FOOD & WINE
Mike Anderson and chef Robert Eckhardt opened Dad’s Modern Cocktails & Eatery in January and have impressed diners with menu options including the chicken sandwich, brick oven pizzas and signature cocktails. (David Minton/Staff Photographer)
Creating
A LEGACY
Dad’s aims to build a brand with cocktails and cuisine
R
By Alex Gallagher obert Eckhardt has helped several restaurants find success, but he still felt unsatisfied. So, in early 2021, Eckhardt unveiled Dad’s Pizza Co., evolving from a stand inside OdySea Aquarium to a full-service restaurant and cocktail bar near Scottsdale Road and Shea Boulevard in January 2022. “I just didn’t want to go back to work for somebody else’s shop,” Eckhardt says. “I’d helped multiple restaurants get up and running and then they’d move on to the next guy. When my son was born, hence the name ‘Dad’s,’ I decided to do it for myself. “To have a restaurant and to know that my son can see me grow up and grow with this restaurant is pretty cool to me.”
The perfect spot
After a year of serving pies inside the aquarium, Eckhardt searched for a spot to call his own. “We probably looked at about 14 or 15 different locations before we settled on this one, which was originally the home of Fate Brewing Co.,” Eckhardt says. “Fate” was written on the building, but Eckhardt found a stronger calling. “We’ve always wanted something a little bit more intimate Dad’s Modern Cocktails & Eatery’s mixoloand smaller scale, and when gists educate customers about pairing drinks we saw this spot, we thought, with their meals and the use of house-made ‘That’s Dad’s,’” he says. syrups. (David Minton/Staff Photographer) After moving in on December “I called Mike and said, ‘You’ve got to 15, Eckhardt says he realized he needed a hand with the bar at the new Dad’s come to do it with us,’” Eckhardt recalls. “We needed the front of the house to do Modern Cocktails & Eatery. He called upon 30-year industry veteran the cocktails. I can cook things in the back, and former co-worker Mike Anderson to but when it comes to cocktails, I don’t do cocktails. That’s where Mike came into the run the bar and front of house.
26 / SCOTTSDALE AIRPARK NEWS / JULY 2022
