When chef Bernie Kantak and Andrew Fritz were readying to open the doors to Citizen Public House 15 years ago, they had to scramble and scrap about a third of the menu on the fly.
The building the business partners took over in Old Town Scottsdale sat vacant for several years after a stint as a nightclub, and prior to that, an outpost of the Polynesian-inspired Trader Vic’s. During the hiatus, a fan in the gas meter had malfunctioned, Kantak recalls.
While the pair was staring down their first service on Jan. 11, 2011, there was no gas to fuel most of their stoves…