Bee Hive of Flavor

By George Fuller

Call it a 19th hole if you will, but Jenna Cordova, director of food & beverage at Lou’s Bar & Grill at Papago Golf Club in Phoenix, will disagree.

“We’re a standalone restaurant that happens to be at a golf course,” she said.

To bolster her point, she shares that more than half of the customers who frequent Lou’s are non-golfers, with even more on weekends.

“We get a lot of young families,” she shared. “Some days there are 75 kids running in the grass behind the patio. We want it to have a backyard feel.”

We visited on a Thursday evening at 5 p.m. Players were just finishing their rounds and dropping in for a beer and some food before heading home, a 120-person fraternal reunion was filing into Evie’s Pavilion adjacent to Lou’s for a sit-down dinner, a musician was strumming guitar and singing on the expansive, dog-friendly patio and servers were buzzing around making sure customers were settled in and happy. In other words, it was a typical Thursday evening at one of Arizona’s most popular courses.

“When you look around this place,” said Papago’s General Manager Daryl Crawford, “it’s like a beehive. There’s so much going on. Our guests view Papago as a community hub where families can enjoy the views and great food while their children participate in our First Tee program or roam the grassy playground area that surrounds the patio.”

Regular Food Done Well

The dinner menu is very approachable. First glance reveals some standard golf course fare: tacos, pizza, burgers, salads. But then your eye shoots to the top right corner of the menu to a section called Lou’s Picks.

“Those are the most popular items,” Cordova said.

These include Lou’s French Dip, fish and chips, porkbraised taquitos, and flaming hot @$$ wings (served with a carton of milk to cool your mouth).

Closer inspection, though, shows that there’s more to the story. The French Dip, for example, is sliced to order prime rib (from Phoenix icon Sterling Foods) on a toasted hoagie roll served with house made au jus. The enchiladas are made with slow-roasted barbacoa dished in a bed of red sauce, red onions, cotija, cilantro and créma.

“The idea of the restaurant when it opened in 2018 was to serve ‘regular’ food,” Cordova said, “but do it really well. Chef Oscar Monroy adds one more layer on top of that philosophy. Chef likes to say he ‘cooks for the whole table.’”

What that means in practice is that if one family member wants something gluten free, there are plenty of choices. Vegan? Yep, there’s an Impossible Burger with nondairy aioli. Even the pizzas have a cauliflower crust and vegan cheese option.

And while we’re talking about Lou’s pizza, it needs to be said that these 14-inch bad boys are truly tempting. The usual suspects include pies topped with pepperoni, cheese, meat lovers and mushrooms. More new-age toppings (with apologies to my New York and New Jersey pizza purist friends) include poached figs with blue cheese crumbles, arugula, and candied walnuts; and pineapple and ham.

Seasonal, Fresh & Creative

The menu changes three or four times a year for seasonality and to add new dishes. One of the newest additions to the current menu is a fried cauliflower appetizer that is paired with curry aioli, pickled Fresno chilis, mint, spiced pumpkin seeds, cotija and olive oil.

“I thought, how could those flavors go together?” Cordova said. “But then I tried it. Somehow, Chef Monroy created something delicious there!”

The 80-strong food & beverage staff also handles catering for weddings of up to 750 people (15-20 per year), special events at Evie’s Pavilion and a variety of gatherings throughout the year such as birthday parties, anniversaries and even celebrations of life.

There’s music on the patio Thursday through Saturday from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m., November through May. On warmer evenings the patio is filled with families, kids and dogs. Fire pits add to the buoyant atmosphere, and on colder evenings heat lamps keep everyone toasty.

“We’re right in the middle of everything,” Cordova said. “The Phoenix Zoo is nearby, as is the airport. The ASU golf teams practice here, Scottsdale is a short drive away. Our golf course and practice range are busy every day.”

In the coming months, Arizona Golf House is scheduled to open right next door to Lou’s. Designed to be “the statewide hub of golf programming, education, recreation and community engagement,” the building will house the new headquarters for AZ GOLF, the Arizona Alliance for Golf and several other organizations and nonprofits whose collective goal is to protect and promote golf.

“We’re all about connections at Papago,” Cordova said, “and Arizona Golf House will only make those connections stronger.”