Franchise Opportunities in Mesa, AZ

Rattlesnake Solutions safely retrieved the venomous lizard and relocated it to another location.

MESA, Ariz. — A shy Gila monster was recently found hiding inside a new home in Mesa, requiring an expert to come in and safely relocate the venomous animal to another location.

Rattlesnake Solutions, a company specializing in safely removing venomous reptiles from Valley homes, was recently dispatched to the East Valley for reports of a Gila monster lurking around a recently-built property.

In a video posted Wednesday of the incident, the Gila monster was discovered hiding behind a collection of picture frames stacked up against the wall in one of the home's hallways.

Staff at Rattlesnake Solutions retrieved the animal with an instrument and placed the lizard inside a bucket until it could be relocated to a secluded area.

Bryan Hughes, owner of Rattlesnake Solutions, said it's "exceptionally rare" to find Gila monsters inside a residence. It probably happened after somebody left a door open, he added, so the Gila monster was likely drawn to the home's cool, air-conditioned environment.

"We're just thankful that the homeowner was so rational about it all and allowed us to do our thing and get it back out to the desert where it can stay safe and healthy," Hughes said.

Gila monsters are the only venomous lizard that are native to the United States and are primarily found throughout the Southwest. Known for their sluggish, slow-moving nature, the lizards tend to eat bird eggs, insects, or small mammals.

A Gila monster's venom is considered to be as toxic as a Western diamondback rattlesnake, according to the Smithsonian's Conservation Biology Institute. But rather than inject its venom through fangs, the Gila monster chews venom in through capillary action along the grooves of its teeth.

Arizona's laws protect Gila monsters from being captured or harassed by humans, according to the National Park Service.

More information about services offered by Rattlesnake Solutions can be found here.

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MESA, ARIZONA – May 16, 2022 – The opening of Same Day Jeweler’s new and reinvented store in Mesa, Arizona, was announced today by the experienced jewelry company. Same Day Jeweler is the highest-rated jewelry store in Mesa, AZ that is still family-owned. The redeveloped store location at 1031 S Stewart #2060 is the quickest turnaround time for repairs out of all of the company’s locations across the United States. It features a showroom with easy parking and drop-off, which provides customers with an opportunity to interact with products in a convenient way that is both quick and one-of-a-kind compared to other jewelers in the Mesa, AZ area.

“We have been waiting eagerly to welcome our customers into our newly redesigned Mesa jewelry repair store, which now provides a one-of-a-kind shopping experience that reflects the fundamental principles and distinctive selling points of the Same Day Jeweler brand in a contemporary and multi-dimensional manner” remarked Nicolas Ochoa, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Same Day Jeweler company. “We take great pleasure in providing the best customer experience of any jeweler, and our newly opened location was created to ensure that we can keep that promise each and every day with each and every one of our customers and offer convenient, same-day jewelry repair services.

This Same Day Jeweler flagship repair office, which can be found tucked away in the “heart” of Mesa and is located in the same neighborhood as Brilliant Jewelry, their other flagship jewelry store, provides a shopping experience that is cutting-edge, informative, and customer-focused. Guests have the opportunity to receive prompt repairs with an unrivaled turnaround time, such as engagement rings in 14K yellow, white, rose gold, as well as platinum, and also have diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and other gemstone touting jewelry repaired that have been family heirlooms or are new jewelry pieces – or anything in between.

The dedication of Same Day Jeweler to ethical gold sourcing for their repairs, as well as the design and repair process that takes place in-house, is apparent in their efforts to help with sustainability.

For further information, please go to samedayjeweler.com.

What Sets Same Day Jeweler Apart from the Competition?

1031 S Stewart #2060

Mesa, AZ 85202

(480) 331-8652

Media Contact Company Name: Same Day Jewelry Repair Contact Person: Nicolas Ochoa Email: Send Email Phone: (480) 331-8652 Address:1031 S Stewart #2060 City: Mesa State: AZ 85202 Country: United States Website: https://samedayjeweler.com/

MESA, Ariz. - A company you’ve probably never heard of believes it can make electric vehicles cheaper and more efficient, and its main headquarters is in Mesa, Arizona.

