After a corporate career with Jamba Juice – where he worked his way up to an ownership partner – Marcus Gonzales was ready to shift gears and chase his lifelong dream of making great food with his own hands.
“I wanted to do something on my own,” the Queen Creek resident says. “I was jonesing for 15 years. I wanted to do fresh salads and fresh sandwiches. I wanted to go as local as possible without being ridiculous about it.”
The result is GRAZ Kitchen Fresh, which opened last week on the southeast corner of Arizona Avenue and Pecos (map), just off the Loop 202 and less than a mile south of downtown Chandler.
“For lack of a better term, I’d call it a market-fresh concept,” Gonzales says. “Everything you see — from my pasta salads to my fruit bowls to my yogurt cups — I make everything every morning.”
Bread is delivered fresh every day from Jonathan Robins Bakery in Tempe. The house coffee is a proprietary blend from Press Coffee Roasters in Scottsdale.
The 1,100-square-foot strip-mall space, formerly a Quiznos, has a modern industrial decor with a long black chalkboard covering one wall and floors stripped down to gray concrete.
“The best description of me are my floors,” Gonzales says. “They’re industrial, they’re a little worn, and what you see is what you get. There’s nothing special about me. I’m not a chef. I didn’t go to (culinary) school.”
Gonzales sells himself short. Eager to learn more about cooking and the restaurant business, he worked – for free – at several Valley restaurants, most notably the former Bravo Bistro in Scottsdale.
After a full work day as a district manager overseeing five Jamba Juice stores, the father of five children would work a 6 p.m.-to-midnight shift washing dishes at Bravo. After several months, he worked his way up to prep work and, eventually, line cook.
Now he finally has his own small eatery, selling bagels, steel-cut oatmeal ($3.50-$3.99) and egg sandwiches ($7.25) for breakfast, and salads ($7.99) and sandwiches ($6-$8.50, including five types of grilled cheese sandwiches) for lunch.
Sides include kale slaw ($2.60), a healthy and flavorful alternative to regular cole slaw. It’s made with kale, Napa cabbage, green onion, and feta cheese.
A juice bar offers fresh-produce blends and wheatgrass shots made to order.
GRAZ is a dream come true for the south Phoenix native whose grandmother wouldn’t let him help her in the kitchen.
“Picture a short, fat 8-year-old with a pink Easy-Bake Oven, trying to hide from his grandma,” Gonzales says.
But it wasn’t until a stint in the Marine Corps took him overseas that he really was hooked.
“When I had pizza in Rome, it just rocked my world,” he says. “Do you know what I’m talking about?
“It’s that feeling of – I guess you can call it euphoria. You get numb and warm all at the same time.
“I was like, ‘I just want to do this for the rest of my life.’’’
GRAZ Kitchen Fresh is open 6:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Friday and 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday. Closed Sunday.
