Once a week, Mike Hultquist Jr. slips an insert into the menus of his family's longstanding South Fourth Avenue Mexican restaurant.
It's printed on heavy bond paper with the word "specials" in a font that screams "pay attention."
It is there that you will find the classically-trained chef showcasing his creativity on adrenaline: spicy mushroom and potato enchiladas that made you forget you ever ate meat was among the plant-based offerings on an early January menu, alongside classic albondigas teaming with ramen — one of two Asian-Mexican fusion soups, and a funky mac 'n' cheese with bacon and elote (Mexican street corn).
“El Torero was known for the two by two and the one by one, these lunch specials that people really loved,” Hultquist said, but when he introduced the special menu a couple of years ago, "it showed people that we’re not just some boring, same old recipe every day restaurant. We're experimenting. Let me show you how good we are at what we've been doing for 79 years, but let me show what we also can do because we’re cooks."
Hultquist is among the next gen running their families' historic restaurants on South Fourth Avenue in the City of South Tucson. They are not only keeping their families' legacies alive but reinforcing the culinary identity those restaurants established for the square-mile city.
“When people say where is South Tucson, you say, that’s where Mi Nidito is and people know," said Mayor Paul Diaz. “Restaurants are our No. 1 economic driver. Without them, we wouldn't survive.”
“Every restaurant along the South Fourth Avenue corridor is the lifeline of South Tucson,” said interim City Manager Veronica Moreno. "It is our lifeline."
There are seven restaurants along the South Fourth Avenue corridor, which starts with the 68-year-old El Torero at 231 E. 26th St. and ends with Micha's at 2908 S. Fourth Ave., which opened in 1976. An eighth, El Dorado, at 1949 S. Fourth Ave., that opened in 1959, closed during the pandemic era.
Cafe Santa Rosa, 2615 S. Sixth St., is the newest; it opened in 2019 after moving from its flagship location on South 12th Avenue. Among the legacy restaurants on that stretch is Guillermo's Double L, which opened in 1948; Mi Nidito and Sue's Fish & Chips both opened in 1952; and the granddaddy of them all is Crossroads, which opened as a drive-in back in 1936.
"People come in and say, 'Oh, I remember coming here when I was 5 or 6,'" said Aracely Gonzalez, who owns Crossroads with her husband Roberto. "It's just a (restaurant), but it's where people have had birthday parties and family get-togethers for generations."
The Gonzalezes are the second generation of Roberto's family to run Crossroads, which his father and uncle bought in 1979 from the original owners. The eatery has been closed since a fire last August that investigators ruled an arson.
Aracely Gonzalez last week said they are expecting to begin reconstruction this month.
Restaurants like Crossroads and El Torero are the heartbeat of the square-mile City of South Tucson, and not just because they rank in the city's top five economic drivers.
“I think when people think of South Tucson they think of the long-lasting restaurants," said Moreno, a City of South Tucson native who also wears the hats of city clerk and human resources director. "It describes our culture and it gives us identity. You have restaurants that go back to the 1950s.”
El Torero
Chef Mike Hultquist Jr. fires up an order of carne asada on a busy night at El Torero. Mike’s aunt opened El Torero in 1956 and he took over the family restaurant in 2019.
At El Torero, Michael Hultquist Jr. is carrying on the culinary legacy started by his great-aunt Adelina Borgaro, who opened the restaurant in 1956, and carried forward by his uncle Brad Hultquist and father Michael.
The junior Hultquist, a 35-year-old father of one who is expecting his second child in April, remembers spending a lot of time as a kid in the kitchen of El Torero and Laroca, his mother's restaurant in Nogales, Sonora.
"I would sit and talk to my grandmother (Carmen) in the kitchen and watch people work. Then I would slowly kind of jump in," he said.
As a kid, Hultquist would run sodas to customers' tables. In his teens he ran errands for his father, who managed the family's other restaurant, Lerua's on East Broadway, owned by his grandmother Carmen. Lerua's closed in February 2019 — a casualty of the prolonged Broadway road widening project.
"Growing up in the industry for me was the man above’s plans,” he said, but the younger Hultquist was thinking more along the lines of cozy bistro, not family Mexican restaurant.
After cooking for a couple of years at The Dish, the former popular bistro at The Rumrunner on East Speedway, he enrolled in the San Diego Culinary Academy. His father said that when the class focused on Mexican food, the instructor turned it over to his son to teach.
After cooking in a few nice restaurants in California, Hultquist Jr. came home and rejoined his father at Lerua's, where he began to tweak the menu. He added a couple of specials on a chalkboard then expanded it to offer a different twist beyond the tacos and burritos that had been the restaurant's signature alongside its green corn tamales.
When the family was forced to close Lerua's, the father and son migrated to El Torero. The restaurant had been closed since December 2018 when Michael Sr.'s brother Brad, who had run the restaurant for decades, suffered a brain aneurysm.
