Tool, A Perfect Circle, and Puscifer frontman Maynard James Keenan has spent the past 20 years helping establish Arizona’s Verde Valley as an unexpected hub for wine and culture. In 2024, Keenan and his wife, Jennifer, expanded Queen B Vinyl Café by adding a café and coffee roaster. The venue is now Northern Arizona’s only Record Store Day location and has become an artist-friendly performance space, recently hosting and set to welcome acts including Khemmis and Author & Punisher.
On September 4, Keenan opens Queen B Sushi at 816 N. Main St. in Old Town Cottonwood. Reservations are available at this location.
“Although I’ve been enjoying sushi since my days in Boston, circa 1987, my first Japanese tour wasn’t until 2000 with A Perfect Circle,” Keenan says. “It was an eye opening and mind-blowing experience. While there, I picked up these amazing titanium and hard wood travel chopsticks from Snow Peak. And I’ve carried them with me ever since. Last year I ran into Janeane Garofalo at the Chelsea in NYC. She was saying to David Cross and Dave Hill, ‘I haven’t seen Maynard in several years but one thing I remember is that he used to carry chopsticks in his pocket.’ At which point I reached into my pocket and pulled them out. Twenty-five years I’ve been carrying these chopsticks. That’s how much I love sushi.”
Queen B Sushi is led by Culinary Director Chef Brett Vibber, whose résumé spans Roka Akor’s London, Hong Kong, and U.S. locations. Vibber built the Queen B Sushi team around two hires: Chef Chuhiro “Thomas” Kato, who trained under Nobu Matsuhisa in Beverly Hills and Masaharu Morimoto in New York, and Chef Sheridan “Sher” Chase, an Arizona native who built his career in kitchens from California to Texas before returning home.
The concept began almost by accident. When Keenan and his wife, Jennifer, were developing the menu for Queen B Vinyl Café, they shelved the idea of a full sushi program, assuming they wouldn’t find the right chef in a town of 12,000. Vibber, already on staff, turned out to be exactly that chef.
Queen B Sushi will pour a rotating selection of Caduceus Cellars and Merkin Vineyards wines.
Keenan has spent more than two decades building Northern Arizona’s wine industry, including a successful campaign for the Verde Valley’s AVA (American Viticultural Area) certification in 2021. His footprint in the area began with the Caduceus Cellars Tasting Room in Jerome and has since grown to include the Merkin Vineyards Hilltop Winery & Trattoria and Caduceus Cellars Hilltop Facility, a seven-acre complex on the site of Cottonwood’s former Masonic Lodge.
