In 2014, Jeff Mastro and his brother, Mike, embarked on a brainstorming tour of elite East Coast steakhouses. It had been seven years since the Mastro family sold its namesake chain of high-end restaurants, and the non-compete clause that prohibited them from launching new ventures was off the books. Consequently, the siblings were looking for inspiration to take back home to Arizona. What they discovered, though, was that there was something missing from the stuffy, aging steakhouse template. “We just decided that there’s a whole set of people out there that want to have that great upscale steakhouse dining experience, but in a little bit of a more modern venue,” Jeff Mastro says. “That’s what we did.” Mastro sat down with PHOENIX magazine to chat about what makes a good restaurant tick.