Hultquist Jr. said they spent months cleaning the restaurant, installing new flooring, bathrooms and the bar and upgrading the utilities. When it came time to reopen, they realized that none of the restaurant's recipes were written down. Brad Hultquist and his longtime kitchen staff had committed them all to memory; with Brad's illness and the absence of those longtime staffers, Hultquist Jr. was at a loss of what to do.
“We really didn’t know what to do. Brad didn't remember recipes," he said. "The cooks also barely remembered what they had been cooking. We kind of knew what the things were and how he would plate things, but (Brad) was having a hard time remembering what he was putting in his food. For us it was like, we’re going to make some food. It was kind of like fly by the seat of my pants."
They also incorporated a few of the dishes from Lerua's, which confused some longtime customers.
"People thought it was Lerua's," Hultquist said. "It took some time to get it right and I think we’ve finally nailed it.”
He rolled out the weekly special menus in 2019, testing the water to see if diners who had been coming to El Torero for generations were ready for a change.
“I just started putting them out there to see what people would receive," he said.
Each of the dishes was made to order; although he and his staff did some minor prep, most of the cooking was on the fly.
Before long, Hultquist's father said diners started coming in specifically for the specials.
“People love it. That menu I put out has become its own following,” Hultquist Jr. said.
“There’s a thing that’s a fine line," he added about his restaurant and all the legacy restaurants on South Fourth. "You have to pay respect to where you come from and I think that people have forgotten that these tried and true places might not be hype from what social media says, but these places are hidden gems. They perpetuate history."
Crossroads
2602 S. Fourth Ave., 520-624-0395
When Aracely and Roberto Gonzalez took over Crossroads from Roberto's father and uncle, they knew they were handed the keys to one of the oldest restaurants on South Fourth Avenue.
It had started as a burger and hot dog stand in 1936 before the original owners turned it into a drive-in. Families would pull into the parking lot and eat in their cars.
When Gonzalez's father and uncle bought the restaurant from the original owners in 1979, they changed the menu to Mexican food and expanded the seating to create more of a sit-down restaurant.
Roberto and Aracely bought the restaurant from Roberto's uncle in 2001 and for the most part have maintained the Mexican food legacy. They added a weekend buffet and a selection of Mexican soups including pozole and albondigas to the menu, along with chiles Crossroads — bacon-wrapped green peppers stuffed with shrimp and topped with cheese. They also introduced desserts.
"We have kept the same Sonoran cuisine. The only thing we added was a couple items to make it a more traditional restaurant," Aracely Gonzalez said.
About 10 years ago, Aracely added catering services.
"It's a place that people recognize and they don't want it to change a lot," she said. "I want to keep it the way the restaurant was known."
Beyond those few tweaks, the restaurant concept is pretty much unchanged from when Roberto Gonzalez started washing cups at the restaurant when he was 5 years old, a tradition that the couple continued with their children. Their oldest son Roberto worked at the restaurant until he finished college and started his career. Son Cesar, 20, is a server and their two younger kids, 15-year-old Miguel and 14-year-old Isabella, help out on weekends.
"You grow up with the family business," Aracely Gonzalez said.
Crossroads has been closed since last August, when someone set fire to the restaurant. They expect to begin rebuilding sometime this month.
Mi Nidito
1813 S. Fourth Ave., 520-622-5081
The Mi Nidito dining room fills with customers during lunchtime on Feb. 7.
The rain didn’t stop anyone from forming a line outside Mi Nidito one Friday morning.
As it drizzled, a few people stood outside the historic restaurant on South Fourth Avenue, patiently waiting for the doors to open at 11 a.m. One older woman in line was visiting the Mexican spot for the first time, asking people around her for their recommendations.
“There’s not a bad plate here,” one man told her.
For almost 72 years, Mi Nidito has been a staple in Tucson, with people flocking to the restaurant to try their famous chile rellenos or the President’s Plate that includes a tamale, taco, beans, enchilada and chile relleno that Bill Clinton requested when he visited in 1999.
Mi Nidito first popped up on the corner of South Fourth Avenue and East 29th Street in 1952. Ernesto Lopez initially wanted a tortilla factory, but his wife, Alicia, wanted a Mexican food restaurant.
“You know who won that argument,” said Jimmy Lopez, the couple's grandson who now co-owns the restaurant.
The younger Lopez runs Mi Nidito, which translates to my little nest, with his brother, Ernest Lopez III, making them the third generation to take the reigns after their father passed a few years ago.
“I've been working here 53 years and one of the things that I've enjoyed seeing is the generations after generations of families that have been coming here,” Jimmy Lopez said. “When I meet families, I meet the kids and they have kids. Now they bring their kids from generation to generation.”
When Mi Nidito first opened, the kitchen was in the area that is now the lobby. Over the years, Jimmy said they have renovated and expanded, adding more space to the dining area.
When Mi Nidito first opened, the kitchen was in the area that is now the lobby. Over the years, they have renovated and expanded, adding more space to the dining area.
They have also added a few new meals to the menu since Alicia was in the kitchen. Birria, cocido aka their vegetable soup, tortilla soup and nopalito enchiladas were all dishes that were later added to Alicia’s iconic menu.
