By Craig Outhier
Spanning its 12-year history, Summer Cocktail Camp has been a strictly Valley-bound enterprise. PHOENIX magazine has staged camps in upwards of 100 bars and restaurants since 2014 and they’ve all been in Greater Phoenix.
That changes this weekend, when Summer Cocktail Camp heads to Flagstaff for its first-ever high-elevation engagement. It’s not a typical scenario – but, then, Little Rich Girl is no typical cocktail bar.
Conceived by star chef Rochelle Daniel, the speakeasy is located downstairs from Daniel’s celebrated fine-dining restaurant Atria, which recently added a Michelin-recommended accolade to its already stuffed trophy case. To lead the cocktail program, Daniel tapped her business and life partner, Michael Hopper, who serves as general manager, bar director and cocktail whisperer.
Not open until late September, Little Rich Girl represents one of the most illustrious locales in Cocktail Camp history – and Hopper gave us an early glimpse of this weekend’s sneak peek, the final camp of the 2026 series.
Little Rich Girl is an exciting project… an elevated craft cocktail bar in town where beer and rum-and-cokes have traditionally ruled.
That’s true, many of the bars in Flagstaff have catered to college students. Little Rich Girl is going to target a little bit of an older audience.
What will be the “vibe” be like?
We want to create a place where you come, sit down in a luxurious booth or bar stool, and drink handcrafted cocktails with your friends. We have made a cocktail menu that will excite guests to come in before their dinner reservations, and then return after dinner to continue the night. They can even stay all evening and eat the elevated bar menu that Chef Rochelle is curating.
How will the cocktails be distinct from the fine libations at your sister restaurant upstairs?
Atria is a great place to get a drink. The bar team and I have worked hard over the years to create some awesome drinks that many of our guests have come back for. Little Rich Girl is going to take those cocktails a step further. With less seats than Atria, we can focus on crafting cocktails that show more depth and character.
Some of the drinks on the first LRG menu will be my “Greatest Hits” from previous Atria menus, that I’m able to tweak and make better.
Give us a little of your story. Where did you start your career?
I unfortunately started my career in a bartending school in Southern California! There are a lot of mixed feelings about them, which I personally share. It was interesting to say the least.
The best thing that came from it was memorizing a Bible-sized stack of recipe cards. From there, I got hired as a barback at a country bar, [then] got promoted to bartending in their basement bowling alley bar which would receive about five guests a night.
Good place to learn, right? You could take your time.
Later, I moved to Flagstaff and enrolled in the Hotel and Restaurant Management program at NAU. I took my resumes around downtown and the first place I dropped it off called me back after three minutes to interview me. They said they “Loved my vibe” and hired me. Very Flagstaff of them! It was a wine bar… and I knew nothing about wine… where you could make your own blend and bottle it. I left there after a few months and then COVID hit. I was able to secure a bar job at a country club where the front-of-house manager wanted a daily cocktail special. This was the first time I was able to make drinks and play around with different ingredients, which was a great experience. After golf season, I was on the opening team of a sports bar, where the cocktail program was vodka sodas and draft beers. I was also the only guy that worked in the front, so I doubled as the bouncer. There was plenty of work since the bar sits between motels and a truck stop.
Sounds little rougher than Atria.
Yeah, I left that bar and the next day I got a random call to interview at [Flagstaff coffee and cocktail hotspot] Rendezvous, which was the one bar in town I wanted to work at before COVID shut everything down. They were putting together a re-opening team which I became a part of. There I was really able to start exploring crafting cocktails and playing with different ingredients. After about six months I became the manager of the bar and was really enjoying what I was doing. But after the year-and-a-half mark I was getting a little sick of getting home at 4 am, and that’s when Chef Rochelle offered me the chance to manage the bar at Atria. It was absolutely nerve-wracking because I’d never worked in a restaurant before, definitely not one of that caliber. But it opened up a whole new world of cocktail making for me. I was able to learn so many techniques; to do infusions, make syrups, and look at cocktails as an extension of food and the dining experience, rather than just a drink. It’s been about four-and-a-half years and now I’m being given the opportunity to open these new concepts with this team that I love. There is still a lot for me to learn and grow and it is extremely exciting to be a part of.
Hard to choose, we know, but is there a favorite cocktail on the LRG menu?
I created this [one particular] cocktail a couple years ago and named it Sancho. it has been a guest favorite and something I’m super proud of. The drink is a spirit-forward mezcal-tequila cocktail that resembles somewhat a Vieux Carré. However, there’s another cocktail I’ve made that no one has tried yet. It’s a play on a Oaxacan Old Fashion, because agave spirits have become my favorite. I incorporated charred corn and jalapeno into the cocktail and top it with a cold corn cream, which on its own is fantastic. When you come into Little Rich Girl, look for Save Me a Piece of That Corn. Yes, that’s a Nacho Libre reference.
You bet we will. On a different note, winter is coming in Flagstaff… or, at least, fall. What’s your favorite cold-weather cocktail?
It isn’t a cocktail, but Historic Brewing’s Cherry Piehole Porter is what I look forward to when the weather turns up here in Flagstaff. If I was choosing a cocktail to drink on a cold day, I’m going to seek out a hot Irish coffee. Unless I’m in New York, then I’m heading down to The Dead Rabbit and getting their frozen Irish coffee, in which case I don’t care what the temperature outside is.
What should guests expect if they’re coming to Little Rich Girl for Cocktail Camp? Can you name and describe a couple of the cocktails you’ll be serving?
It’ll be the first time anyone has had a sip of alcohol in that bar, which is pretty awesome. We’re excited to see how the bar functions and get a good sense of what we can dial in once we open to the public. I’ve put together a list of cocktails that showcase different styles and techniques while making or prepping the drink. I want the guests that come to have an amazing time, but also learn something new that they can do at home. Save Me a Piece of That Corn will be one of the cocktails [we’ll serve’, and we’re going to finish the experience with a play on a root beer float, to end summer.
