Grille 109 rebrands as Arroyo Grille

Grille 109 at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes Golf Club is now Arroyo Grille, and the name isn’t all that’s changed.

“The old name was inspired by the golf course having 109 bunkers, but we redid the course, so now it doesn’t have 109 bunkers anymore,” General Manager Brady Wilson said. “It was hard for people to make the connection to that name, so we figured this was a great time to rebrand the restaurant.”

Wanting to connect the popular eatery’s new name to the Ak-Chin Indian Community, which owns the golf club and restaurant, Wilson and his team searched for a meaningful and easy-to-pronounce name. Unfortunately, that wasn’t in the cards.

“We started looking up what Ak-Chin translates to in English, and we found two different translations,” Wilson said. “The more general one is ‘the mouth of the arroyo,’ while the literal translation is ‘where the water loses itself in the sand.’”

Wilson and his team went with “the mouth of the arroyo” and rebranded the restaurant as Arroyo Grille.

The new logo for Arroyo Grille was also used to help connect Ak-Chin’s with Maricopa’s histories, as it uses common Ak-Chin symbols for water, arrows and the sun instead of focusing on a golf theme.

“We really wanted to tie everything back into the Ak-Chin community and history with this,” Wilson said. “We’re actually going to have some of the Ak-Chin elders make baskets for us to use as decoration on the walls.”

Wilson said the rebranding also added eight high-definition television sets, a new beer tap and new menu items, including modern twists on Ak-Chin’s classic fry bread.

"Everything from the televisions to the name change and the new menu items, it’s all just a refresh over here for the restaurant,” Wilson said.