As What Now reported last fall, the man behind Market Street's newest restaurant said, "I reside within the DC Ranch community." That line matters more than the sushi menu he was describing. The speaker is Tom Kaufman, and as of this year he operates three of the dining rooms clustered along Pima Road at DC Ranch. His three restaurants offer a useful lens on Market Street's current dining lineup.
The Mental Map That Never Moved
Ask a longtime DC Ranch resident where they eat and the answers come without hesitation. Fleming's for a birthday or an anniversary. Grimaldi's when the kids are the ones voting. Eggstasy on a Saturday morning, worth the wait if you time it right. The Living Room Wine Bar for a glass of something after a long week. That list has held steady for years, which is exactly why it's worth noticing when something new gets added to it and sticks.
Two additions in the past several months are doing just that. One is a new sushi restaurant. The other is a jewelry and watch-repair shop that opened its doors on November 1, 2025. Neither sounds, on its own, like news. Together, they invite a closer look at Market Street's restaurant lineup and the operators behind it.
One Operator, Three Storefronts
Kaufman opened The Living Room Wine Bar in 2014, built around the idea of doing something different from the usual wine bar formula. He followed it with Elvira's, a modern Mexican spot that built its own following. Late in 2025, he added a third: Tomu-San Sushi, tucked into the former Liberty Station space directly across from The Living Room and next door to Elvira's.
A single restaurant opening is a tenant filling a space. Kaufman's three restaurants are clustered on the same short stretch of storefronts, making his footprint a notable part of Market Street's current dining mix.
The table below places those restaurants alongside the businesses residents already rely on:
Business | Status | Notable Detail |
|---|---|---|
Fleming's Prime Steakhouse | Long-standing anchor | The celebration-dinner default for years |
Grimaldi's Pizzeria | Long-standing anchor | Family-night pizza, no debate needed |
Eggstasy | Long-standing anchor | Saturday-morning breakfast, worth the wait |
The Living Room Wine Bar | Kaufman Hospitality, opened 2014 | First of Kaufman's three Market Street spots |
Elvira's DC Ranch | Kaufman Hospitality | Modern Mexican, built its own following |
Tomu-San Sushi | Kaufman Hospitality, opened late 2025 | Occupies the former Liberty Station space |
Jewelry and watch repair shop | Opened November 1, 2025 | Diamond upgrades, in-house repair, custom design |
Market Street's Ownership Structure
Market Street sits on roughly 37 acres across 15 architecturally distinct buildings, owned and operated by Whitestone REIT.
Market Street hasn't always operated at this level. A longtime tenant who runs a business on the strip has described its arc plainly: it opened as a high-profile mixed-use destination, lost tenants during the economic downturn, and spent years in a slower recovery before picking back up. He described the pattern as cyclical. The current run, an established coffee and boutique scene alongside Kaufman's growing footprint and a new jewelry shop settling in, reads less like a random cluster of good luck and more like the upswing side of that cycle finally arriving.
That distinction matters if you're the one deciding where to grab dinner tonight or where to send an out-of-town guest for lunch tomorrow. A strip that's cycling upward tends to keep adding rather than losing, at least for a stretch. A strip that's cycling downward does the opposite. Right now, with Whitestone controlling the remaining vacancies and an operator like Kaufman willing to commit three storefronts to the same short block, the signals point toward more additions before they point toward gaps.
What This Means for Your Next Few Months on Market Street
If you already treat Market Street as an extension of your own kitchen and living room, the practical upshot is straightforward. The list of occasions you can cover without leaving DC Ranch just got longer. A celebration dinner, a family pizza night, a Saturday breakfast, a glass of wine after work, a sushi dinner that didn't exist a year ago, and now a jewelry repair or a custom design consultation, all inside the same walkable stretch.
The turnover you've noticed lately includes a change in the restaurant lineup: one operator now has three restaurants on a single block. The additions described here may be the start of a run rather than a one-off.
Keep an eye on the spaces that are still sitting empty. Under a single ownership structure with a tenant base that's clearly willing to bet on the neighborhood, those gaps tend not to stay gaps for long.
If watching Market Street's evolution has you thinking more broadly about what's happening to home values in the neighborhoods around it, or if changes in your own life have you weighing a move within DC Ranch or elsewhere in North Scottsdale, Janet Mohr and the Mohr Group know this community from the inside. Contact us anytime for a grounded, specific read on what's happening here right now.
