Scottsdale Holiday Parties: Private Rooms, Semi-Private Spaces and Buyouts

A Scottsdale holiday party at a restaurant comes down to three choices: a private room with its own door, a semi-private space set apart from the dining room, or a buyout of part or all of the restaurant. Your headcount decides most of it. The rooms below run from 10 seats to buyouts for a few hundred guests.

Start asking as soon as you have a number and two or three dates. EVO recommends sending private event requests at least 30 days ahead, and Mastro's has already opened its 2026 holiday private dining inquiries.

Private room, semi-private space or buyout

Private room. A closed room for your group alone. The Americano has three of them: Milano, Terrace and Manhattan. Maple & Ash hides its Green Room away with its own bar, and Fat Ox puts its private dining room behind sliding wooden doors imported from Italy.

Semi-private space. A section of the restaurant set apart for your table, so you keep some of the room's energy. Nobu lists its Sake Room and Mitsuba Room as semi-private, and Bourbon Steak seats 20 to 85 in semi-private dining.

Buyout. Your group takes over part of the restaurant (a partial buyout) or all of it (a full buyout) for the night. Course offers both and says a full buyout adds customized menus and passed hors d'oeuvres. Roka Akor offers full and partial buyouts for groups larger than 60.

Private patio. A few places give one group a whole patio. SumoMaya has a fully private patio framed by a living wall, and Local Bistro has a fully enclosed private patio for large groups.

Rooms for 10 to 20 guests

This is the office team or the family table. Most of these are true private rooms, with a closed door and one long table.

ShinBay is the unusual one. The whole restaurant is yours for up to 13 guests, so a small team dinner becomes a full buyout.

Rooms for 20 to 40 guests

This is the department party or the client dinner with spouses. You get more choice here, including rooms in a working wine cellar and a library on a roof.

Two of these work as a pair. Tell Your Friends, a 52-seat lounge inspired by the 1920s with live jazz, is located below The Americano. A group can have dinner upstairs and then head down for drinks, or take over the whole lounge for up to 100.

CALA sits at the bottom of The Senna House in Old Town, with a 40-foot patio bar and cabanas. Its dining room splits into sections of up to 35, and for a meeting room it sends groups to the hotel, where events are catered by CALA and the Copper room is set for groups of 20 to 50.

Rooms for 40 to 100 guests

At this size you are choosing between big private rooms, terraces and rooftops. Ask whether the number is seated or standing, because the gap can be large.

Buyouts for 100 guests and up

Past 100 guests, most restaurants stop talking about rooms and start talking about the whole floor. These are the largest numbers the restaurants publish.

• The Mission Old Town takes custom inquiries for up to 120 people.
• Toca Madera lists its Main Dining Room for 124 people.
• The Americano can be bought out for up to 125 guests.
• Bourbon & Bones hosts groups of up to 125, and its North Annex dining room and patio can be bought out in full.
• KUZA rents the whole restaurant for up to 150 guests.
• Dominick's Steakhouse combines its rooftop pool area with the Library room for receptions of up to 150.
• CALA buys out its full patio for up to 160, or the whole restaurant for up to 220.
• Tommy V's offers a full buyout for up to 220 guests in Old Town.
• Olive & Ivy lists a restaurant buyout for up to 400 on Experience Scottsdale.

A full buyout also opens up the menu. ZuZu will build a prix fixe, all-inclusive or buffet menu for a buyout, and Course adds passed hors d'oeuvres and personal touches.

When a big table becomes a private event

Every restaurant draws its own line between a large reservation and an event. Past that line, an events team takes over, usually with a set menu and a contract.

• Bourbon & Bones: groups of 8 or more use the group dining form.
• KUZA: parties of 9 or more and private events book through the events team, set around the fire with robata, raw-bar dishes and shared plates. Its private events page lists the packages and prices.
• Roka Akor: private dining starts at 9 guests and needs a signed contract.
• Maple & Ash: private events start at parties of 10.
• The Americano: family-style sharing menus are built for groups of 13 or more.
• Dominick's Steakhouse: the group inquiry form is for 14 guests or more.
• SumoMaya: groups of 16 or more order from a preset menu.

Minimums, set menus and the extra lines on the bill

Expect a food and beverage minimum and a contract for most private rooms. Citizen Public House applies a minimum spend to all of its private and semi-private spaces. Its three-course preset menus start at $62 per person, plus tax, gratuity and a 3% admin fee.

Ocean 44 also requires a contract and a food and beverage minimum, and its private event pricing adds tax, gratuity and a service charge. Fat Ox says its patio rate changes with the day of the week, the time of year and the size of the group.

So compare the all-in number for your exact date, not the menu price per person.

Questions to ask before you sign

1. Is the space private, semi-private or a buyout, and who else will be in the room?
2. What is the food and beverage minimum for my exact date, and does it change on weeknights?
3. Which charges sit on top of the minimum: tax, gratuity, a service charge or an admin fee?
4. Is the menu set, family style or ordered from the regular menu?
5. How many guests fit seated, and how many standing?
6. What is due at signing, and what happens if the headcount drops?
7. How long is the space ours, and can we bring music, a microphone or decorations?

How to book

You can go straight to a venue's events team. The Americano takes inquiries at [email protected] and Tell Your Friends at [email protected]. CALA's line is (480) 590-5676, and KUZA books through its private events page.

If you would rather not email ten event managers, send one group request with your date, headcount and occasion. We pass it to the rooms that fit, and they reply to you directly. Our private dining list puts our picks for groups on one map, and our Scottsdale steakhouses page covers the rooms built around a big dinner.