When Executive Chef Angy Dykstra talks about Hearsay Social Kitchen, she stresses her staff’s commitment to its community. That, particularly, is true with Hearsay’s Esplanade neighbors.
“I want to make it the place to go,” Dykstra said. “It’s a gorgeous space. This year we’re hoping to do a lot of holiday parties because people are next to us. They just have to come down with their group and enjoy. We’ve put together a really nice holiday menu to host receptions or elevate it. We can do plated dinners, too.”
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Hearsay opened in January as part of Episcope Hospitality, the group led by David Morton, which is expanding his Chicago‑rooted portfolio into the Phoenix market. The concept is intentionally flexible: a daytime café for nearby office towers, a polished lunch-and-dinner spot for locals, and a venue for receptions, plated dinners, and the kind of social events that make a restaurant feel like a community hub. Catering to the local workforce, Hearsay is open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Hearsay’s menu reads modern American with tuna bowls, turkey burgers, rotisserie chicken, and a ribeye at night. One of the restaurant’s most popular dishes is the crispy rice bites, topped with ahi tuna, avocado, jalapeño and sriracha aioli. Another favorite: the jalapeño cornbread skillet, lightened with crème fraîche and finished tableside with local mesquite honey.
Dykstra’s path to the kitchen wasn’t linear. She spent 15 years in the front of house — server, trainer, big steakhouse veteran — before deciding in her mid‑30s to start over.
“I hurried and went to culinary school,” she said. “Then, I started at the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown as an entry-level pantry cook.” A pantry cook is a professional kitchen worker who prepares cold food dishes.
At the hotel, she made $10.50 an hour and, as she puts it, was “the oldest one there.”
She climbed quickly, eventually overseeing five outlets as executive sous chef before joining Hearsay last November. The move felt like a natural next chapter.
“I’ve always known restaurants,” she said. “I was done with front of house. I thought, ‘What do I do now? I guess I’m going back to the house. I flipped, though.”
Originally from Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks region, she moved to Arizona on a whim — fleeing winter with a friend, intending to stay only a season. “Now it’s been 30 years,” she said, laughing. “I never went back.”
Hearsay’s team is leaning into its identity as a “social kitchen,” a place where office workers, locals and event‑goers can all find their place. They’ve refreshed the bar, expanded catering, and begun hosting creative events, including a paint‑and‑sip night in their listening room, where guests paint vinyl records while sipping cocktails.
“We just want to make it the place to go,” she said. “We just want to blow this place up. We’re in an amazing area where everyone’s rebuilding the Biltmore. We want to become huge.”
