Retail Corridor: Native New Yorker plans 2nd Chandler outlet

Native New Yorker, a Gilbert-based restaurant chain serving everything from hot dogs to hoagies, is bringing more East Coast charm to Chandler. Company officials submitted preliminary plans for a restaurant in the Mill Crossing shopping center at Gilbert and Germann roads.

The chain already has a restaurant in Chandler on Alma School Road, north of Chandler Heights Road.

Don't expect the new eatery to open anytime soon, though. Construction work on the 17-acre Mill Crossing isn't set for completion before early 2009.

KONA GRILL AT SANTAN

Kona Grill, a restaurant chain serving sushi and Japanese fare, recently opened at SanTan Village 10 years after the chain was founded in Scottsdale.

The company has 19 restaurants nationwide and three in the Valley, including outlets in Chandler and Scottsdale.

AT&T PLUGS IN

Speaking of SanTan Village, an AT&T Wireless store will mark its grand opening July 11 at shopping center at Williams Field Road and Loop 202 in Gilbert.

The store will offer cell phones, accessories and calling plans.

MORE 'DO'S' FOR MESA

Adorn Style Lounge is a new salon on the north side of Main Street between Country Club Drive and Center Street. The salon is also a retail shop selling art work, clothing and accessories like jewelry and candles.

Melinda Mullen, Adorn Style's owner and a hair stylist for 17 years, said she opened the shop to express her other creative energies.

SANDBAR ADDS SITE

Sandbar Mexican Grill, a combination restaurant, tequila bar and night club with a big customer following, is expanding with a third location in Chandler.

The new restaurant is planned on Ray Road, east of 54th Street. James Devine, general manger of the Sandbar in Paradise Valley, said restaurant officials hope to open by February.

Sandbar has dancing, DJs and live music, but doesn't enforce a dress code, which Devine said appeals to people who want to hit the town without having to wear their church clothes. "If you looking for a casual atmosphere we're definitely it," he said.

GETTING IN SWIM

Arizona Ocean, a store catering to aquarium fish lovers, opened for business on the north side of Eighth Street between Dorsey Lane and McClintock Drive in Tempe. The store sells tropical fish, aquariums, coral and other supplies.

FASHION SQUARE PREPARING FOR NEW STORES

The top floor of the Nordstrom wing of Scottsdale Fashion Square has a new look.

The "Gammage wall," the lavish collection of ads for the Arizona State University theater's Broadway series, leaped from the east to the west wall of the wing to make room for A/X Armani, which is still under construction and scheduled to open in August.

Architecture Kids, the elaborate children's playhouse maker and marketer that set up shop in the middle of the wing near the kid's focused shops like Babystyle and Disney, has moved its lavish floor and wall display out of the mall to concentrate on more commercial aspects of the business.

In that vein, the company will come back to make over Fashion Square's play area, said mall general manager Steve Helm.

COMINGS AND GOINGS

The long-awaited Puma shop is scheduled to open Tuesday at Fashion Square.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art store, which had only been in the mall for a year, closed this week. It was the only Arizona version of the store, but you can still shop for the museum's treasures online.

Not leaving Fashion Square for a while are the Days Inn, Desert Stages children's theater and Coco's restaurant, Helm said.

All three are on mall property pegged eventually for a new mixed-use development. But Westcor just extended the three leases through the end of 2009 because detailed plans for the site are still in limbo, Helm said.

PIZZA PLACE

A few miles north of the mall, a new pizza restaurant has already made its debut.

Fired up Pizza and Wine serves up fire-baked pies from a family's 50-year-old crust recipe, salads with a 75-year-old family recipe salad dressing and 60 different wines - we don't think the family cooked those up. The restaurant is at 7337 E. Shea Blvd., near the southeast corner of Scottsdale Road and Shea.

STORE IT

We finally got a date for the much-anticipated Container Store's local debut.

The company plans to open its first Arizona location Sept. 13 at the southwest corner of Scottsdale Road and Mayo Boulevard.

The 23,000-square-foot store with its 10,000 products will move in next door to Whole Foods, and it will need 75 people to run the place, spokeswoman Audrey Robertson said.

The company will start on-site recruiting in mid-July, but is currently accepting applications online at www.containerstore.com/careers.

It will be the 44th store for the company, which "originated the category 30 years ago," Robertson said.

It is the only Arizona store planned at this time.