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BUZZ<br />
BRINGING IT BACK<br />
By Robert Sentinery<br />
This year’s summer break has kept me land-locked in the desert, working on<br />
a real estate project. Those of you who’ve grown accustomed to my annual<br />
travelogues from far-off places will have to wait till next year, but I’ll make<br />
up for it with something special.<br />
We get back into the swing of things with an article that grooves with a<br />
loungy R&B vibe. Roscoe Taylor is a Phoenix musical staple and a tried-andtrue<br />
entertainer. Taylor held court for many years at Chez Nous, the mecca<br />
of the local lounge scene, until it was abruptly leveled by developers. When<br />
they took away that bastion of old-school class (think tuck-and-roll booths,<br />
flocked fleur-de-lis wallpaper, waterfall behind the bar—and dark, so dark<br />
you couldn’t tell if it was day or night), they ripped a piece of the soul right<br />
out of this city.<br />
The good news is that Tucker Woodbury and the crew at Genuine Concepts<br />
are re-creating that classic lounge vibe at The Womack, which is named<br />
after the founders of Chez Nous. They have hired Roscoe to bring back the<br />
magic every Thursday through Saturday night, so dust off your dancing shoes<br />
(see “Roscoe Taylor: From Chez Nous to The Womack,” p. 12).<br />
Bringing back Phoenix history seems to be a theme these days, and Celine<br />
Rille has been working on some exciting projects that celebrate our city’s<br />
past, while updating them for the future. Rille has always had the eye,<br />
which served her well as photo editor for the Republic for 10 years. When<br />
newspapers started to slow, Rille began to look for other opportunities. She<br />
was part of the team that created the Saguaro Hotel in Scottsdale, somehow<br />
infusing an old-Arizona feel into the cutting-edge design.<br />
She worked on CityScape downtown and later played a key role in branding<br />
the DeSoto Central Market. She had a baby, Otis, and remodeled her midcentury<br />
home, then went to work on the McKinley Club, a co-work space in<br />
Roosevelt Row that she and her husband, Kevin, co-founded. Now they have<br />
acquired Roland’s Market, a truly classic Phoenix building from 1917. While<br />
the neighborhood where it sits (near 15th Street and Van Buren) still has a<br />
ways to go, Celine and Kevin now have a foothold into Phoenix’s future (see<br />
“Celine Rille: Cultivating a City,” p. 8).<br />
Parisa Zahedi also speaks to the future of this city, as a twenty-something<br />
entrepreneur whose online retail store, CURIIOS, is generating quite a<br />
buzz. Zahedi has a degree in fashion design from FIDM in Los Angeles but<br />
is careful to explain that she is selling more of a lifestyle than a specific<br />
product or brand. And what a lifestyle she lives: a peek into her social media<br />
reveals a gal about town who seems to live life to the fullest (see “Parisa<br />
Zahedi: The Brains and Vision Behind CURIIOS,” p. 34).
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