Scottsdale nightclub Hi-Fi coming to downtown Tucson
Scottsdale nightclub impresario Les Corieri is bringing his latest concept to downtown Tucson.
Corieri will open Hi-Fi Kitchen and Cocktails in a 6,150-square-foot space — 8,000 square feet when you add in the patio — at 345 E. Congress St., on the street level of the downtown Plaza Centro Garage. He expects to be open in six weeks, he said Tuesday.
Hi-Fi, which Corieri and his Evening Entertainment Group partner/wife Diane Corieri opened in Scottsdale last March, features a $250,000 state-of-the-art big-screen digital graffiti system that flashes morphing 3-D images.
“We blew people’s minds because what we have created has never been done. It hasn’t even been done in Las Vegas,” Les Corieri said. “It soon will be when they figure out the technology.”
The digital graffiti, projected onto a trio of 20-inch screens set up on a 50-foot wall using three high-tech digital projectors, will go on after 10 nightly. During the day, Hi-Fi will split its personality between cozy, warm restaurant/bar serving scratch-made twists on comfort food classics — a pretzel roll substitutes for rye bread in the Reuben; meatballs cozy up to mac and cheese; and a sunny-side-up egg tops a burger — to evening sports bar with 35 55-inch TVs and a trio of 20-foot screens blasting everything from football to boxing and baseball.
“At night, 10 o’clock, 11 o’clock, that customer is looking for something that’s exciting, something that draws your attention and makes you feel like you have energy, so to speak,” Corieri said. “And this (digital graffiti) wall creates more energy than any light show in Las Vegas.”
Tucson Realty and Trust CEO Hank Amos, who has a summer home near Corieri’s in Idaho, said he has been trying for 15 years to get his friend to open a club in Tucson. Corieri said until now he hasn’t felt that the timing was right or the town was ready.
“But when we came up with the Hi-Fi concept, I said, ‘This can work. This will work in any city that we take it to,’ ” he said.
“It’s a big deal. … They are literally the tops of what they do,” said Amos, who brokered the Tucson deal for Corieri with his colleague Pat Darcy. “He’s created a nightlife in Scottsdale … and made all that energy.”
Tucson developer Jim Campbell, who is developing the retail portion of The Cadence student housing complex downtown and the Plaza Centro Garage across the street, said Corieri signed a seven-year lease in December with options for 14 additional years.
continue reading Arizona Daily Star article by Cathalena Burch