The folks at Jun Dynasty restaurant have found the perfect balance of authentic Chinese cuisine and Americanized Chinese, which could explain why more nights than not their parking lot on East Grant Road fills up.
βWe are standing pretty strong right here,β says GM Jacob Yang, who has helmed the restaurant at 2933 E. Grant Road for two of its six years.
Jun Dynasty is part of a growing and vibrant, heavily-local restaurant scene along Grant Road that covers the culinary gamut, from upscale at Danteβs Fire and Kingfisher to classic American at Robertβs and Boboβs, two iconic breakfast/lunch restaurants separated by a couple blocks that have been open since the late 1970s.
βIt is really one of the most popular areas,β said retired area businesswoman Judy Bosnos, who ran Geraniums Antiques & Interiors on the corner of North Country Club Road and Grant for eight years before closing last March.
Dozens of chains and nearly two dozen locally-owned restaurants vie for consumersβ attention on Grant from North Tucson Boulevard to North Swan Road.
βThe whole area is a Tucson food mecca,β said Jim Murphy, one of the two chef-owners of Kingfisher at 2564 E. Grant.
Murphy ticks off a list of restaurants on his radar, from the Guilin noodle house Noodleholics that opened at 3502 E. Grant Road in spring 2018 to the sandwich shop Sausage Deli on the other end of Grant, near the intersection of North First Avenue.
Bosnos and her husband Michael have put their building on the market and are emphasizing to potential buyers the fact that the building at 2229 N. Country Club lies in the Grant Road opportunity zone. Whoever buys it can take advantage of tax breaks that were part of Congressβs 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act aimed at spurring long-term investments in low-income urban and rural communities nationwide.
The Grant Road Corridor from Tucson Boulevard to Swan Road is one of several designated opportunity zones in Tucson.
Bosnos is hoping whoever buys her building will come in with plans for a night club or music venue. Thatβs the only thing missing in the midtown area, which draws customers from all ends of the city.
βThe thing that is interesting about that area is that people from the east side really donβt go to the northwest side and people from the north donβt go to the east side. But everybody will come to midtown,β said the 75-year-old retiree. βAnd actually itβs better than downtown because downtown is so busy and very hard to park.β
Bosnos, who commuted from the east side the entire time she ran her shop, is moving near Banner UMC in the next couple months. She, like many people she knows, is tired of the traffic that comes with driving to central Tucson from the east side.
βThere is getting to be more and more of a real appreciation for not having to drive 30 minutes to get across town,β she explained. βI think the appeal is exactly that part of town.β
