Owner confirms restaurant coming to old pawn shop is not ‘fake news’

Duke’s Roadhouse will be Maricopa’s largest restaurant/bar/music venue

A restaurant/bar/music venue is, indeed, headed for Maricopa in the vicinity of the proposed Maricopa Station, as reported last week by InMaricopa.

Despite several parties on social media labeling the initial report “fake news,” a hot-button expression in a politicized world from those eager to bash the news media, the report is true.

Specifically, as reported, a party is in escrow for the old A1 Pawn building, 19395 N. Maricopa Road, with plans to convert it into the city’s largest restaurant/bar/music venue. The deal is expected to close in the coming 10 days.

The buyer is the principal in the popular Nashville-based The Stillery restaurant/bar chain, which has a busy shop in downtown Chandler.

Where miscommunication came into play from the city to InMaricopa was that it isn’t the “Steve” who developed The Stillery concept, Steve Sargent, who is behind it.

It is the “Steve” who is the chain’s principal and handles its business and real estate side, Steve Kovach, a Chandler developer who is branching off on his own for this one-off project in Maricopa, he confirmed Monday.

Sargent, is not involved, Kovach said.

The restaurant, Duke’s Roadhouse, will seat 250 with bar, balcony, patio, large dance floor and a menu broader than that of The Stillery, Kovach said.

With a capacity of 250, it will be roughly double the next-largest restaurant and bar in Maricopa.

No fake news about any of that, Kovach said.

“It will be very similar to The Stillery in operation because that’s what I know, but it isn’t going to be a carbon-copy of The Stillery,” Kovach said. “I didn’t want to saturate Arizona with The Stillery, but this community has such a need for something like this.”

Kovach said after he takes ownership of the building, interior demolition will begin immediately. He is hopeful of an opening in about eight months, or sometime near the first of the year.

“We’re gonna need to hit the ground running. There’s no run up,” Kovach said. “The day the deal closes the architects are on the clock.

“I want to keep it separate from The Stillery. It will be different from The Stillery. It’s Duke’s Roadhouse. The big similarity is live music. It will be country and western, Thursdays through Sundays.”

And the big difference is no pizza. However, Kovach said the broader menu will include such items as green-chili pork, stuffed jalapenos, dry-rub chicken wings, several salads, teriyaki tuna bowl, country-fried chicken sandwich, various pastas, grilled-chicken skillet, barbecue pork ribs, Korean short ribs, Angus burgers, pork chops, eggplant parmesan and meatloaf.

He said he will submit the project to the Maricopa Planning and Zoning Commission as soon as he takes ownership of the building.

Asked if a patron could have dinner and a couple of drinks and escape for less than $50, Kovach responded, “Oh, yeah, I’m a value guy.”

Kovach’s partners in Duke’s Roadhouse are Jim Sampley, a contractor and Kovach’s best friend for 25 years, and Patrick Denney, a family friend who “finds the money,” Kovach said.

Sargent, meanwhile, acknowledged that the initial news report was more a miscommunication than “fake news,” as Sargent posted on Facebook, setting off a social-media firestorm.

“Yeah, I jumped in and I said that because I wasn’t getting a response right away when I asked for the story to be clarified,” Sargent said. “I’m also a little bit of a (son of a gun), which I sometimes need to be.”

Duke’s Roadhouse is the latest proposed in a city whose residents continue to clamor for sit-down restaurant options that are not national chains.

A1 Pawn is moving to Ahwatukee, where it plans to open within two weeks, a spokesman said.