“I remember when my grandmother used to cook here when we first opened; she used small, two-, three-quart pots,” Jimmy Lopez said.
Even some their ingredients have changed, like the chile paste used for their red chile enchilada sauce or beef. Despite these changes, Mi Nidito strives to stay consistent, making sure you’re getting a quality meal every time you stop by.
In fact, Mi Nidito is so consistent, they even have some of the same employees from years ago. One of the waitresses has been at the restaurant for 44 years. One of the chefs, who started out as a line cook, has been around for about 50 years.
Sue's Fish and Chips
2500 S. Fourth Ave., 520-622-5711
Viola Morales, a cashier at Sue's Fish and Chips, takes down a customer's order during lunchtime on Feb. 14.
Sue’s Fish and Chips started out as a small fish in a big pond.
In 1952, their trailer sat on the corner of South Fourth Avenue and East 35th Street among a sea of notable Mexican restaurants. Sue, the owner of the trailer, sold her battered and breaded fish and chips, a recipe that is still used to this day.
Later, Sue’s Fish and Chips got a little bigger, upgrading their trailer into a small building with just a walk-up window. Sometimes they would bring the jukebox outside so people could dance in the area as they enjoyed their meals.
Seventy-one years later, Sue’s Fish and Chips has now transformed into a big fish, earning its iconic status after years and years of serving fresh, fried fish in South Tucson in an actual building with a dining area.
Darrel Rubnik and his wife, Therese, have been running Sue’s since 1996 when he bought the restaurant from Sue’s son-in-law, continuing the legacy. Just like in 1952, they still batter and bread their fish and shrimp; they also make their own special sauce and tartar sauce.
Jennifer Salcido, a line cook at Sue's Fish and Chips, prepares a large order on Feb. 14.
Most importantly, Darrel only uses crinkle cut fries, saying crinkle cut tastes different from other fast food fries.
“I like the originality,” Darrel said. “People like it, and that's why we keep our menu.”
While the menu has mostly stayed the same, Darrel has brought in some new dishes, including hush puppies and a few other appetizers.
“We only offer three things here: quality, service and pricing,” he says.
Micha's Restaurant
2908 S. Fourth Ave., 520-623-5307
In May 1976, Micha’s Restaurant first opened its doors on the south end of South Fourth Avenue, with no advertising.
The restaurant started out as just one little room. Artemisa Mariscal, one of the owners, would go take orders, walk over to the kitchen, cook their meals and bring out a Mexican feast.
“People would say she'd be in the booth making the albondigas and rolling the meat,” now-owner Alex Franco said.
Decades later, Micha’s still sits on the south end, keeping the spirit alive and serving up generational favorites, but in a much bigger spot.
Artemisa and her husband, Gilbert, were the masterminds behind this popular Mexican place, but the restaurant is now in the third-generation’s hands.
Their granddaughter, Denise Franco, and her husband Alex now look after Micha’s making sure it stays true to its legacy.
Despite setbacks like the fire that severely damaged the restaurant in 2018 and the global pandemic, Franco and the rest of the Mariscal family continue to keep the lights on.
“There is a lot of stuff we had to deal with,” Alex Franco said. “We dealt with the fire, COVID and now pricing is going up and fluctuating. It’s crazy.”
When it comes to keeping customers happy, Franco said he likes to keep it “old school.” They write out all their tickets and have a cashier to take payment. They even still use the original recipes from the restaurant’s early years, guaranteeing a quintessential Mexican meal every time you order.
Albondigas, chicken fajitas, tamales, red chile enchiladas, flautas and carne asada tacos are all on the menu at Micha’s. However, their most popular dish continues to be the machaca, which is dried beef or pork.
Their food and authentic atmosphere are what keep families coming back for seconds.
“I think it's more family oriented,” Franco said. “We know a lot of the customers and we know their kids and their kids.”
Even though they like to keep things old school, Franco and the Mariscal family have added a few new things to the restaurant. Back in the '80s, they renovated the space to add more dining areas.
The little one room eventually grew to five separate dining rooms.
They also put the restaurant on delivery apps such as Door Dash and Uber Eats, so you can enjoy your machaca in the comfort of your home.
Guillermo's Double L
1830 S. Fourth Ave., 520-792-1585
It’s hard to believe that Guillermo’s Double L was not always a Mexican restaurant.
In fact, it was the complete opposite.
When Guillermo’s made its first appearance on South Fourth Avenue in 1948, it was a drive-in barbecue joint. Around four years later, it made the switch to Mexican food.
Now, about 75 years later, Guillermo’s continues to serve up classic Mexican and seafood dishes.
Tony Gonzalez, whose name you might recognize from Crossroads’ fame, bought the restaurant in the 2000s from Bill Ford, whose father-in-law originally owned the place.
After taking over, Gonzalez kept their extensive menu, which includes classic dishes like carne seca, chicken mole and milanesa, but he added his own flair. Now, the menu includes dozens of Sonoran specialties with an emphasis on seafood. They even have a few vegan meals like calabacitas and veggie burros.
