If you've scrolled local news in the last few months, you've seen the headlines. A steakhouse from the team behind St. Elmo is opening this month. A beloved Arcadia tavern is moving in. An upscale Mediterranean spot from Old Town Scottsdale is expanding. All of it under one three-letter banner: PV.
If you live in the actual Town of Paradise Valley, you've probably had the same reaction I have watching this unfold. A quiet double take, followed by a Google Maps search, followed by the realization that none of it is anywhere near you.
Two Places, One Name
"PV" is the rebrand of the old Paradise Valley Mall, the enclosed shopping center that anchored the corner of Cactus Road and Tatum Boulevard from 1979 until its demolition in 2022. The site sits in what the City of Phoenix calls the Paradise Valley Village planning district, an administrative name for a chunk of northeast Phoenix that includes Paradise Valley Mall, Paradise Valley Community College, and Paradise Valley High School. All of it carries the name. None of it is in the incorporated Town of Paradise Valley, which sits several miles south, tucked between Camelback and Mummy Mountains, with its own mayor, its own zoning code, and its own zip code of 85253.
It's an easy mix-up, and not a new one. The mall borrowed the name of the surrounding valley when it opened, the same way the college and the high school did. The actual town incorporated decades earlier, in 1961, specifically so it wouldn't get folded into Phoenix or Scottsdale as those cities expanded. Two places ended up sharing a name they never coordinated on, and now one of them is having a $2 billion moment while the other one just quietly goes about its evening.
Here's the split, side by side:
| "PV" (the redevelopment) | Town of Paradise Valley | |
|---|---|---|
| Location | Cactus Rd & Tatum Blvd, Phoenix | Between Camelback & Mummy Mountains |
| Zip code | 85032 | 85253 |
| Governed by | City of Phoenix | Town of Paradise Valley |
| What's there | 100-acre mixed-use retail and apartment district | Resort-anchored dining, low-density residential |
What's Actually Opening at "PV"
None of this is a knock on the redevelopment itself. It's a legitimately big deal for that corner of Phoenix, and the restaurant lineup is worth knowing about if you're willing to drive for it. Harry & Izzy's, the Indianapolis-born steakhouse from the same hospitality group behind the historic St. Elmo Steak House, opens August 26 at the site, its first location outside Indiana. The Vig, the Arcadia neighborhood tavern that's been pouring drinks for close to twenty years, is bringing its eighth Valley location there, with a design built around adobe brick and a semi-private desert garden. Cala, the upscale Mediterranean restaurant that made its name inside Scottsdale's Senna House Hotel, is opening a second location. Velvet Taco, Too Sweet Cakes, and a handful of others round out a lineup that's grown past a dozen restaurants and shops since the first ones opened in fall 2024.
If any of that sounds appealing, it's a real destination. Just don't expect a five-minute drive to get there if you live inside the actual town limits. It's a trip north, not a walk down Lincoln Drive.
What's Actually on Your Table in Paradise Valley
The town itself never lost its dining scene while all of this was happening elsewhere. It just never needed a rebrand, because it's been running on the same resort-anchored model for decades, some of it for nearly a century.
El Chorro has been serving Paradise Valley since 1937, when a one-room schoolhouse built for the daughters of Camelback Inn's founder turned into a watering hole for thirsty guests who didn't yet have alcohol service at the inn itself. It's changed hands a few times since, most recently in 2021 when Grossman Company Properties and Marc & Rose Hospitality took it over, but the sticky buns and the Camelback Mountain views out back are still the draw.
A few minutes away at the JW Marriott Camelback Inn, Lincoln Steakhouse & Bar is worth knowing about for a more practical reason: as of this year, it's running a reduced schedule of four nights a week rather than a full week of service. If you're planning around it, that's the kind of detail that only shows up once you've actually tried to book a table, not on a resort's marketing page.
The rest of the resort corridor rounds out the picture. Sanctuary Camelback Mountain has elements, the restaurant helmed by Food Network chef Beau MacMillan. Mountain Shadows has Hearth '61 and Rusty's. The Hermosa Inn has Lon's. Montelucia has Prado and Crave Cafe. None of these are chasing a rebrand or announcing a dozen new tenants at once. They're just open, night after night, doing what they've done for years.
Why the Confusion Keeps Happening
Part of the reason this mix-up persists is that the naming problem isn't unique to the mall. Paradise Valley Community College and Paradise Valley High School both sit well north of the town too, both administered through Phoenix and the Paradise Valley Unified School District rather than anything connected to the town government. Even the district's own boundaries stop a few miles north of the actual town line. If you've lived here a while, you've probably had to explain this distinction to an out-of-town friend or a new neighbor at least once. If you're newer to the area, it's worth having the map straight now, before the next round of "have you heard about PV" conversations starts.
The upside of all this naming overlap is that it's easy to sort out once you know what to look for. Anything at Cactus and Tatum, in a 85032 zip code, filed through the City of Phoenix, is part of the redevelopment. Anything between Camelback and Mummy Mountains, in 85253, filed through the Town of Paradise Valley, is the actual town you live in. The Town of Paradise Valley's own dining page is a good bookmark if you want the current, official list without wading through search results that blur the two together.
The Takeaway
None of this changes where you'll actually eat dinner tonight. If you're in the mood for a new steakhouse experience and don't mind the drive, Harry & Izzy's opens in a couple of weeks and it's genuinely one of the more talked-about openings in the Valley this year. If you'd rather stay close to home, El Chorro's patio and Camelback Mountain will be exactly where they've always been, sticky buns included.
What's worth holding onto is the map in your head. Paradise Valley the town and PV the redevelopment share three letters and not much else. One has a mayor and a zoning code that's kept it low-density and quiet for over sixty years. The other has a Whole Foods, an apartment building with a rooftop pool, and a steakhouse opening twelve days from now. Knowing which one you actually live in makes the next round of restaurant buzz a lot easier to sort through.
If you're weighing a move within Paradise Valley or trying to make sense of how a specific street or resort corridor fits into the town's broader character, that's exactly the kind of on-the-ground context The Cryb Collective works through with clients every day. Let's Connect.
