Ted’s Refreshments, the latest concept from Mill Avenue nightlife entrepreneur Julian Wright, opens at 11:06 a.m. today in downtown Tempe.
The self-described Chicago-style dive bar takes over the former Blasted Barley Beer Company, which closed in February, at Hayden Square.
The first 100 guests today will get $50 gift certificates. There will be prizes giveaways all day, along with drink specials and live music.
Wright describes Ted’s as ‘‘more or less a neighborhood watering hole with a little dive bar DNA and some old-school entertainment.’’
It features coin-operated pool tables, a cement shuffleboard court, cheap pitchers of beer, and ‘‘a lot of aged neon beer signs I’ve been collecting,’’ he says.
A streamlined kitchen menu offers a few burgers, hot dogs, and sandwiches, plus Kraft mac ’n’ cheese (‘‘literally out of the box’’) and taco salad.
A daily $5 lunch special includes a hot dog, a shot, and a beer from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday.
Wright rose to prominence in the late 1990s with Mill concepts like the hugely popular The Library Bar & Grill and Jax Thai Bar.
He also launched La Bocca Urban Pizzeria, The Handlebar, and Modern Margarita, but sold all three shortly after opening Pedal Haus Brewery in 2015.
He has one non-Tempe concept: The soon-to-be-rebranded Las Palmas Cantina in downtown Chandler.
Ted’s is open from 11 a.m.-2 a.m. daily.
