Nimbus American Bistro & Brewery on East Tanque Verde Road has closed, the second Tucson area restaurant to call it quits this week.
Monkey Business in Marana closed Monday. (See related story.)
Nimbus Bistro officials could not be reached for comment, but a sign on the door said the restaurant was closed. Its Facebook page had a posting Sunday regarding the Arizona Wildcats basketball game, but by Tuesday evening, the page had been taken down. No one answered the restaurant's phone and the building itself has been dark and empty since Monday.
Nimbus opened in September 2009 as a joint project of Tucson restauranteur Bob McMahon and Nimbus Brewing Co. owner James Counts. A year into the venture, McMahon, who owns the building at 6464 E. Tanque Verde Road, pulled out and listed himself as strictly the landlord.
(McMahon in early January filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection just as the bank was coming in to auction off his eight-building complex at North Swan and East Fort Lowell roads. The property also is home to McMahon's Prime Steakhouse.)
A year after McMahon's exit, Counts' role in Nimbus Bistro was minimized when Phoenix businessman Brandon Williams and Tucson businessman Don Norris bought out Counts' majority ownership and took over the bistro.
Counts maintained minor ownership, but said at the time that he wanted to focus his energies on brewing beer.
"I'm going to go back to focusing on beer, which was beginning to be tough to do with the bistro and the brewery. It was getting to be too big a job for one individual," Counts said at the time.
Nimbus Bistro had a short-lived outpost in Scottsdale. Williams and Norris opened Nimbus American Bistro & Eatery at 7001 N. Scottsdale Road in March 2012 and closed it that November, according to the Phoenix New Times.
