with excitement and humility, we begin to re-open Indian gardens.
“Never let your memories be larger than your dreams.” -unknown author
If you’d asked us 10 years, 1 year or even 4 months ago if we would ever have the opportunity to be the owners of indian gardens, we would have most certainly said, “your crazy!”
However, we’d also had said it would be a dream come true.
Fast forward to today. As 2020 (finally) comes to a close and 2021 approaches, we find ourselves with the keys, working 12-16 hour days and incredibly excited to invite the public back to IG under new ownership.
over the past 9 years, there was no other place we loved to visit after a sedona hike, run or bike ride more than IG. We are sure many of you feel the same way. amongst all the other setbacks and irregularities of 2020, not stopping at ig as we head up 89a to flagstaff left the day feeling a little empty. it’s been a long year and we hope the news that ig is remaining in local hands and with owners that aren’t looking to change this place, only improve on what has been built, will be met as a silver lining to an emotional year.
With a big dose of humility and desire to keep ig a beloved place, we’ve been digging into the work ahead. Touching up paint, deep-cleaning, menu development, staffing and ideation on how to continue to make this a community hub of oak creek canyon.
we are grateful to be following in the footsteps of daniel and monica garland. they created a destination for those traveling through the canyon and the cafe and market we know of today. we look forward to continuing to be the stewards of this location, keeping it a destination that locals love to frequent and to recommend.
What can you expect?
our renovations will be minimal. you’ll still find great coffee from free form coffee. we plan to make all our pastries in house and we’ll have loaves of bread baked daily. we’ll introduce our house-made soft-serve ice cream as a special treat, especially on those warm summer days in the canyon.the market aspect of ig will continue, including beer & wine and provisions for creek visits, picnics or those must have items you may want without wanting to travel into sedona. at opening we’ll be offering breakfast and lunch with hopes to expand to dinner sometime in 2021.
on many people’s mind is what the menu will be like? will i still find my favorite item? will there be pizza? we don’t have all those answers for you yet but we are working on a fresh menu for ig. the format will be similar with about 9 breakfast and 9 lunch mains. we are excited that alex barkley, who has extensive experience as a chef in the seattle area, will be running our kitchen. alex is incredibly talented and his food consistently pleases our palates. we think you’ll feel the same way.
and what about pizza?
as many of you know, our two other restaurants (Pizzicletta) in flagstaff serve neapolitan pizza. while pizza has always been the main item we served, our real mission was to create unique memories for our guests and that mission has never changed. so at ig, we’ve decided to let alex’s cooking shine and not offer pizza. put simply, at ig we believe there is much more potential than just pizza and we look forward to proving it to you as we continue to find ways to make your experience memorable beyond the food. and don’t worry, we promise the food will be delicious.
so when can you expect us to open?
we have our work ahead of us but are anticipating an opening in january 2021. staffing will be one of our biggest hurdles and if you have interest in working with us send us an email at eat@indiangardens.com
we’ll be working 3-4 days a week at ig in the coming month before opening. if you are in the area feel free to stop in and hopefully we are available to introduce ourselves.
we look forward to seeing you back at ig, creating memories for you and your loved ones.