The southwest corner of Riggs and Gary roads had one tenant when 2026 began. By mid-October, Harvest Station has a grocery store open 16 hours a day, a breakfast restaurant, an açaí bar, a barbershop, a wellness studio and a pool showroom. Two pieces are still pending.
Across the street, Schnepf Farms and the Queen Creek Olive Mill fill their calendars with seasons and weekends. Harvest Station keeps a weekday clock. It opens before sunrise, closes at 10 p.m., and is built for the small errands of a regular Tuesday. The land under it was also first planned for houses, not a shopping center.
The corner was supposed to be more Harvest
In September 2020, the Queen Creek Town Council unanimously approved rezoning 12.33 acres at the southwest corner of Riggs and Gary from urban residential to general commercial. The Queen Creek Independent reported at the time that the request was made specifically "for a Harvest Station shopping center development." Local coverage has described the site as directly adjacent to the Harvest residential development. In other words, the shopping center sits on what was originally the edge of the neighborhood itself, and it carries Harvest's name.
The 2020 design narrative from the applicant and the project architect set a clear tone for the corner:
"The character and theming will evoke high‐quality agritainment themes consistent with Queen Creek's vision for the area and will serve and enhance the surrounding community's lifestyle needs."
That 2020 plan called for about 87,235 square feet of building area with two anchors and flanking shops. It also included two shop buildings joined by a pedestrian plaza and promenade leading to the Gary and Riggs intersection. By November 2025 the plan had narrowed. The Arizona Republic described a single Safeway anchoring the 14-acre site, plus a Safeway fueling station and 23,200 square feet of additional retail space.
That 23,200 square feet is the part that filled in this year, and it explains why the tenants look the way they do. A small-shop footprint next to a grocery anchor suits a barber, a smoothie counter and a breakfast spot. It doesn't suit another destination like the farm attractions across the road.
Harvest Station by the clock
Here is the corner's posted schedule, laid out as a single day, using each business's own current hours:
- 6 a.m. Safeway at 22983 E. Riggs Road opens. It runs until 10 p.m. every day.
- 7 a.m. First Watch at 23021 E. Riggs Road, Suite 108, starts serving breakfast, brunch and lunch daily.
- 8 a.m. TRU Bowl at 37360 N. Gary Road, Suite 103, opens Monday through Saturday. On Sunday it opens at 9 a.m.
- 2:30 p.m. First Watch closes for the day.
- 9 p.m. TRU Bowl closes Monday through Saturday.
- 10 p.m. Safeway closes.
That makes 16 hours of grocery access at the edge of Harvest, seven days a week. Before Jan. 9, 2026, that corner had none.
Safeway's opening day showed what the store meant to be locally. On the morning it opened, Safeway planned a 9 a.m. ribbon cutting with food samples and free grocery bags for the first 200 shoppers, KTAR reported. According to the Queen Creek Independent, Safeway gave $25,000 to the Queen Creek Schools Education Foundation and $1,000 to each of QCUSD's 15 schools. More than $100,000 in total went to about a dozen local schools and nonprofits during the grand opening event. The same story notes that Crismon High School's band and pom team performed, and that Queen Creek High's cheer, pom and football teams were there.
One note on TRU Bowl: its Queen Creek location page lists Sunday hours of 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., while the company's online ordering directory shows 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. If you're planning a Sunday afternoon stop, a quick call to (480) 319-9435 will settle it.
Two addresses, one corner
The suite numbers show how the 2020 plan for two shop buildings turned out on the ground. One building carries Riggs Road addresses. The other carries Gary Road addresses.
