One of the Valley’s most ambitious culinary concepts all started with an Ember. Make that Embers. Long before Chef Tandy Peterson opened Tandy’s, her warmly eclectic all-day café and restaurant in the former Binkley’s and The Larder + The Delta space, there was Embers Chocolate, the bean-to-bar passion project she never expected to launch, let alone build into the foundation of her first brick-and-mortar concept. The irony is that Peterson never really imagined having a place of her own, be it a restaurant or a chocolate shop.
Like many young chefs in culinary school, she thought about it from time to time. But once she entered professional kitchens and spent years learning under some of Arizona’s most respected culinary talents, including six formative years with James Beard-nominated chef Kevin Binkley, the reality of ownership felt increasingly distant. “The more I worked in restaurants, the more I realized how much I still had to learn,” said Peterson. “Owning something myself just never felt like a real option.”
By 2020, however, Peterson was making quite a name for herself as chef de cuisine at Mowry & Cotton at The Phoenician. Of course, until COVID-19 hit. “When the resort was essentially shut down, I first moved back to my home state of Wyoming to rest and then—through a friend—connected with an Alaskan hunting outfitter, where I spent several months helping run a hunting camp in the Arctic region of the state,” said Peterson.
While at the camp, she met a gentleman connected to the chocolate world through his niece, a popular chocolatier in Ohio. He casually asked whether Peterson had ever thought about opening one herself. “Hmmm,” Peterson remembered thinking. “Maybe I could do that.” There was only one catch. “I did not want to buy chocolate and melt it into molds,” she said. “I was a savory chef and a scratch cook.” Still, the idea stuck.
Once back in the Valley in late 2020 and back at The Phoenician, curiosity had officially taken hold. While working full-time, she purchased equipment and began studying the art of crafting chocolate. What followed became part obsession, part education. A deep dive into chocolate science led her to Chocolate Alchemy, a specialty supplier and educational resource for chocolate makers. Through the company, Peterson began sourcing ethically vetted cacao beans from around the world while teaching herself how to roast, crack, grind, refine, and temper chocolate from scratch.
Then came the tasting. “There is so much more to chocolate than candy bars,” Peterson said. “Once I started tasting different cacao, I realized how much flavor naturally exists in chocolate itself.” Like coffee beans or wine grapes, cacao reflects its environment. Grown along the equator and shaped by climate, soil, and fermentation, beans from different regions express dramatically different flavor profiles, something Peterson, a self-described coffee fanatic, found endlessly fascinating. “This could be the next craft movement,” she said. “Like craft coffee or craft beer.”
In 2021, she launched Embers, steadily gaining traction through online sales, festivals, and word of mouth, though production remained tucked inside a shared commissary kitchen. “As we continued to grow, I wanted a place people could actually come,” Peterson said. “Somewhere they could taste chocolate, ask questions, and experience it.”
At the same time, Peterson’s career was evolving. After leaving restaurant life, she spent four years working as a private chef for a single family, an experience that unexpectedly reshaped how she thought about food. “You learn what people actually crave,” she said with a laugh. “And it usually is not the bucket list dishes topped with salmon roe and foie gras.” That realization became the blueprint for Tandy’s.
When Peterson stumbled across the former Binkley’s and The Larder + The Delta space in 2025, something clicked. She sold Embers’ assets into the new business and began building the sort of place she personally gravitated toward on days off. “I wanted somewhere I would actually want to hang out,” she said. “I love all-day cafés.”
More specifically, Peterson envisioned a neighborhood gathering place where guests could chill out over coffee, meet friends to graze over snacks, bring grandparents or kids, or stop in multiple times a week without feeling overstuffed or overwhelmed. “It is comfort food,” she said, “but I do not want people to feel terrible after eating it.”
Set inside a converted home, Tandy’s immediately feels personal. Bright white walls meet warm woods. Cookbooks line shelves beside trailing plants. Pastries beckon from the counter most hours of the day, and the open kitchen hums with life. Peterson describes the aesthetic as somewhere between Europe and Sonoma, grounded in hospitality.
Breakfast tends to be the lightest menu of the day, but it is never boring. Avocado toast is piled with goat cheese, crispy kale, chili crunch, sunny-side up egg, and, in a delightfully unexpected twist, sauerkraut! The quiche is a similar sensation thanks to its silky custard and smoky bacon filling.
Lunch keeps things fresh with salads before pivoting to deeply craveable sandwiches paired with crisp, golden beef tallow fries, fried the old-fashioned way for maximum flavor.
Dinner is a true standout. Meatloaf remains a permanent menu fixture, as does pork shank, but Peterson lights up talking about the trout, a dish quietly beloved by staff. Finished with lemon brown butter and paired with herb- and cherry-infused rice, it is equal parts comforting and unexpected.
Cocktails, naturally, mirror the same playful spirit. There is an Elote Margarita, a floral-forward 5 Cs Clover Club, and a chocolate-infused Negroni that subtly tips its hat to Peterson’s cacao-infused culinary love—a theme that runs through other areas of the food and drink menus.
And then, of course, there is Embers, now fully integrated into Tandy’s. Guests can belly up to a chocolate bar, sample single-origin chocolates, and learn how chocolate is made while watching production happen in real time. For Peterson, who once believed owning a restaurant might never be an option, the journey feels especially full circle.
written by: alison bailin batz
photographed by: luke irvin
𖡡 2320 east osborn road, phoenix, arizona 85016
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