Hanny's restores style to downtown

Hanny's (Credit: Michael McNamara/azcentral.com)

Restaurants in downtown Phoenix usually have to win over fans.

Often they're small, independent nightspots—artsy bars and restaurants tucked into historical homes, or slick nightclubs retrofitted into old brick buildings.

But when Hanny's the restaurant moved into the old Hanny's department store on the corner of First and Adams streets, it represented the first destination restaurant to open downtown. It's near Sky Lounge, Bar Smith, PHX Nightclub and Majerle's Sports Grill, among others.

Everyone—from foodies to nightlife insiders to neighborhood residents—has been waiting for Karl Kopp to open Hanny's. The owner of Scottsdale's ever-fashionable AZ88 originally announced plans three years ago. Almost two years after the first proposed opening date, the soft opening was the first week of November.

After coding struggles, rehab setbacks and design adjustments, the space is now a stark, modernist take on midcentury design—all concrete and leather and glass. With vaulted ceilings, an undulating second-story balcony and lower walls of plate glass on two sides, it is designed to show off the patrons within, just as clothing fashions once were.

"I like things where the people are the decor," said Kopp, who also owns Elsa's on the Park (named for his mother) in Milwaukee, and Bar 89 in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood. (Bar 89 won a James Beard restaurant-design award and a New York Landmarks Preservation Commission award, both in 1996, for its interior design.)

"Every night, there's a new show  . . .  because the people change," Kopp said.

With that attitude and the help of Janis Leonard of Scottsdale's Janis Leonard Design Associates, the new space is as clever as AZ88, for which Leonard does seasonal art installations.

The bathrooms are even more buzz-worthy than the neon ones people gossip about in Old Town, and everything from the purple-leather tongue couches (yes, tongues) to the glass-topped elevator shaft is more idiosyncratic than what Kopp has done previously in Arizona. Some of the staff are familiar from the Scottsdale restaurant, but the menu of cracker-crust pizzas, sandwiches and wine is distinct.

"It's a good addition," said landscape architect Jeff Lothner, 27, of Phoenix, who recently was having pizza and wine with a friend at one of the über-private rectangular booths upstairs. "They're trying to bring a different crowd than what's already downtown."

The building

Built in 1947, this branch of the Hanny's department stores was a go-to place for Valley residents looking for sophisticated men's fashions until it was closed in 1986 because of the failed Square One project. The last of eight locations closed in 1994.

Grady Gammage Jr. is Kopp's attorney and remembers when people used to shop in Hanny's on their lunch hour. He talks about buying a particularly stylish suit from the store in 1978, as a young attorney. It was faux denim, with epaulets and wide lapels.

"It's not a look I'd be willing to try now," Gammage joked.

Although the fashions Hanny's once sold have, indeed, become passe, the building has not. In fact, the distinctive concrete structure is an International Style building and is architecturally significant, with curves and bands of windows, according to Debbie Abele, a Phoenix historical-preservation officer from 1989 to 1998.

It is also historically significant because, at the time, it was a state-of-the-art retail space, said Abele, who consulted on the renovations. It has now undergone a $5 million face lift.

After Hanny's closed, the building was repeatedly set afire for the training of  city firefighters. Then some city officials agitated to raze the building, but because the city had bought it with federal funds, it could not be torn down.

Meanwhile, Kopp owned a downtown building that he wanted to use for a restaurant, but Phoenix wanted it for part of Arizona State University's downtown campus. So the city swapped buildings with Kopp and gave him nearly $370,000 in preservation funds to repair the roof. Still, the Hanny's building had no plumbing or electricity, and it bore the scars and stains of fire damage and neglect.

The rebirth

On the outside, Hanny's looks much as it once did. The building is still a nondescript beige, and the flecked red and manila stone composite sign is still set into the sidewalk along First Street.

Peeking into the corner window, passers-by could mistake the restaurant as being still under construction. Leonard has left unfinished and rough the concrete wall that once backed the display windows. But the others are filled with low, supple-leather couches on which patrons can serve as living, cocktailing mannequins.

Inside, Leonard has refurbished the original antique world maps that hung at  the top of the store's south wall. On the upper north wall, a restored sign advertises designer labels, including Christian Dior, Polo and Nino Cerruti.

The sign for menswear designers Hart Schaffner and Marx is missing Schaffner's first "f." It's been like that "forever," according to Kopp, and he didn't think he should be the one to replace it.

But the rest of the 250-seat restaurant is sharp and minimalist. Concrete and greige-painted walls make the space feel austere, and the servers wear white, cropped coats that look vaguely pharmaceutical. Managers don white dress shirts with platinum silk ties. A glossy, cherry-colored Berkel meat slicer dominates the square, steel-topped bar, the lone spot of color in the room.

But everyone will be talking about two things: the empty elevator shaft that has been finished with mirrors on the floor one story below and the ceiling three stories above the main dining room. Guests stand on a see-through floor and clearly are delighted by the resulting  feeling of vertigo, judging by the constant shrieks and laughter. They then grab friends, having  them stand there, peering at the soles of their shoes reflected from a story below.

Also, upstairs, guests walk through an angled hallway of mirrors to get to a white room, lit red and blue, and featuring doors without knobs. One is marked for men and two are unisex; the rest are unlabeled, leaving users to infer that inside the periwinkle-tiled rooms are mirrors, toilets and sinks.

There are countless other clever touches, including a beauty hallway, but most people will really come here to eat and drink. For them, there's a 27-bottle wine list, with by-the-glass offerings priced from $7 to $11, and bottles from $35 to $99. Smaller pours and 12 cocktails have smaller prices - $5 to $10. Petite pizzas dominate the brief food menu, starting at $9 and going up depending on the number and type of toppings. Or you can order one of four salads or four sandwiches.

Shannon Bryant, 45, lives in La Hacienda Historic District in Phoenix and for years has been hearing from the lawyers in her downtown office about how they used to shop for suits at Hanny's. And for three years, she has been peering through the windows on her lunch breaks.

Now, on a recent Friday night, she was at the bar for the second time that week.

"I think it's wonderful," Bryant said. "It's really going to take off. Everyone at the office is already talking about that elevator shaft."

azcentral.com reporters Jahna Berry and Richard Ruelas contributed to this article.