Case Study: 5,900 SF TPO Repair and Recoat — Cold Beers & Cheeseburgers, Gilbert Town Square
A 5,900 sq ft TPO roof over Cold Beers & Cheeseburgers at 1026 S Gilbert Rd — the 18th Arizona location for Square One Concepts, in the hard-corner spot of Gilbert Town Square across from the Municipal Center — got a full TPO seam and detail repair, two coats of ARMORCOAT AC100, and a targeted silicone coating around the kitchen grease trap and exhaust. Zero closed shifts.
Project Snapshot5,900 sq ft TPO repair and recoat with silicone protection at the kitchen exhaust
Cold Beers & Cheeseburgers is a Scottsdale-born sports bar and burger concept from Square One Concepts, and the Gilbert Town Square location is their 18th Arizona restaurant. It opened in early 2025 in the former Famous 66 space — a 6,390 sq ft freestanding restaurant built in 2004 on the hard corner of S Gilbert Rd and Civic Center Dr, directly across from the Gilbert Municipal Center. It's one of the most visible restaurant addresses in downtown Gilbert, with a covered patio out front and 11.72 parking spaces per 1,000 SF around the building. When the roof needed attention, the operator needed it done fast, clean, and without closing lunch or dinner service.
Cold Beers & Cheeseburgers — 5,900 SF TPO Repair + AC100 Recoat, Gilbert
| Property | Cold Beers & Cheeseburgers — freestanding restaurant at Gilbert Town Square |
| Address | 1026 S. Gilbert Rd., Gilbert, AZ 85296 |
| Property owner / operator | Square One Concepts (Scottsdale-based restaurant group; 18th Arizona location) |
| Building type | 6,390 SF freestanding restaurant, built 2004 — formerly Famous 66 |
| Roof size | 5,900 sq ft flat TPO membrane roof |
| Scope | Degrease, clean, ArmorPutty repair of frayed / cracked TPO, reinforcing membrane at all seams, seal vents & pipes, 2 coats ARMORCOAT AC100, silicone coating around grease trap and kitchen exhaust |
| Location | Hard corner of S Gilbert Rd & Civic Center Dr, across from Gilbert Municipal Center |
| Warranty | 10-year no-leak (materials + labor) |
| Completion | July 2026 |
The ProjectThe building, the client, and what we were solving for
Cold Beers & Cheeseburgers is a Scottsdale-born sports bar and burger concept from Square One Concepts, and the Gilbert Town Square location is their 18th Arizona restaurant. It opened in early 2025 in the former Famous 66 space — a 6,390 sq ft freestanding restaurant built in 2004 on the hard corner of S Gilbert Rd and Civic Center Dr, directly across from the Gilbert Municipal Center. It's one of the most visible restaurant addresses in downtown Gilbert, with a covered patio out front and 11.72 parking spaces per 1,000 SF around the building. When the roof needed attention, the operator needed it done fast, clean, and without closing lunch or dinner service.
The existing roof was a TPO membrane — the standard single-ply system used across most Arizona restaurant boxes built in the early 2000s. After 20+ years of Arizona sun, the field of the membrane was still holding, but the seams were fraying, a few penetrations around HVAC and kitchen exhaust curbs had opened up small cracks, and the grease-trap side of the roof — where kitchen exhaust vents deposit airborne grease onto the membrane — needed extra chemical resistance. The right move for this roof wasn't a tear-off. It was a proper TPO repair-and-recoat: fix every seam and detail, then re-lock the whole thing under a fresh elastomeric topcoat with silicone in the high-risk grease zone.
The SystemThe system: TPO repair + reinforcing membrane + 2 coats of AC100 + silicone at the exhaust
This scope was written for a 20-year-old TPO membrane that had a lot of life left in it, but needed every detail addressed before a topcoat went on. The critical calls were the seam reinforcement, the ArmorPutty-plus-membrane detail on every crack and frayed area, and the silicone patch around the grease trap — because standard elastomeric coatings will soften and fail under sustained grease exposure.
- Full degrease and pressure-clean — all 5,900 sq ft washed to bare membrane, with heavy degreasing on the kitchen exhaust side so the coating actually bonds to clean TPO instead of grease residue.
- ArmorPutty repair of frayed / unraveling TPO — every fatigued, cracked, or unraveling area repaired with high-solids urethane putty and embedded polyester reinforcing membrane.