The company, Exro Technologies, makes a part that can be used in any electric vehicle (EV), motorcycle, car, and bus. In fact, it just announced a new contract, providing its coil drivers in 2,500 city buses across America.

This is one of the types of business we were told would move to Arizona if EV makers opened up shop. Now, it's bringing over a hundred jobs to Mesa.

The under-construction facility could be easy to miss from the road as it's surrounded by all the infrastructure being built north of Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, but the product developed by Exro Technologies can’t be missed.

"I think we’re actually starting to see Arizona be recognized as the epicenter of EV manufacturing in general," says Sue Ozdemir with Exro Technologies, CEO. "I like to call it the brain because it’s the smarts for how the system works."

She says the coil driver, a small metal box under a motor, can make any EV more efficient.

"It activates and responds to how you need your vehicle to be controlled and that really is the key in what we’re doing," Ozdemir explained. "Controlling the performance of your vehicle. With ours, the key is you need less other components, so less motors, you might need less gears, so that should mean lower sticker price so we can afford EV in the future."

The company picked Mesa for the number of people in the state trained to work in this industry. As of May 16, they still have 50 jobs to fill.

Being next door to EV maker Electra Meccanica's under construction facility is alluring, as is Lucid and Nikola to the south.

"It’s been a really great place to be, and we’ve been so welcome here we’re really glad we chose it," Ozdemir said.

It expects to finish construction of the facility in September, and it won’t just be cool drivers, they’ve developed a way to restart decade-old EV batteries and re-purpose them, saving them from the landfill.

Arizona and other Western states that take water from the lower Colorado River for cities and farms were hoping for a good season of rain and snow this winter to keep water levels in the river’s reservoirs above dangerously low levels.

Instead, they got another bad year.

The dry year, on top of 22 years of regional drought, has shortened the time that states and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation have to avert a series of dangerous scenarios that could unfold in the next two years without action.

About 36% of Arizona’s water – and 55% of Mesa’s water – comes from the Colorado River. Lake Mead and Lake Powell store water that goes to population centers, and they have less water now than they’ve ever had.

The upshot of the disappointing winter is that water officials are accepting a future where less Colorado River water is available– so they are redoubling efforts to make alternate plans.

But at the same time that they are doing long-term planning, water officials are also engaged in a short-term rescue mission to keep the Colorado River flowing and the reservoir system intact.

A U.S. Bureau of Reclamation 24-month study predicts that without action, Lake Powell could drop below the level needed to generate hydropower, 3,490 feet, by next spring or as early as the end of December.

In briefings last week, officials noted that the reservoirs are V-shaped, which means the rate that the water levels drop accelerates at lower levels.

“We’re being piled on in a lot of ways, including by Mother Nature,” Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke said in a joint briefing with the Central Arizona Project last week.

While Buschatzke emphasized that there is no “imminent threat” to water flowing from the tap in Arizona homes and businesses, officials made clear that Arizona and other states face a gauntlet of bad scenarios if they can’t halt the decline in the Colorado reservoirs.

The most immediate threat to the Colorado water system is the loss of hydropower generated by the dams that hold back the water, when the level drops below the intake for the turbines.

Rural communities, like Page, rely on that hydropower, but it’s also “a crucial part of our (Arizona) energy grid,” Glendale Water Resources Manager Drew Swieczkowski said in a presentation last week. “It is a really big energy producer.”

CAP, the state agency that delivers Colorado River water via canals and water credits, only relies on hydropower for 6% of its energy needs, but the loss of the power would put upward pressure on water rates.

After losing power production, the next problem dam engineers would face is the need to release water from the reservoir via rarely used low water outlets. Dam operators don’t want to rely on these because they have little experience using them.

“There are reliability concerns about long-term operations and a lot of uncertainty,” Buschatzke said of dam operations at extreme low water. “I think you’ll hear that word ‘uncertainty’ quite a bit today in terms of what’s facing us.”

One-hundred and twenty feet below the loss of hydropower, Lake Powell would reach “dead pool,” when water is below the low water outlet and there is no more active storage.

At dead pool on Lake Powell, “the maximum amount that could be released (from the dam) is limited to the amount coming in, so-called ‘run of the river,’” a spokesperson for CAP said.

CAP said it could continue delivering to cities through its canals as long as Lake Mead stayed above dead pool. The agency also has secondary storage in Lake Pleasant north of Phoenix, for “critical deliveries to Phoenix-area cities.”

