Hayden Road Is Becoming McCormick Ranch's Chef-Run Neighborhood Strip

Three changes have landed on the same short stretch of North Hayden Road through McCormick Ranch since mid-September. Vecina opened on the lake in the old Z'Tejas space. Saint Urban, a few doors north at Via de Ventura, stopped serving the public and now hosts private events only. A mile or so up the road, Matt Carter and Brian Raab are finishing Dash in the former Fired Pie. It's the first new concept in 10 years from the team behind Zinc Bistro, The Mission and Fat Ox.

Each change has its own backstory, but the owners keep using the same word to explain the move. Vecina means "neighbor" in Spanish. Carter says he built Dash's menu around food he wanted to eat in his own neighborhood. The chefs arriving on Hayden Road are designing for the people who live around it.

Vecina picked McCormick Ranch because it reminded the owners of home

Vecina opened in Arcadia in 2019. In 2020, Phoenix New Times named it Best New Restaurant, and it was a James Beard Award semifinalist for Best New Restaurant the same year. Owners James and Raenee Fox opened the second location on Friday, Sept. 18, in the space Z'Tejas left when the chain closed all of its Arizona locations in June 2025. That left the lakeside room dark for about 15 months.

James Fox told New Times why they chose the spot. "It kind of feels like Arcadia," he said of McCormick Ranch. "I think we'll fit in with our neighborhood vibe."

The new room is nearly three times the size of the Arcadia original. It has a lakeside patio, a glass wine room and an oversized community table. The extra space supports two very different nights out. "You can have a date night at Vecina, sit on the patio, it's very chill," James said. "Or can you have a 10- to 14-top at our community table and really go all out." Arcadia regulars will spot a wall of large sunset-colored florals by artist Tato Caraveo, who painted the mural at the original restaurant.

The space has a longer history in the neighborhood than its new tenant. Back in 2020, AZ Big Media described the Z'Tejas patio as having lake views and access to the Indian Bend Wash Greenbelt. The Foxes also kept a tie to the old room. Former Z'Tejas regulars will find a frozen cocktail on the Scottsdale menu that nods to it.

What to order and when to go. The kitchen runs on a mesquite-fired grill. The menu draws from across Latin America and includes a 16-ounce carne asada ribeye and the Faroe Island salmon tacos with yuzu kosho aioli, Cara Cara oranges, grapefruit and pink peppercorns. The larger kitchen lets them do more raw bites, oysters among them, and more from the wood-fired grill. For now Vecina serves dinner only. Experience Scottsdale lists it as open daily from 3 to 9 p.m. The restaurant's own happy hour page lists happy hour daily from 4 to 6 p.m. Lunch and brunch are planned but haven't started. The chef told New Times in September that lunch would come "in the coming months."

Saint Urban's room stays open for private events

Head north from Vecina toward Via de Ventura and you reach the corner where Hayden Road's other change took place. Saint Urban, Christopher Collins's wine bar and brasserie, opened in November 2024 on the northwest corner of Hayden and Via de Ventura. It took over the space where Rockefeller, a seafood-focused restaurant, had closed that July. Saint Urban built its menu on shareable small plates and an all-Arizona craft beer list.

Public service ended on Sept. 27, the last night of Arizona Restaurant Week, as Mouth By Southwest reported. As of Sept. 28, the space became the Saint Urban Private Dining Room, which Collins Catering Collective runs for holiday parties and other private events. The team told the outlet that dates are already booking through the end of 2026 and into 2027.

You can no longer walk in for dinner at 8260 N. Hayden. The room is still there, though, and with holiday-party season coming, a private dining room at the corner of the neighborhood's main shopping center is one fewer reason to drive across town. The McCormick Ranch Property Owners' Association directory lists this address under The Village on Hayden. Vecina's 8300 address belongs to a separate center, Mercado on Hayden, which the directory places at Hayden and Royal Palm.

Dash makes the neighborhood case outright

If Vecina reads as a chef finding a neighborhood that feels like home, Dash is a chef building for the one he lives in. Carter and Raab have run Zinc Bistro, The Mission and Fat Ox for more than 20 years and haven't opened a new concept in the last 10. Phoenix New Times reports that Dash, which opens in November near Hayden and Mountain View roads, ends that pause.

