free chicken or carnitas taco with any taco, burrito or bowl.
The coverage was wide for a 24-seat shop: What Now Phoenix in early February 2026, Hoodline, Phoenix New Times, In Business, AZ Big Media after the opening, a Sports360AZ segment built around Dixon, and Fox 10 “Seen on TV” listings in February and again on August 25, 2026, which is the latest independent confirmation we have that it is operating. What the record does not say is how business has gone; there is no review in the city press as of October, no reported change in ownership, and the hours have already tightened from six days to five. That last fact is worth watching.
Southern cooking is still rare in Scottsdale; Phoenix Magazine could name only LoLo’s, in Phoenix, as a comparison for SugarJam in 2021. Scottsdale’s taco rooms of the 2020s, from the Old Town cantinas to Velvet Taco, are Mexican, Tex-Mex or novelty, and Soul Fire is the one we know of built on a Southern pantry. Our list of the best Mexican restaurants in Scottsdale is where it lands by format, if not by cuisine.
Honest assessment: this is a lunch counter, and the room is a room. Judge it on the catfish taco, the birria and the Soul Roll, which are good, and on the prices, which are fair for the Airpark. The hours are the risk: closed Sunday and Monday and done by 8, it depends on the office trade and SugarJam’s overflow. It has made it through its first summer; if it holds through a second, it will have earned the bigger room the Airpark’s lunch crowd would fill.