What was S&V Urban Italian?
S&V Urban Italian was the neighborhood Italian restaurant at 9343 E Shea Boulevard, Suite 100, on the southeast corner of Shea and 92nd Street, just east of the 101 in the Shea Corridor. It opened in spring 2011 as Stone & Vine Urban Italian, a restaurant from the Scottsdale group JGP Restaurant Concepts, in the space that had been Regions Bistro. In February 2017 it shortened its name to S & V, and it ran under that name until it closed in January 2026, after 14 years.
New Times got a look inside in April 2011, as the renovation finished. The new tenants kept the old room’s layout and added massive rustic wooden doors, a dark wood bar, faux weathered brick, an open industrial ceiling and a graphic mural of a Hollywood starlet. The chef was testing pizza crusts and recipes on the staff: spaghetti and meatballs, eggplant parmigiana, chicken piccata.
The menu never strayed far from that start. S&V served wood-fired pizzas, house pastas, seven kinds of bruschetta, garlic knots, calamari fritti, parmigianas, panini, cannoli and tiramisu, and the dish people came back for was the baked meatballs in red sauce. In 2017 it added a 50-seat patio, it ran happy hour daily across the whole restaurant, and weekend brunch arrived later. It was a family restaurant in both senses, a place for families and, by its staff’s account, one that ran on family recipes.
The ownership story is thinner than the menu. JGP opened a second Stone & Vine in Chandler in 2015 and, by its own website, later created Sophia’s Kitchen in north Scottsdale. New Times reported in 2026 that the Shea restaurant changed its name when it was sold to new owners, and a 2020 Scottsdale Progress story named them as Gabby and Betty Bell. Our verdict: a dependable neighborhood Italian whose 14 years on Shea were a longer run than most chef-driven rooms manage.
What the menu was
Start with the meatballs. By 2020 the menu listed them as Meatballs Sophia’s Way, seasoned meatballs baked in a zesty red sauce with parsley, melted mozzarella and baby arugula tossed in lemon oil, for $11. Co-owner Betty Bell told the Scottsdale Progress they were “to die for” and credited a chef named Al. The other starters were garlic knots, calamari fritti and seven bruschetta options.
Then pizza or pasta. The wood-fired brick oven turned out pies such as the prosciutto and fig and the Cowboy ($15 in 2020), with barbecue sauce, grilled chicken, caramelized onions, fresh mozzarella and jalapeños. House pastas included a Tuscan spinach pasta, ravioli, linguine and clams, and a lasagna that one contributed AZ Big Media review said rivaled any on the planet. Eggplant, chicken and veal parmigiana and a Chianti beef filled out the entrees, and seasonal specials changed every week or two.
Use the specials. Happy hour ran every day from 3 to 7 p.m. throughout the restaurant in the 2017 listing. In 2020, Monday’s Pizza & Wine Oh My paired a pizza and a bottle for $20, Wednesday took half off bottles of wine, and a Family Meal Deal of a pasta and a salad for four ran $50 to $55, with spaghetti and meatballs, fettuccine Alfredo, penne vodka or rigatoni Bolognese. It is a menu built for repeat visits; see our happy hour guide for what has replaced it in the neighborhood.
Brunch on weekends. Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., S&V served French toast, Benedicts and omelets alongside a zucchini squash skillet, short rib hash and blue corn blueberry pancakes with strawberries and caramel popcorn, with espresso martinis, Bloody Marys and bellinis.
The room and the patio. The restaurant sat in a shopping center on Shea Boulevard at 92nd Street, a short hop from the 101 interchange. Inside were the 2011 dark wood bar and the starlet mural; outside, the 50-seat patio added in spring 2017, which the restaurant promoted for lunch and dinner outdoors.
One name, two owners, three restaurants
The Stone & Vine story is easier to follow as a family tree. JGP Restaurant Concepts opened Stone & Vine Urban Italian on Shea in 2011. In March 2015 it opened a second at 1035 W Queen Creek Road in Chandler, a 5,000-square-foot room with a lakeside patio, and New Times counted it as JGP’s fourth restaurant alongside Black & Bleu and Salt & Lime. In February 2017 the Shea original became S & V Urban Italian. Its press release framed the change modestly: “while we’ve shortened our name, we are still the same family restaurant,” said general manager Sheena Gamache. New Times, reporting the closing in 2026, said the name changed when the restaurant was sold to new owners. Both can be true; the record does not give the sale’s date or terms.
By 2020, the Scottsdale Progress identified the owners as Gabby and Betty Bell, who were planning a second S & V beside the SOHO Scottsdale townhomes, about 2,700 square feet, roughly half the original’s size, with a larger patio, McDowell Mountain views and a bar opening through garage doors. In Business Magazine gave its address as 16580 N 92nd Street and said it was set to open that fall, pandemic permitting. We found no report that it opened. JGP, meanwhile, had opened Sophia’s Kitchen at Thompson Peak and Bell, which calls itself the restaurant from the creator and owner of Stone & Vine. The S&V menu’s Meatballs Sophia’s Way hints at a shared recipe book; the record does not explain it.
S&V’s run covered most of the 2010s and the first half of the 2020s, a long stretch for a strip-center Italian room. It closed in January 2026. Phoenix Magazine noted that the Chandler location remained open, and New Times recalled the wood-fired pizzas, pastas, salads, panini, cannoli and tiramisu. Neither gave a reason, and we found no report of a new tenant in Suite 100.
Honest assessment: S&V was never a destination, and it did not try to be. It was the restaurant a neighborhood uses on a Tuesday, with a reliable pizza oven, meatballs worth the trip and a happy hour that ran four hours a day. Fourteen years is the verdict. Its relatives from the same family tree, Stone & Vine in Chandler and Sophia’s Kitchen at Thompson Peak, are still open.