What was Starlite BBQ?
Starlite BBQ was a chef-driven smokehouse at 7620 E Indian School Road, Suite 101, in a strip center at the corner of Miller Road on the eastern edge of Old Town. It opened in February 2018 and came from the team behind central Phoenix’s Ocotillo: chef-owner Walter Sterling, chefs Sacha and Alex Levine, beverage director David Johnson and general manager Brad Twigg. Alex Levine, who had run the smoker at Ocotillo, became chef de cuisine and Starlite’s smokemaster.
Sterling saw it as the casual, fun counterpoint to Ocotillo’s finer dining, a gathering place that would be, in his words, “fun, and not expensive.” The design borrowed Ocotillo’s oxidized metals outside, with a line of ocotillo plants by the door, and inside put a drop ceiling of torch-burnished Spanish oak over about 40 seats, a 17-seat bar and a 30-seat patio with Spanish oak picnic tables, according to the plans New Times published in 2017.
The barbecue was the argument. Meats were smoked over pecan and mesquite, then often grilled, braised or glazed. “If you want Texas barbecue, go to Texas,” Sterling told New Times a month after opening. “We’re not trying to be in Texas. We’re in a strip mall in Scottsdale.” Pork came chopped, ribs came wet, beef ribs wore a glaze of barbecue sauce and mole negro, and the menu ran to smoked meatloaf, Nashville hot chicken and a two-pound Can Can pork steak wrapped in its own belly. Twigg built a whiskey shelf that carried Pappy Van Winkle and WhistlePig.
It ran for more than six years and closed abruptly in October 2024, its website and social accounts shut down without a farewell. In March 2025 the space became Bad Jimmy’s, a smash-burger bar. Our verdict: Starlite was the most interesting barbecue restaurant Scottsdale has had, better at sides, smoke-kissed oddities and whiskey than at the brisket its name promised.
What the menu was and how regulars ate it
The sides were the strength. Every meal started with a complimentary cast-iron skillet of dense cornbread. Phoenix Magazine’s 2018 review singled out the Porky Fries ($12), crisp fries with pulled pork, melted Jack and pickled jalapeños; the green chile pork turnover ($8); grilled cauliflower with crisped black-eyed peas and green goddess ($8); and butternut squash filled with mole negro, sesame and epazote. Sterling stocked Rancho Gordo heirloom beans and planned miner’s potatoes, double-fried and served dry or wet, and fried cubes of mac and cheese. Nearly everything but the mac and cheese was gluten-free at opening.
The meats were inventive and uneven. The Can Can pork steak ($32), Starlite’s take on the Puerto Rican chuleta can-can, was brined, cold-smoked, wrapped and smoked again, and both New Times and Phoenix Magazine loved it. The beef ribs, five to an order in a black iron skillet and smoked hot at 315 degrees, divided the critics: New Times called them good, while Phoenix Magazine, at $33, found them so dry the leftovers went in the trash. A smoked chile-cheddar chicken sausage, made by Schreiner’s from a Starlite recipe, was $13. Brisket was finished on the grill and served with grainy mustard and pickled cucumber.
Brunch was its own reason to go. The weekend menu carried the Smoko Loko, a smoked-meatloaf loco moco with fried eggs and gravy, a green chile cornbread pancake ($12) with butter and maple syrup and optional fried chicken, a smoked-turkey Benedict with jalapeño hollandaise, and a BLT Bloody Mary served with white bread and tomatoes for a build-your-own sandwich.
The bar was serious. Twigg’s whiskey program reached past Pappy Van Winkle to WhistlePig Boss Hog Black Prince and Octomore Islay Scotch, with cocktails built for smoke, including one with whiskey and watermelon because, he said, at a barbecue somebody is always cracking one open. Beers ran to an Anderson Valley oatmeal stout aged in Wild Turkey barrels.
Getting there. It was off Indian School Road, not Scottsdale Road, with the strip-center lot Sterling bragged about. The dining room was small, and the patio’s picnic tables nearly doubled it.
Barbecue through the prism of a fine-dining kitchen
Starlite belonged to the Valley’s barbecue boom of the late 2010s, when New Times ran a whole column, Smoke Rings, trying to pin down whether a Phoenix style existed. Sterling’s answer was that it did not. “Arizona doesn’t really have a style of barbecue, so we have to borrow,” he said. Starlite borrowed from Texas, Nashville, Puerto Rico and the Mexican mole pot, used local woods and local vegetables, and filtered the result through Ocotillo, a New American restaurant with Southwestern influences. Sterling’s résumé ran through Mary Elaine’s at The Phoenician and Aaron May’s Sol y Sombra, according to Phoenix Magazine, and it showed: these were chefs cooking barbecue, not pitmasters.
The critics split along exactly that line. New Times’ March 2018 Smoke Rings piece concluded that diners who found the old gospel of holy smoke flexible or irrelevant would find Starlite a cool addition. Phoenix Magazine’s June 2018 review opened with the line that “the barbecue is the least impressive thing about this well-conceived but under-executed Scottsdale eatery,” wished the place smelled more like smoke, and still called the pork steak ridiculously good and the vegetables outstanding. Both pieces agreed on the room, which was small, friendly and easy to like.
It outlasted most of the boom. Starlite ran for more than six years, through the pandemic, before closing in early October 2024 without an announcement. New Times reported on October 11 that its website and social accounts had been taken down and its Google listing marked permanently closed; the last Yelp reviewer called it a favorite and the closure abrupt. The record gives no reason. It came three months after Sterling’s modern Mexican restaurant Chantico closed and was listed for sale, which suggests a group pulling back to its flagship; Ocotillo and its Sidecar Social Club remained open in Phoenix.
The space did not sit long. Chef James Piazza opened the second Bad Jimmy’s there on Thursday, March 20, 2025, swapping smoked meats for thin, lacy smash burgers, criss-cut fries and soft serve, and the suite on Indian School Road has been a burger bar since.
Honest assessment: Starlite was never the best barbecue in the Valley, and it did not try to be. It was a chef’s restaurant that happened to own smokers, with the best sides, the best whiskey shelf and the strangest pork chop of any barbecue room in Scottsdale. Barbecue purists were right about the brisket. Everyone else was right to keep going back for the cornbread.