Celebrity Chef hopes to bring new life to Downtown Fresno

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- You may recognize him from the fierce "Top Chef" competition or serving up a food rush on ABC's Live Well Network. And soon we may be able to call celebrity chef Ryan Scott a Downtown Fresno business owner.

Scott says, "I've done a lot of restaurants in my life, 40 next year. This is the one I love the most."

The Central Valley Native has teamed up with Fresno developers Terance Frazier and JP Gentry to create an entertainment hub. "The great thing about this, is venue space, event space, concert space, small, but also boutique enough to where we can grow," Scott says.

If approved by City Council, the project will roll out in phases-- starting with a storage container park-- featuring 3 restaurants and two bars. Phase one will be on the 10,000 sq foot lot, on Mono and H. Scott says, were going to start with chicken, burgers, pizza and tacos. If one just takes off, it moves into phase two."

Think Bitwise's incubator concept and apply it to the restaurant biz. Scott adds, "this is all about a growth of the neighborhood. It's listening to the process. It's listening to the people."

Development and Operations Manager JP Gentry says, "we want to create something here, that's so cool and so fresh, that you want to drive down here just to have lunch.

The trio recognizes this is no easy feat but welcomes the challenge-- saying the reward outweighs the risk.

Developer Terance Frazier says he wants to appeal to the demographic, "they want a place to party. They want something different. We're giving them that something different with music now. We're going to give them food. I think we have a really good following right now."

Frazier says they hope to eventually put in a bowling alley and apartments. Once up and running, he says this has the potential to create 300-400 jobs.

For now the next step is getting the project out of the planning phase and in front of city council -- which they hope to do before the end of the year.