Many Valley cities, including Mesa, have diversified water portfolios, drawing water from groundwater and surface water other than the Colorado River. In a worst-case scenario, cities could keep the taps running for years using stored groundwater and water from the Salt River Project.

But a rapid reduction in cities’ allocations of Colorado River water would still likely have local officials scrambling to keep water operations steady. Many cities, including Mesa and Glendale, are drilling new wells to enhance their ability to quickly add groundwater to their water utilities.

One bit of good news is a large share of Mesa’s water comes from SRP, and SRP’s reservoirs on the Salt and Verde Rivers are currently healthy, Swieczkowski said, sitting at 77% and 33%, respectively. SRP is studying a plan to raise the height of Bartlett Dam, located 48 miles northeast of Phoenix, to improve storage capacity on the Verde River.

The bad year on top of many bad years seems to have forced water officials’ to face the reality that the Colorado will permanently deliver less water each year, and it has galvanized officials to act.

Climate change is one reason water officials are resigned to reducing dependence on the Colorado River.

One of the findings from this year’s April water study was that much less water reached the river than actually fell as snow and rain in the watershed. In terms of snowpack, it actually wasn’t that bad a year, with 92% of average.

But that snowfall only led to 62% of average inflow to the reservoirs. Officials blame drier soil soaking up more water.

It is a “troubling trend that we do seem to be getting the precipitation,” Bureau of Reclamation Deputy Chief Dan Bunk said. “But other factors such as warmer temperatures, the dry soil conditions, increased evapotranspiration, they all seem to be conspiring to some extent against the actual runoff that is occurring on the system.”

Officials are talking frankly about reduced flows of the river.

Swieczkowski spoke of the “aridification of the Western U.S.” to describe the long-term reduction in soil moisture due to climate change. He said the Colorado River now has a new estimated annual yield of 10 to 11 million acre-feet of water, compared to 16.5 MAF allocated to U.S. states and Mexico.

This reckoning with the Colorado’s oversubscription has energized long-term planning and water development efforts, and stimulated cooperation among local and federal officials.

“We can’t rely on Mother Nature somehow restoring the Colorado River to what’s been allocated,” one official said.

Officials in last week’s joint briefing appeared focused rather than discouraged.

Western states – including California, which has traditionally fought fiercely to hold onto its water – have been working together to keep extra water in the reservoirs. This year, states voluntarily left 500,000 acre feet of water in Lake Mead as part of the 500+ Plus compensated conservation program.

The city of Mesa contributed 1,200 acre feet of water to that effort.

Buschatzke said this and other conservation efforts have added 70 feet of elevation to the reservoirs, buying planners valuable time.

California, Arizona and Nevada are currently working on another version of 500+ Plus for 2023. Officials expect voluntary cuts like these, on-top of cuts already outlined in the drought contingency plans, to keep the Colorado River flowing.

“It won’t stop at 2023, but one year at a time,” Buschatzke said.

Just when did downtown Mesa become one of the most vibrant restaurant districts in the entire state of Arizona? It's hard to say exactly, but over the past several years the historic Main Street district has been flooded with dining options from a Venezuelan restaurant to the award-winning Proof bakery, cute farmers market stores like Main Street Harvest, craft pizza and a growing assortment of breweries, taprooms and cider bars.

A Mesa native, I've been eating my way through this eclectic and ever-growing neighborhood on a regular basis. Recently, I snagged a coveted seat at the crowded bar at Espiritu, the trendy sister concept to Bacanora. The newly opened spot was buzzing well past 11 p.m. with revelers sipping spicy chiltepin cocktails and ripping into massive platters of Mexican fried snapper.

After a host of unforgettable meals, here are my favorite local restaurants in downtown Mesa, and what to order at each one.

Espiritu

The little sister to the highly-acclaimed Grand Avenue restaurant Bacanora, this trendy Mexican cocktail bar delves deep into the seafood side of Sonora. Chefs René Andrade and Roberto Centeno have been expanding the menu little by little since it opened in January.

Espiritu's menu is dominated by colorful, intricate mariscos dishes like ceviches and aguachiles, including a spectacular tostada of fat hiramasa yellowtail with avocado and radish slivers in a squid ink salsa negra.

