What is SugarJam The Southern Kitchen?
SugarJam The Southern Kitchen is the restaurant that grew out of a cookie. It sits at 15111 N Hayden Road, Suite 170, in an industrial strip center south of Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard in the Scottsdale Airpark, and it opened on January 29, 2021, in the middle of the pandemic, in a space of about 5,000 square feet (Dumas has put it at 5,300) with wood floors, brick walls, chandeliers, a big bar, a patio and a bakery case.
The owner, chef and CEO is Dana Dumas. She grew up in New York City and the New Jersey suburbs, moved to Scottsdale after 2001, and worked in corporate retail and, according to Phoenix Magazine, for NASCAR, where she baked jam-filled sugar cookies for coworkers. In December 2011 she formed SugarJam Cookies LLC and started selling at the Downtown Phoenix Farmers Market. A bake shop and bistro in the Airpark followed in 2014, and when the pandemic turned that into a family-meal pickup window, she took the bigger room a mile away and bet that her regulars would follow. They did.
The food is Southern brunch and lunch: French Toast N’ Fried Chicken Tenders on Grand Marnier-marinated challah, Creole Shrimp N’ Grits, catfish and salmon croquettes over grits, pulled pork hash, biscuits and gravy, po’boys at lunch, and the pies, cookies and beignets that started it all. There is a full bar with mimosa flights and specialty cocktails, and Dumas, who has no culinary school behind her, credits her father, her great aunt Mable and her grandmother Thelma for the recipes.
Who it is for depends on the day. On weekends a resident DJ plays from opening to close, the room dances, and Phoenix New Times found a line snaking into the adjoining gift shop with a two-hour wait. Wednesday through Friday it is a calm neighborhood brunch with Ray Charles on the speakers. Our verdict: the best Southern cooking in Scottsdale, served in the only Airpark dining room that doubles as a party, and worth planning around rather than stumbling into.
How to eat at SugarJam
Pick your day. The restaurant is open Wednesday through Friday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., closed Monday and Tuesday, with the kitchen closing 30 minutes before the door. The DJ plays Friday through Sunday. Dumas tried dinner service and dropped it, she told Pulling Corks & Forks in 2023, because it wrecked her staff’s work-life balance; she has said she has no plans for a second SugarJam. The weekend crowd runs from strollers to 90th birthdays. Reserve through SevenRooms on the website for Saturday or Sunday; weekdays you can walk in.
Order the signatures. On the 2026 weekday menu the French Toast N’ Fried Chicken Tenders (or smoked bacon) is $19.95, with two eggs, house vanilla butter and rum pecan syrup. Creole Shrimp N’ Grits, seven shrimp and two handmade crab balls over grits with two eggs, is $26.95, as are the Fried Catfish N’ Grits and the Salmon Croquettes. Flapjacks N’ Fried Chicken Tenders is $19.95, the Belgian Waffle N’ Whole Fried Chicken Wings with pineapple-habanero sauce is $21.95, Pulled Pork Hash with in-house applewood-smoked pork is $18.95, Papa’s Brisket N’ Biscuits is $21.95, and a Skillet Your Way starts at $14.95. Fish Fry Fridays run $32.99. Lunch starts at 11 a.m. on weekdays with the catfish po’boy and the pulled-pork-topped burger.
What to skip, and what to add. Phoenix Magazine’s 2021 First Dish review loved the fried chicken and called the collard greens the best in years, found the burger dry on the day, and panned the mac and cheese; we would still add the greens to anything. Mimosas range from the Pamplemousse Dream to a tequila Southern Sunrise, and the Strawberry Jalapeño Margarita has a Tajín rim. Save room for a personal pie: cherry, apple crumb, chocolate pecan, bourbon pecan or sweet potato. Whole pies need 24 hours’ notice.
The holidays. Thanksgiving is the bakery’s Super Bowl. The team works 12-hour and then 24-hour shifts the Monday and Tuesday before, turning 40-pound cases of pre-cut Granny Smiths into 750 to 1,000 pies, and the restaurant closes Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday. Order online in early November. For the rest of the season, see our guide to the holiday season in Scottsdale.
Getting there. Hayden Road just north of Raintree, five minutes from Scottsdale Airport; Dumas says guests flying in private often make it their first stop. Parking is the center’s lot. Soul Fire Tacos, her 2026 taco shop, is a few doors down at Suite 120.
The cookie that became the Airpark’s brunch
Southern food was nearly absent from Scottsdale when SugarJam opened. Phoenix Magazine’s reviewer could name only LoLo’s as a comparison, and that is in Phoenix. The Airpark’s dining had always followed its office parks and hangars: lunch counters, sports bars, chains along Hayden Road and the 101. A brunch party with a DJ, a bakery and a bourbon pecan pie belonged, if anywhere, at Gainey Village, where Hash Kitchen had built the Scottsdale brunch formula.
Dumas built hers the slow way. Cookies at the farmers market from 2011; a bake shop with a few breakfast items; catering; then the pandemic, which could have ended the business and instead proved it. The Friday family-meal specials sold out, cars lined up on Saturday mornings, and by the time the bigger space came available she had the customer list to fill it. She opened in January 2021, among the first Scottsdale restaurants of the 2020s to open rather than close, and told In Business Magazine it was an honor to bring authentic Southern cuisine to the Valley.
The press came quickly. Check, Please! Arizona sent host Mark Tarbell in March 2022. Phoenix New Times wrote up the “Brunch N’ Vibes” scene, the two-hour waits and the Doc’s Artisan ice cream trailer with peach cobbler and bourbon pecan flavors made from SugarJam’s own pies. ABC15 profiled Dumas as, in her words, the only African American woman owning a restaurant of this size in north Scottsdale, in a state where fewer than 4 percent of businesses are Black-owned. By early 2023 she had 32 employees, several from the bake-shop days, and in July 2022 she had added The Market by SugarJam, a gift shop of goods from local and small national makers, to the front of the room.
The expansion came in February 2026, when SJ Concepts opened Soul Fire Tacos at Suite 120: 900 square feet, 24 seats, beer-battered catfish tacos, short rib birria, tequila lime wings and the Soul Roll, a fried changa of mac and cheese, candied yams and collard greens, with former Ohio State receiver Johnnie Dixon running the kitchen. Dumas framed it as the synergy of Black and Brown cultures. What the record does not say is the exact year of her first shop (Phoenix Magazine says 2011, New Times 2014) or her seat count; we have used the later date for the bistro and the 5,000-square-foot figure both papers agree on.
Honest assessment: SugarJam is a very good Southern kitchen attached to a brunch nightclub, and the two halves attract different people. The French toast, the shrimp and grits, the greens and the pies are the real thing, better than anything comparable north of Camelback Road. The weekend volume shows in longer waits and the occasional dry burger, and the DJ is not optional once he starts. Go midweek for the food, weekends for the scene, and it earns its place at the top of our list of the best brunch in Scottsdale.