Cafe Roma in the Arizona Center is undergoing light renovations this winter to shift from a traditional pizza eatery to a sports bar with expanded food and drink offerings.
Owner Dejan Knezevic said changes are being made to draw in more than just conference-goers to the Arizona Center and tap into the growing student population at the nearby Downtown campus.
Renovations are occurring gradually throughout the winter and when finished the restaurant will resemble a “mini Native New Yorker,” Knezevic said.
“Up until now it’s just simply been a serve restaurant,” said Knezevic, who purchased the restaurant in June. “We want to create an atmosphere where people stay a little bit longer, watch the football game.”
Cafe Roma has already installed a large high-seat round table in the middle of the restaurant that Knezevic said can be rented out to a private party and is meant to resemble bar seating. The restaurant will start serving menu items such as pizza sticks and Buffalo wings by the end of December and will be installing beer towers sometime in the next couple of months, Knezevic said.
Knezevic said he hopes the changes will add a jolt to the Arizona Center property that has seen several businesses go out of business and a change of ownership during the recession. Massachusetts-based real-estate investment trust CommonWealth REIT purchased the complex for $136.5 million from General Growth Properties in March.
“I’m hoping to put a little bit of edge in there, wake it up a bit,” Knezevic said. “It’s a nice place, but a little too quiet.”
Cafe Roma will have six to eight beers on draft, a wider selection of bottled beer and will consider adding a limited drink menu to feature cocktails such as margaritas and mimosas, Knezevic said. More televisions are being added to the interior as well as one outside for patio seating, he said.
“I basically took a gamble and said, ‘look, somebody just bought Arizona Center … someone with much deeper pockets thinks it has potential,’” Knezevic said. “I figured if (the recession) is as bad as it gets, I can at least have a positive outlook going forward.”
The changes to Cafe Roma follow the addition of a Corner Bakery to the Arizona Center in October, which has brought increased foot traffic to the development, said Chris Bilotto, general manager of the Arizona Center.
“Corner Bakery has been a great addition to the property,” Bilotto said in an email. “We are excited to expand the offerings at Arizona Center and look forward to the announcement of new retailers in the near future.”
Currently there are no plans to change the name of Cafe Roma but that may be a possibility in the future, Knezevic said.
Contact the reporter at dustin.volz@asu.edu