- Reinforcing membrane on every TPO seam and joint — the seams are where TPO recoats fail first. Vanguard bridges every seam with reinforcing membrane and putty so the fresh topcoat doesn't crack along the old seam lines.
- ArmorPutty at every vent and pipe penetration — HVAC curbs, plumbing vents, kitchen exhaust curbs, satellite mounts, and every roof penetration re-sealed monolithically.
- 2 full coats of ARMORCOAT AC100 — the premium white elastomeric applied at spec (1.5 gal / 100 sq ft per coat, 3 gal / 100 sq ft total) in cross-hatched directions across the whole roof.
- Silicone roof coating around the grease trap and kitchen exhaust — a targeted overcoat of silicone in the high-risk zone where airborne cooking grease lands, because silicone resists grease chemistry where an elastomeric won't.
Our ApproachThe approach: work over a restaurant that never closed
Cold Beers & Cheeseburgers runs seven days a week — 10 or 11 AM open, 10 or 11 PM close, plus happy hour 3–6 PM Monday to Friday. There was no window to shut the building down. Vanguard sequenced the roof so that early morning prep happened before the lunch rush, the coating passes were timed against wind and heat, and the crew stayed clear of the front patio, the drive lane, and the parking spaces closest to the guest entrance. Kitchen exhaust was managed carefully — you can't have coating overspray or contaminants drifting into a working kitchen's makeup air. Every drum, hose, and generator was staged behind the building near the delivery zone, not visible from Gilbert Road.
Vanguard's 9-step scope for the Cold Beers TPO recoat
- Degrease roof where needed — heavy degreasing on the kitchen exhaust side so grease doesn't compromise the coating bond.
- Clean roof surface of dirt and debris — full pressure-wash across all 5,900 sq ft.
- Repair frayed, unraveling areas in existing TPO — ArmorPutty + reinforcing polyester membrane at every fatigued spot.
- Repair all cracks and holes in existing TPO — ArmorPutty + reinforcing membrane on every crack, tear, and hole in the field of the membrane.
- Apply reinforcing membrane to all seams and joints — every original TPO seam bridged and reinforced so the recoat doesn't crack along the seam lines in years 2–5.
- Seal all roof vents and pipes with ArmorPutty — every plumbing vent, gas line, and roof penetration wrapped and sealed.
- Apply 2 coats of AC100 — premium white elastomeric at 1.5 gallons per 100 sq ft per coat, 3 gallons per 100 sq ft total spread rate, in cross-hatched directions.
- Silicone coating around grease trap and kitchen exhaust — extra chemical resistance where airborne kitchen grease deposits onto the roof.
- Clean up and dispose of all job-related debris — parking lot swept every day, no drums or trash left overnight on the guest-facing side.
The finished drone photographs show why this matters. The signature red-painted parapet cap that ties the roof to the Cold Beers & Cheeseburgers brand identity below is sharp on all four sides, no drip lines or overspray onto the red. The bright white AC100 field is uniform edge-to-edge, and the darker silicone patch around the kitchen exhaust curb reads exactly as intended — a deliberate, technically-correct treatment, not a coating error.
The DetailThe detail: silicone where a restaurant roof needs it
The single most common way restaurant roofs fail early is grease damage around the kitchen exhaust. A high-volume kitchen — burgers, fryers, char broilers — throws atomized cooking grease out the exhaust stack for hours a day, and gravity does the rest. That grease lands on the roof surface downwind of the stack, and if you have an ordinary elastomeric coating there, it softens, degrades, and eventually loses adhesion. You get a bubble first, then a delamination, then a leak. Silicone coatings are the industry answer because silicone chemistry doesn't react to cooking grease the way an acrylic or urethane does.
On this project Vanguard treated the majority of the 5,900 sq ft roof with ARMORCOAT AC100 (the right coating for the field of any Arizona TPO recoat — cool-roof white, high reflectivity, elastomeric flex), and then overcoated the specific 6-foot zone around the grease trap and kitchen exhaust with silicone. That's the correct call for a burger restaurant roof: not silicone everywhere (unnecessary cost, and silicone can be a maintenance headache elsewhere), and not elastomeric everywhere (early failure at the exhaust). Two products, each doing the job it does best, at a total spec cost that's less than half the price of a tear-off.
