This historic restaurant made a tiny Arizona town a destination. Now, goodbye is bittersweet

Corrections & Clarifications: A previous version of the article gave an incorrect status of Café Roka. The restaurant is open while it is up for sale.

Café Roka is up for sale after 31 years in Bisbee, Arizona.

The restaurant is housed in a 1907 Art Deco storefront called The Costello Building, designed by architect Henry Trost. His use of pressure-fired bricks, a new technology in the early 1900s, enabled the building to survive the devastating fire of 1908. The ground floor was a shoe store and the mezzanine was used by the neighboring Fair Department Store as an annex for its dry goods and men’s department.

"It was a time when Phoenix was a blip on the map and Bisbee was the happening place because of its copper," chef and owner Rod Kass said. "So the store was like Bisbee's Bergdorf Goodman."

After the shoe store closed, the main floor was converted to The Tavern, which stayed open for about 70 years until chef Kass and his wife, Sally Holcomb, converted it into their 120-seat restaurant during the Main Street revitalization of the 1990s.

Café Roka started with a love story

From a young age, Kass was drawn to restaurant work and the energy of the kitchen. "It's a production," he said. "As you get ready for opening, you have to put your game face on. That aspect, the buzz of energy, the getting ready, I still love. "

One passion led to another. Kass met Holcomb in the 1980s while she was studying at Arizona State University and they both were working at the Registry Resort near McCormick Ranch in Scottsdale. One summer, when the hospitality business in the Phoenix area was slow, Holcomb invited Kass to come to Bisbee to help her mother run her restaurant for the summer.

"At that time, I was living in the Valley with my brother," Kass said. "That year, we had investigated moving to San Diego." California's high cost of living changed the brothers' minds, but Kass was still looking for adventure and a change of scenery, so he accepted Holcomb's invitation.

Over the summer, a romance blossomed between Kass and Holcomb, which prompted him to extend his stay. Kass leased a small space called The Wine Gallery Bistro for two years until the couple was certain they wanted to make Bisbee their permanent home.

"There was a spot two doors down called The Tavern," Kass said. "I struck a relationship with the owner, an older guy, and used to buy cooking wine from him." When the owner decided to sell the building, where The Tavern had been operating for seven decades, Kass and Holcomb bought it, closed it down for six months to renovate it and reopened as Café Roka at the end of 1992.

The name Roka came from combining Kass's first and last names. In a strange, full-circle moment, he later discovered that the restaurant at the Registry Resort where Kass and Holcomb first met had become an upscale chain called Roka Akor.

A long history of hospitality in Bisbee

Fred Miller, former lead bartender and manager of Café Roka, started working there a year after it opened and stayed until he retired in 2022. He wore many hats throughout the years, from training the staff to printing menus to managing the front of house. "They didn't have the money to bring in a manager, so a lot of things fell to me, the older guy," he said.

Miller recognized that what Kass brought to Bisbee was something special. "From the get-go, he was always attuned to helping people eat however they were comfortable eating, which was not the norm years ago," Miller said.

Presented in four courses — soup, salad, sorbet and entree — Kass's penchant for clean cooking using local ingredients put the restaurant on the map both locally and nationally.

In a 2012 review, The Arizona Republic's former food critic, Howard Seftel, wrote: "The food here isn't good-for-a-small-town good. It's the kind of good that doesn't need any qualifiers."

In 2013, Michael Mello of the LA Times wrote: "Some people think small-town dining means casual, so-so food. Not in Bisbee. Café Roka stands out with its rack of lamb and roasted quail entrees, and appetizers such as goat cheese-filled piquillo peppers with a balsamic glaze."

Other accolades include three diamonds from AAA, and it's the only rural restaurant in Arizona to be awarded the honor, spots on Esquire's "Top 21 Best New Restaurants in America" and Travel Channel's Food Wars' "Best Restaurant in Arizona."

"We had really good food consistently with reasonable prices," Miller said. "He had to balance the menu of 10 to 12 entrees between an oven, a grill and a sauté because the restaurant does 150 to 200 dinners on a Saturday night, and when you see the kitchen, you'd be surprised at how he put out the quality of food in that size kitchen."

But even more than the food, Kass is known and loved for the way he makes people feel.

"Rod's philosophy has been the customer is always right, even if they are not," Miller said. "Just as an example, as he was renovating The Tavern, he set up a table for the regulars and continued to serve them until they faded away."

Why is Café Roka for sale?

After decades serving Bisbee, Kass has decided to sell his restaurant and the building that houses it.

“A non-corporate restaurant is likely the most difficult small business to run," Kass said. "For each hour of those 12 hours we are open, there are about five additional hours when we are ordering, prepping food, processing reservations, and attending to the myriad other details of running a business. When special events such as weddings and banquets are factored in, there is not much time for other things."

And Kass is ready to embrace other things.

"It has been my life for 31 years and that has become wearing," he said. "Sally's mom's health is declining and increasingly demands our attention while not at the restaurant. It’s time to step away. We are leaving a thriving business, a solid building and a loyal customer base for the next owner.”

A new chapter for a storied space

Kass plans to sell the entire three-story building, listed for $1.675 million, which includes the restaurant and bar on the first floor, more seating on the mezzanine level and a loft apartment on the third floor, along with all of the kitchen equipment, furnishings and the business name. Kass has even offered to stay on for up to six weeks to facilitate the transition to a new owner, as his hope is not just to sell, but to find someone to pass the torch to.

"We want to find someone who has a similar passion and a love of the community," Kass said. "We want to make sure that when the business is handed off, that part of the business maintains."

After its 100 years as a hospitality hub in a small mining town, first as a dusty tavern, then as the only fine dining restaurant within a hundred miles, residents and employees alike are eager to find out what the space will become. The sale of Café Roka will mark the end of an era, and a new chapter for the storied space.

"Whomever buys the restaurant will inherit a hugely loyal customer base," Miller said. "Not only because of the consistency and quality of the food, but because the restaurant is an integral part of the community."

Visit Café Roka

Café Roka will remain open while it is for sale. Make a reservation for dinner, offered 5-9 p.m. from Thursday to Saturday, or walk in for cocktails from 9-11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.

Details: 35 Main St., Bisbee. 520-432-5153, caferoka.com. For inquiries about purchasing the building, contact Brad Snyder, 520-227-6694, [email protected].

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Bisbee restaurant Café Roka is for sale after 31 years. Here's why