As with Bacanora, specials are plentiful and ever-changing. During my visit, I enjoyed a magnum opus in the form of an entire red snapper that had been deep fried and caked in sesame seeds, paired with a bright salad of julienned vegetables and mint.

Of course, you're supposed to go here for the cocktails and I found the Sonoran Sling with its charred pineapple and chiltepin-infused Bacanora liquor to be the most unique. When tiki gets spicy, that's a world you wanna be in.

Details: 123 W. Main St., Mesa. 480-398-8129, espiritumesa.com.

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Que Chevere

Arizona's one and only Venezuelan restaurant, Que Chevere is the spot for heartily stuffed South American corn cakes known as arepas. Originally a food truck owned by Venezuelan-born Maria Fernanda and her husband Orvid Cutler, they made the move onto Main Street in 2020.

Unlike Colombian arepas, which often come stuffed with only cheese, these Venezuelan versions pile on the savory fillings with carne mechada, a saucy shredded beef, vegan black beans and the reina pepiada, which is basically an herbaceous chicken salad.

My favorite item after a couple visits is the cachapa ($10), a sweet corn pancake that looks like an omelet but tastes like a cross between lunch and a dessert. The soft masa filling is stuffed with queso de mano, a stretchy white Venezuelan cow and sheep's milk cheese that's like a funkier mozzarella. I would order it as an addition to other items and share it with the table, as it's super filling.

Details: 142 W. Main St., Mesa. 480-474-4954, quechevereaz.com.

Republica Empanada

This Latin fusion restaurant was here before Mesa was cool. Republica Empanada has spent about a decade in a colorful, mural-strewn house tucked onto a side street, where it pumps out some of the Valley's most creative empanadas. On the savory side, three varieties of jalapeño popper empanadas, made with grilled seeded jalapeños, cream cheese, and either ham, potatoes or beans, are the ones to seek out. The cream cheese filling gets soft and molten in the fryer, oozing out when you rip the pastry apart.

As for the sweet options, make sure to order the Ruiz's Pieces, a velveteen combination of chocolate Nutella and peanut butter, with two scoops of vanilla ice cream.

The restaurant also serves a variety of light Central and South American dishes like sopa verde, packed with greens and rice in a light chicken broth. A must.

Details: 204 E. First Ave., Mesa. 480-969-1343, republicaempanada.com.

Read the full review:This OG empanada restaurant is an essential

Worth Takeaway

This downtown Mesa shop wants to be the "Cheers" of sandwiches, or at least that's what they say on their website. I get more of an artisanal vibe from the minimalist chic dining room and the eclectic menu of French dips, veggie sandwiches and spicy candied BLT.

Most recently, I tried the Italian grinder ($12), which came loaded with fresh garden greens that lightened up the sweet and creamy flavors of mayonnaise and pickled pepper relish. The sandwich is layered with thick slices of ham, Genoa salami and pepperoni on fluffy local bread. It disappeared rather quickly, and while Worth isn't a place where "everybody knows your name," sandwiches like these are enough to make a regular out of anyone.

Details: 218 W. Main St., Mesa. 480-833-2180. worthtakeaway.com.

Myke's Pizza

One of the Valley's best pizzerias, Myke's is tucked back into the bar area of Veteran-owned cider mill, Cider Corps. You can see the wood-fired oven burning as you sip your Mango Foxtrot, a hard apple cider infused with mangoes and rose hips.

Myke's has one of the most exciting pizza menus in town, and I was bowled over by the sophisticated pairing of charred baby kale with a tangy lemon relish and sweet golden raisins ($17) that was on special during my visit.

If a pizza doesn't have red sauce, it needs to be really freaking good for me to enjoy it, and this was really freaking good. I've never had a pizza that's been blessed with melty Idiazábal, a smoky cousin to Spanish sheep's milk Manchego. And forever onward, I will be the annoying girl requesting it. Or maybe I'll just come back here.

Details: Inside Cider Corps, 31 S. Robson #103, Mesa. 480-687-8526, mykespizza.com.

Reach reporter Andi Berlin at [email protected]. Follow her on Facebook @andiberlin, Instagram @andiberlin or Twitter @andiberlin.