Steadfast Diner

Best New Restaurants in Phoenix, Arizona, Spring 2025 | Eater Phoenix

"This restored 1960s-era Valentine Diner — a prefab model once sold by mail order after the Great Depression — now glows bright red in the middle of far East Mesa’s Eastmark development. It’s a striking sight amid rows of beige stucco, but what’s happening inside is even more compelling. Steadfast Farm owners Erich and Yvonne Schultz tapped former farmhand and James Beard nominee Derek Christensen to run the kitchen; the results are rooted — literally — in the land just steps away. Microgreens come from the farm out back, beef is sourced from Capitol Farms in Wickenburg, and the menu balances comfort with precision: a sublimely dialed-in pastrami double cheeseburger with griddled onions, homemade pickles, house-cured pastrami, and a Thousand-island-adjacent Steadfast sauce, plus salads anchored by whatever’s fresh that week. A neighboring Steadfast coffee shop and market rounds things out, selling produce and flowers grown on-site." - McConnell Quinn