Wade Moises (center) and Nick Gentry (right) both left Sassi in Scottsdale to open Downtown’s long-awaited PastaBar.

PastaBar
705 N. First St., Phoenix,
602-626-5253
pastabaraz.com

THE DREAM COME TRUE
Wade Moises and Nick Gentry are two restaurant pros who have long wanted to open their own place. They met when Moises was executive chef, and Gentry his sous chef, at Sassi, the high-toned Italian restaurant in north Scottsdale. They quickly became friends.
The two seem like classic opposites. Gentry is a soft-spoken Southerner from a small town outside of Little Rock, Arkansas. As a kid, he worked on his neighbor’s farm, which inspired a passion for food. He started college as a business major, but when his wife got a job at Mayo Clinic, Gentry took a career leap and transferred to Scottsdale Culinary Institute. After that, he completed his business degree while working for Tommy Maggiore, owner of Tomaso Ristorante, and then Michael DeMaria at his now-defunct restaurant, before going to work at Sassi.
Moises, on the other hand, is an edgy, big-city guy who was born and raised in the Oakland area and bounced around in various restaurant jobs until enrolling at the Culinary Institute of America. He did his externship at Mary Elaine’s and headed for New York City. After helping open Monzu, he went to work for Mario Batali at Babbo and Lupa in Manhattan before leaving to head up Sassi’s kitchen.
Moises might have a higher profile, but Gentry brought the investor – his father-in-law – to the table. What the pair shares are friendship, culinary philosophy and common goals. In Gentry’s words, “We are equally committed to success, and our partnership has the necessary components for success.”

Gentry approached Moises with the idea of opening the restaurant in August 2007. They wanted to be part of the emerging Downtown Phoenix scene and began working on a concept.
Gentry left Sassi first, and Moises cheerfully says his partner did most of the grunt work in putting the pieces in place, starting with scouting out a location. The first one he found in December seemed ideal. They started the design work and architectural engineering, but the lease turned out to be unacceptable. It was May 2008 before they signed the lease on the second location, which, of course, entailed re-doing the design and architectural plans.
June was busy. The partners prepared logos and Website material, purchased major equipment, started interviewing contractors and submitted an application for a liquor license. Their retelling of dealing with the city on licensing issues is almost surreal. By now, the press had picked up on the new restaurant, PastaBar, and let diners know it would debut Labor Day weekend.
“In the restaurant business,” Moises says, “you deal with dozens of deadlines a day and you meet them. In this situation, people tell you what you want to hear. We thought the plans would take two months and they took six.” But all the big surprises, such as discovering that a bigger grease trap was required (which meant it had to be re-engineered at a larger cost), seemed to be behind them, and build-out finally started on October 16.
One good thing that came out of the wait was that it gave the partners ample opportunity to fine-tune the concept, perfect the menu, choose the wines and seek out the best local purveyors.
No, the restaurant is not going to be another Sassi. “It’s a simple concept for a reason,” Gentry insists. They are taking a fresh direction with the food, which will feature a half-dozen handmade pastas every day, with meat served as a side dish rather than the main event, and a lot of light, snacking-style selections. The service, they say, will be “crisp-casual.”
Right about the time this magazine hits the newsstands, PastaBar should be opening. Finally.