SCOTTSDALE, AZ — Attention breakfast lovers in the northeast Valley -- Matt's Big Breakfast is coming to you!
The popular Phoenix and "Diners Drive-ins and Dives"-famous breakfast restaurant revealed its plans last week to open another location -- its fifth restaurant in the Valley -- on the southwest corner of Scottsdale and Thunderbird roads in Scottsdale, just south of Kierland Commons and the Scottsdale Quarter.
"The response, especially from people in Scottsdale, has been great," said Matt Pool, the "Matt" in Matt's Big Breakfast, who owns the restaurant with his wife. "I think it was kind of a surprise. I don’t think people knew we were looking for a place in Scottsdale so that part is kind of fun."
It will be the local chain's first franchised location.
Aside from design differences to match the Scottsdale community, Pool said "[the restaurant] will have the exact same menu. The exact same ingredients. Nothing will be different at all that way." It will have indoor and outdoor dining, an outdoor patio, misters and heaters.
Like the Tempe and Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport locations, the Scottsdale location will serve alcohol.
"We want people to feel familiar. We don’t want you to feel like you’re not in a Matt’s Big Breakfast," he said. "I personally don’t like when I go to places and it kind of feels like a cookie-cutter version of their other locations. All the furniture is the same. The branding is exactly the same in the same places. We want each location to have a unique design but that's still cohesive with our brand. We haven’t decided yet how to personalize it to Scottsdale."
The lease was finalized last month, he said.
The first Matt's restaurant opened in 2004 inside an 800-square-foot building in central Phoenix. It was there he was visited by Food Network's "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives." In 2012, he relocated that restaurant a half-block away into a larger space. Other locations have opened at Tempe's Marina Heights, Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, and at the Biltmore Plaza shopping center.
Over the years, Pool said he has received many requests from people across the Valley want him to open a restaurant near them. The top requested spots: Scottsdale, Gilbert and the northwest Valley.
And he is open to expanding further.
"Yeah, for sure," he said. "We kind of grow slowly. We’re a mom and pop, but we’re a little bigger than we used to be. It’s still my wife and I running the business."
"Our goal is to new North Scottsdale up and running in a home run before we go on and open something else. We’ll be devoting 100% of our time and our team’s time along with our franchise partner to make sure Scottsdale every bit as successful as our other spots," he said.
He hopes to open in the fall, possibly late October, but between permits, construction, and unexpected delays that tend to accompany construction projects, that timeline could shift.