| Business | Address | What it offers |
|---|---|---|
| Safeway | 22983 E. Riggs Rd | Full grocery store, open 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily |
| First Watch | 23021 E. Riggs Rd, Suite 108 | Breakfast, brunch and lunch with patio seating and an online waitlist |
| Gateway Barbershop | 23021 E. Riggs Rd, Suite 106 | Family-owned barbershop for all ages, with group booking |
| Salted Wellness Studio | 37360 N. Gary Rd, Suite 101 | Pilates, yoga, salt therapy, sauna, red-light therapy, sound meditation |
| TRU Bowl | 37360 N. Gary Rd, Suite 103 | Açaí bowls, smoothies, cold brew, organic juices |
| Presidential Pools | 37360 N. Gary Rd, Suite 108 | Custom pool design showroom |
The Riggs Road building has the best story behind its signs. Gateway Barbershop moved here. Its website says the original Power Road location is permanently closed and calls the Riggs Road shop its "Harvest" location. The business has named its new shop after the neighborhood it now sits beside. The site also lets a family book two to six people at once, picking everyone's services first and then finding a shared time. The Queen Creek Chamber of Commerce profile describes Gateway as family-owned and serving all ages and styles.
First Watch calls this location "Train Station" on its own site. If you search for the restaurant by that name, it's the one at Suite 108 on Riggs, not a spot at the Switchyard downtown. The restaurant offers dine-in, takeout, delivery and an outdoor patio, and you can join the waitlist online before you leave the house. The Queen Creek Independent reported in July that First Watch was under construction with a scheduled opening of Sept. 21. Today its location page lists it as open daily.
On the Gary Road side, Salted Wellness Studio offers a wider menu than the name suggests. Along with salt therapy and sauna sessions, it lists Pilates, yoga, red-light therapy and sound meditation, and it invites first-time visitors to book online. Presidential Pools runs a showroom in Suite 108 with weekday and Saturday hours. There you can talk through custom pool design, hot tubs and fire pits face to face, rather than only reviewing renderings over email.
Still pending as of mid-October
Two pieces of the corner aren't confirmed yet, and the official lists haven't caught up either way.
Brooker's Founding Flavors Ice Cream. This is the one most likely to draw a crowd from outside Harvest. Brooker's started in Utah and runs its shops as Early American ice cream taverns, with colonial décor, period-style uniforms, and flavor names borrowed from the founders. The menu also includes 13 varieties of thick drinking chocolate, one for each of the original colonies, which gives it a reason to stay busy once the weather cools. ABC15 reported in June that the Queen Creek shop near Safeway at Harvest Station was expected to open in fall 2026. In July, Phoenix New Times described the Queen Creek location as expected by the end of the year. The Brooker's locations page doesn't list Queen Creek yet, and the Town of Queen Creek's new businesses page still has it under "Coming Soon." No opening date has been announced.
The Town's list is out of date in one respect. It also puts First Watch, Gateway, Salted and Presidential Pools under "Coming Soon," but each of those businesses now presents its location as open or bookable.
The Safeway fuel center. The approved plan, as the Queen Creek Independent reported in April 2025, calls for six pumps under a 4,320-square-foot canopy, a 3,083-square-foot convenience store, and 24-hour operation. As of today, Safeway's own fuel locator lists only one Queen Creek station, at 18443 E. Queen Creek Road, and doesn't include Harvest Station. Being left off the locator doesn't prove the pumps are closed, but I couldn't confirm they're open. Once they are, the corner goes from 16 hours a day to around the clock.
Where this sits relative to the farms
The Arizona Republic describes the Harvest Station site as across the street from Schnepf Farms and the Queen Creek Olive Mill. In October, that makes the intersection of Riggs and Gary one of the busier corners in town. It also explains the "agritainment" theming the town asked for in 2020. Harvest Station was designed to match the farm country around it, while its tenant mix runs on a grocery schedule. One side of Riggs runs on a seasonal calendar. The other is open at 6 a.m. on a Wednesday.
Brooker's will be the first Harvest Station tenant built mainly as an outing rather than an errand. When it opens, the corner will have both kinds of stop: a 6 a.m. grocery run and an evening trip for drinking chocolate.
I'm keeping an eye on the Brooker's opening and the Safeway fuel center for my Harvest neighbors. If you'd like to know how a corner like Harvest Station figures into your home's value or your next move, Hardison Home Sales can walk you through it. Schedule a free consultation and we'll go over your street, the corner and the numbers together.
