The building on Osborn Road just east of 44th Street has had a lot of names for one address. It was The Vintage, a restaurant and shop. Then it became Santo and Pecado, Spanish for saint and sin, a modern Mexican dining room with a speakeasy-style bar tucked behind it. Next it's meant to become The Olive Farmer, which the owners describe as a café, market, pasta lab, bottle shop and hidden Italian bar under one roof.
A short drive away on Indian School Road, another building has gone through a similar series of changes. At both addresses, operators who decided a single concept was more than one large room could carry are now splitting that room into smaller, more flexible uses.
A James Beard nod did not save a 200-seat room
Santo opened in January 2024, and Pecado followed in February. In January 2025, Santo was named a James Beard Award semifinalist for Best New Restaurant. Four months later, the owners announced it would close on May 31, 2025.
Chef and co-owner Roberto Centeno told Phoenix New Times that the problem was the size of the room, not the food. Between 200 seats, a private dining space and the hidden bar, the building needed more of his time than he could give it while he and co-owners Armando Hernandez and Nadia Holguin were opening other restaurants.
"I think we have multiple ideas of what the restaurant needed to be and I think for the direction that we truly want to go, it's small… it's more intimate."
Centeno said the team wanted a smaller space in the same part of town. The same Phoenix New Times story notes that the trio, along with chef Rene Andrade, already run Espiritu, a small bar and restaurant just down the street. That's the format they were already making work nearby. The sources we reviewed don't confirm a new address for Santo as of mid-October 2026.
The next tenants split the building instead of filling it
The group taking over the Osborn building has addressed the size problem head-on. The Olive Farmer is a partnership between In Good Spirits Hospitality, the group behind Citizen Public House, The Gladly, Beginner's Luck and the sushi and matcha bar Minnow, and Queen Creek Olive Mill, the East Valley olive farm and dining destination. Chef Bernie Kantak, a two-time James Beard Award semifinalist, co-owns In Good Spirits with Andrew Fritz. Perry Rea leads the olive mill.
Kantak's explanation to Phoenix New Times sounds a lot like Centeno's, with a different solution:
"I felt like it was too big for just me, and he felt like it was too big for just him. I love the building, Perry loves the building. It's going to be so much more than just a restaurant."
So instead of one menu trying to fill 200 seats, the announced plan, as reported by What Now Phoenix and Phoenix New Times, gives the building a different job at different hours:
- Morning: coffee, house-made pastries and breakfast.
- Daytime: Italian sandwiches and pizza.
- Evening: house-made pasta and Italian classics.
- Flour Lab: bronze-extruded pasta, slow-fermented dough, bread, focaccia and pastries.
- Market: Queen Creek Olive Mill oils, sauces and Olivespa products, plus local and imported goods, fresh pasta and ready-to-heat meals, alongside a wine bottle shop.
- ISSIMA: a back bar pouring Italian-inspired cocktails made with oils, vinegars and citrus, with a focus on vermouths, aperitivos and amaros.
Kantak told PHOENIX magazine the place would be an all-day restaurant-market hybrid with "a cool little Italian speakeasy for folks in the 'hood." The pizza is a return for him. The same article says he hadn't made pizza commercially since a flatbread at Kazimierz, an Old Town wine bar that has since closed, more than a decade ago. The olive mill side has its own history with this part of the Valley too. Rea had recently closed Queen Creek Olive Mill's Kierland Commons location when the two met.
The building keeps its hidden-bar layout from the Pecado days. What changes is how it gets used: a market and café in the morning, a lunch counter at midday and a pasta room at night, each pulling in a different set of customers.
Indian School Road has been reworking its own space
The same pattern played out at 4910 E. Indian School Road, the space next door to O.H.S.O. Brewery + Distillery. Jon Lane's team, which also runs O.H.S.O. and Starving Artist, first ran it as Little O's Arcadia Market, a counter-service eatery and coffee shop. Little O's closed for a summer break in June 2025, the break turned into a renovation, and Funky Frida's opened there that October.
Funky Frida's was a Tex-Mex cantina with Frida Kahlo-inspired murals, stained-glass lanterns, parrot-shaped Tiffany lamps and a glittering disco ball. It served tacos, fajitas, a smash burger and chipotle-barbecue ribs, about a dozen margaritas and free chips and salsa. Regular restaurant service ended on Sunday, August 16, 2026.
The space is staying in use. The restaurant's farewell post, reported by Phoenix New Times, said the room would become a private event venue for "weddings, celebrations, corporate events, and special gatherings." Under that plan, the room gets booked for specific dates rather than staying open for dinner every night. As of this writing, coverage hasn't reported a new name or a launch date for the venue.
The places that have actually opened are counter-service
The confirmed Arcadia openings we found this year are much smaller than a 200-seat room. They run on a counter, a short menu and steady daytime traffic.
La La Land Kind Café opened at 5039 N. 44th Street, near Camelback, in early 2026. It was soft-open by the time the Arizona Republic covered it on February 4, and its grand opening was set for Saturday, February 7. The draw is handcrafted coffee and matcha.
Mendocino Farms opened its third Arizona location on September 1 at 4325 E. Indian School Road, Suite 150. It's a sandwich-and-salad counter, and the opening menu included a new Fajita Steak Salad and a matching wrap, according to What Now Phoenix.
So the two neighborhood openings that have actually happened are a café and a fast-casual lunch spot. The two big rooms are being reworked into multiple uses. That leaves the neighborhood with plenty of places for coffee and lunch, while Arcadia's sit-down dinner room at 44th and Osborn is still empty.
Where The Olive Farmer stands in mid-October
When PHOENIX magazine covered the project in April, construction was underway and the owners were aiming for a September opening. The official press release, dated April 6, used looser wording: "later this year."
September has passed. The Olive Farmer's official site still shows only a concept statement, a press-release link and a newsletter sign-up, with no hours or opening notice. PHOENIX magazine's September 2026 openings and closings roundup, published October 2, doesn't mention it. The most recent dedicated coverage we found was an Arizona Foothills Magazine piece from May 20, which still said later in 2026.
As of October 12, 2026, The Olive Farmer has been announced but not opened, and the "later this year" window has about eleven weeks left. For residents keeping track, the official site's newsletter sign-up is the most direct source for an opening date.
Santo's owners decided one concept couldn't fill the building. Kantak and Rea are betting that a coffee bar, a market, a Flour Lab, a pasta room and a back-room bar can share it. On Indian School Road, Lane's team is betting the same kind of room works better as a space booked for weddings and corporate events.
If you live in Arcadia and want to know what changes like these mean for your own street, Ragini Sejpal follows the neighborhood corner by corner and is glad to talk through what's opening and what's moving in nearby. Let's Connect.
