The newest Cornish Pasty Co. location is finally on track to its grand opening downtown as it moves into the finishing stages of a jerky development process.
The location on Monroe Street, just west of Central Avenue was originally due to make its debut back in the early months of this year. Managers now hope to start doling out pasties, baked pastries filled with meat and vegetables and popular in the United Kingdom, at the start of next year.
Dean Thomas, founder of the restaurant and one of three partners in charge of the downtown Cornish Pasty, explained the delay was a result of the structure of the building in addition to the struggle of earning funding for all the work.
“Once we started digging, opening up cans of worms … the building just wasn’t structurally sound,” Thomas said. “Basically we had somewhat a shell of a building, which we didn’t realize we were getting into.”
The building is an ambitious project, housing not only a restaurant, but several bars and a lounge area with pool tables and couches.
Thomas said it was hard to get funding for the project, since the company has been self-funding the new location with the profits of the other restaurants.
“No one really lends money to restaurants,” Thomas said. With summer as one of their slower seasons, Thomas explained being self-funded has been a time-consuming process but he “can see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
“New Year’s Eve is what we’re aiming for,” Thomas said in reference to a grand opening date. The date isn’t set in stone, but Thomas said it will be this season for sure.
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He said there isn’t very much left to do with the development of the new location — a lot if it is just tidying up and bringing in the furniture.
The new location will have three levels, as well as three kitchens, three bars and a walk-up window for customers on the go to grab their food. Little things like the addition of wallpaper and woodwork have been taken into consideration in order to make the new location stand out from the others.
“We always try and make our locations different,” Thomas said, “We don’t want to be a chain.”
Thomas said he is “pretty confident” with the feedback from customers, and explained how the company receives phone calls daily asking whether the new location is open. Thomas said the delay has made customers doubt it will ever open, but he believes once an official date is announced for the grand opening, it will be “massive” for the company.
Some regulars can’t wait to see what the new location has in store.
“I’d be down there probably the first week it opens up,” Joy Harris, a regular at the Tempe location, said. “I’m super excited to see how it turns out.”
Harris said she hopes the new location will have more pool tables, since her current location only has two.
“I think it has a lot of potential,” Alex Farbod, another regular from Tempe, said. “We’d be down to go down there.”
“A lot of people come here since it’s Tempe; we get the same young people,” Farbod said of the restaurant’s original location. He said he’s looking forward to seeing a new crowd of people come to the downtown Phoenix location.
Contact the reporter at Ashlee.Larrison@asu.edu.