The Warranty10-year no-leak warranty backed by an Arizona commercial roofer since 1957
The Cold Beers & Cheeseburgers Gilbert recoat is covered by Vanguard's 10-year no-leak material and labor warranty. If the roof leaks in the next decade for any reason covered by the warranty — coating failure, seam split, penetration seal failure, or workmanship defect — Vanguard returns to make it right at no cost to the property owner or the operator. Vanguard Roofing AZ is a division of MSW Contracting LLC, a Chandler-based Arizona contractor on East Valley roofs since 1957. AZ ROC CR-42 #289663 and R-62 #283025. GAF, Versico, and ARMORCOAT certified. A+ BBB.
The ResultsThe results — a downtown Gilbert restaurant roof that resets for another decade without closing a single shift
The final drone photos show the outcome from every angle: a bright white cool-roof recoat framed by the signature red parapet cap, silicone protection in the one zone that actually needs it, and a signage-heavy freeway-visible restaurant façade below that never had to close its doors during the work. The operator gets a fresh 10-year warranty clock, a cooler kitchen under the same HVAC load, and a roof that will handle another decade of high-volume grill and fryer service.
Photo GalleryProject photos
FAQCommon questions
What was the scope on the Cold Beers & Cheeseburgers Gilbert roof?
Vanguard repaired and recoated 5,900 square feet of TPO roof at Cold Beers & Cheeseburgers, 1026 S Gilbert Rd in Gilbert Town Square. The 9-step scope included degreasing the roof (heavy degreasing on the kitchen exhaust side), pressure-cleaning the entire membrane, ArmorPutty repair of every frayed and unraveling area in the existing TPO with reinforcing membrane, ArmorPutty repair of all cracks and holes in the membrane, reinforcing membrane over every seam and joint, sealing all vents and pipes with ArmorPutty, applying 2 full coats of ARMORCOAT AC100 white elastomeric at 3 gallons per 100 sq ft total spread rate, and a targeted silicone roof coating around the grease trap and kitchen exhaust — all backed by a 10-year no-leak warranty.
Why apply silicone around the grease trap when the rest of the roof got AC100?
Restaurant kitchen exhaust — especially from high-volume grill and fryer operations like Cold Beers & Cheeseburgers — throws atomized cooking grease out the exhaust stack, and that grease lands on the roof surface downwind. Standard acrylic and urethane elastomerics soften and lose adhesion under sustained grease exposure. Silicone chemistry doesn't react to cooking grease, so a targeted silicone overcoat in the specific zone around the grease trap and exhaust is the industry-standard answer. Everywhere else on the roof, AC100 is the right coating: cool-roof white, elastomeric flex, high reflectivity, and easier to inspect and maintain. Two products, each doing what it does best, at a much lower cost than silicone on the entire roof.
Why coat TPO instead of tearing it off?
A properly-installed TPO membrane can hold up for 20 or 25 years in the Arizona climate, and by year 15–20 the field of the membrane is usually still watertight even though the seams, penetrations, and small details are starting to fray or crack. That's the moment when a TPO repair-and-recoat delivers the best value: you fix every seam, every crack, and every detail with ArmorPutty and reinforcing membrane, and then you re-lock the whole roof under two coats of fresh elastomeric. You reset the warranty clock for another 10 years at less than half the cost of a full tear-off, and the restaurant never has to close. Tear-off is the right answer if the membrane itself has failed. Recoat is the right answer if the membrane is still holding but the details need work — which was exactly the case here.
How did Vanguard keep the restaurant open during the work?
Cold Beers & Cheeseburgers runs 7 days a week from 10 or 11 AM to 10 or 11 PM. The Vanguard crew sequenced the work in early-morning prep sessions and non-peak windows, staged all equipment behind the building near the delivery zone (not visible from Gilbert Road or the guest patio), and managed kitchen exhaust carefully so no coating overspray drifted into the makeup air. The parking lot was swept clean every day and no drums, hoses, or debris were left overnight on the guest-facing side. Zero shifts were closed during the entire project.
What is the warranty on a TPO recoat like this?
This project is covered by Vanguard's 10-year no-leak material and labor warranty. If any covered part of the roof leaks in the next decade — coating failure, seam split, ArmorPutty detail failure, silicone patch failure, or workmanship defect — Vanguard returns to make it right at no cost to the property owner or the operator. Vanguard Roofing AZ is a division of MSW Contracting LLC, an Arizona commercial roofer on East Valley roofs since 1957. AZ ROC CR-42 #289663 and R-62 #283025. GAF, Versico, and ARMORCOAT certified. A+ BBB.