Carter told the paper the location is partly personal. "It really is kind of a mixed bag of what you would expect from a morning, noon and night type space, but it's also all these things that I either wanted to cook for myself or I wanted to eat in my neighborhood," he said.

The plans published so far fit how people use a neighborhood restaurant, with three meals a day and a fallback for nights you don't want to cook:

• Morning: croissants and pastries from Fat Ox pastry chef Lisa Graf, plus breakfast bowls, fresh-squeezed orange juice, matcha and pour-overs. Coffee drinks use house syrups infused with local, seasonal ingredients such as fig leaves and dates.
• Lunch: Carter's business card calls him "Captain Sandwich." He's building a BLT with Nueske's bacon, a salt-cured tomato and a thick slab of iceberg. Deli-style chopped sandwiches, a folded chicken Caesar flatbread, salads, rice bowls and Roman-style pizzas round it out.
• Evening: Portuguese-style chicken from a custom charcoal grill, with charcoal-roasted potatoes.
• Dessert: soft serve made with a dried Hokkaido milk base, plus a vegan version made from fava beans.
• To take home: online ordering, curbside pickup and a market that stocks Dash's own food alongside favorites from the partners' other restaurants, including Zinc's mac-and-cheese, Fat Ox's polenta and The Mission's chips and guacamole.

The seating layout points the same way. The dining room has 12 seats and the patio has 40, so most of the room is outdoors. The bar opens with beer and wine, adds batched cocktails later, and makes its own sodas, including a mushroom-infused cola, a root beer and a ginger-and-grapefruit drink. Raab described the goal in the opening press release, as quoted by New Times:

"This is our most approachable concept to date. I can do tequila shots with you at The Mission and pour Negronis at Fat Ox, but Dash is the ultimate neighborhood hang to grab a morning coffee, catch up over lunch or share a bottle of wine at sunset and then take one home with you."

The partners say they picture it as the kind of local spot where people bring their kids, and those kids come back as adults. The address is 9619 N. Hayden Road, #101, in what the MRPOA directory calls Mountain View Plaza. No exact opening date has been announced. In its Oct. 8 issue, the Forking Scottsdale newsletter said the team was still working toward a late-2026 opening and called Dash one of the openings it was watching most closely as November approached. Check letsgetdash.com for updates.

Breakfast and lunch on the lake, while Hayden catches up

Until Vecina adds lunch and Dash opens its doors, the Hayden Road stretch is mostly a dinner stop. For daytime meals by the water, the two resorts on McCormick Ranch already cover the hours.

At The McCormick Scottsdale, Piñon Grill serves on a lakeside terrace looking over Camelback Lake toward the McDowell Mountains, daily from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. At The Scottsdale Resort & Spa, La Fogata is the Pan-Latin signature restaurant, with weekday breakfast and lunch, dinner every night, weekend brunch and a bar open until midnight. Its new executive chef is Timothy Ralphs. The same resort's café and wine bar, Barnaby's, is open daily from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. and hosts Wine Wednesday from 5 to 8 p.m.

Here's one way to plan a week around all of it:

1. Start a weekday at Barnaby's or on the Piñon Grill terrace, since the Hayden Road spots don't serve mornings yet.
2. Catch Vecina's 4 to 6 p.m. happy hour on the lakeside patio, then stay for the salmon tacos.
3. Bring a group of 10 or more to Vecina's community table instead of booking a long table across town.
4. Book Saint Urban's private room early if you're planning a holiday party for the end of the year.
5. Watch for Dash's opening, then plan on a morning croissant and a takeout chicken dinner from the same counter.

For more of Scottsdale's quieter corners, see our Scottsdale neighborhood guide and our list of hidden gems in Scottsdale.

If you live near Hayden Road and want to know what your home is worth now that a lakeside dinner spot is open and a new neighborhood café is on the way, Jennifer Rogers can prepare a personal home valuation for you.