BLOWING UP ITS MODEL: Sports bar The Roost morphing into steakhouse

Apr 2, 2023

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the roost — The new management team at The Roost Sports Bar & Café is retooling the menu and changing the ambiance of the establishment to a higher-end, sit-down steakhouse. The games are going away. [Bryan Mordt]

Social media comments around town are filled with a recurring theme when it comes to dining: We want an upscale, sit-down restaurant.

The pleas have been heard. An established local eatery, best known as a sports bar, is undergoing substantial changes to address desires long expressed by the Maricopa dining community.

The new management team at The Roost Sports Bar & Café is retooling the menu and changing the ambiance of the establishment to a higher-end, sit-down steakhouse.

“The changes we are going to see here are actually based on what the community has asked of us,” said restaurant manager Charles Norice.

The Roost is becoming a sit-down steakhouse. [Bryan Mordt]

The first change was in hours of operation. The new hours are 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday.

According to Norice, new offerings will include steak, fish and rack of rib.

Some items will stay.

“We will be keeping some oldies but goodies,” Norice said.

“We are changing the ambiance here from where you would go to hang out and party to more of a place where you would bring your family and loved ones,” Norice said.

Other changes include converting to larger tables and creating a new atmosphere — which means goodbye to the sports-bar feel and arcade games. Those changes are expected in April, according to Norice. Upgrades to the restrooms will come this summer.

Ralph Skrzypczak, 43, remains the owner. He moved to Maricopa in 2015 and quickly became a local business owner when he bought the business, then known as O’Shay’s Pub and Grill. It soon was transformed into True Grit, and now The Roost.

Samantha Lipke, the restaurant’s general manager, initially was hired as a bartender in 2018.

The Roost welcomed executive chef Bill Gomez, a Maricopa resident since 2013, in February. Gomez studied and subsequently taught at Central Arizona College’s culinary arts program, and he owns a catering business and food truck.

Norice and Daniel Jimenez are the managers.

Norice, a Navy veteran and former mortgage banker, has experience in the restaurant industry. He joined The Roost in late 2022.

Jimenez, hired in 2021 as a janitor, was trained to be a manager.