Tucson restaurateur, philanthropist Donald Luria dies at 87

Former Tucson restaurateur Donald Luria would spit out ideas faster than Kate Marquez could write them down.

“I probably have 50 emails for ideas, projects and events all bringing culinary to the center of the conversation,” said Marquez, the executive director of the Southern Arizona Arts and Cultural Alliance who had known Luria a dozen years. “My strength was in application and his strength was ideas, and Don was never at a loss for ideas.”

It was his idea to do the Southern Arizona Salsa and Tequila Challenge in 2011 to raise money for the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona. The event morphed into the Southern Arizona Salsa, Tequila & Taco Challenge, which attracted more than 1,000 people and 70 contestants at the ninth annual event in 2019 — the last year it was held. COVID put the brakes on events the past three years, but Marquez said they are hoping to resurrect it in 2023.

Luria, who died on Dec. 25 at the age of 87, also dreamed up SAACA’s other culinary events, including Savor Southern Arizona Food and Wine Festival being held on Jan. 28 to benefit Local First Arizona and the Tucson Botanical Gardens; and the hugely popular World Margarita Championship held in August.

“Don dreams the dreams and we work the nightmare,” was a joke that Donna Nordin, Luria’s wife of 35 years, had with employees of the couple’s storied foothills restaurant Café Terra Cotta. “His brain was always thinking what could we do to help these nonprofits.”

Luria’s death came after a series of illnesses going back several years that included a stroke a couple of years ago, Nordin said.

He died surrounded by family gathered for the eighth night of Hanukah, known as the Feast of Lights when all the candles on the menorah are lit.

“It was almost fitting because it was the eighth night of Hanukkah when all the candles shine their brightest,” said Luria’s son, Michael. “He was the light of our family. He literally passed away just as the sun set.”

Luria was born in Philadelphia on March 15, 1935, and spent 20 years working in government including for the U.S. Census Bureau and former Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry. He also worked for his family’s behemoth Luria Steel & Trading Corporation, which built airport hangars around the country in the 1940s and ‘50s.

Luria moved to Tucson in 1981 after learning through Census Bureau reports that it was among the fastest-growing cities in the West. He bought the Tasting Spoon cooking school and while he had no culinary experience, he had a passion for food sparked by Italian cooking classes he took in Maryland, Nordin said.

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The school and Luria’s grab-and-go concept Gourmet to Go was a launching pad that led to his meeting Nordin. She was one of the celebrity chefs invited to teach community courses at Tasting Spoon; Nordin, a classically-trained chef, had gotten national attention in 1980 when Bon Appetit featured her Chocolate Mousse Pie on its cover.

By 1986, Nordin had moved from San Francisco to Tucson and she and Luria launched Café Terra Cotta, a restaurant that put Tucson on the nationwide culinary map for its innovative fare with strong Southwestern accents. Son Michael Luria ran the restaurant with his dad and Nordin from its opening at the original St. Philip’s Plaza location to its closing 22 years later on a hilltop at 3500 E. Sunrise Drive.

One of Luria’s proudest accomplishments came in 1999, when he founded Tucson Originals Restaurants, an alliance of independent Tucson restaurants working together to raise the city’s culinary profile. The group became a model for similar “originals” alliances nationwide.

Luria, a passionate champion of visual and performing arts, also was active on as many as 50 community boards including Arizona Theatre Company, Tucson Museum of Art, Ballet Arizona, Arizona Citizens for the Arts, Community Food Bank Board, Tucson Meet Yourself and SAACA.

“Don was 100% instrumental in really bringing to our organization the culinary presence and prominence that our organization is known for,” said Marquez, who called Luria a friend. “He is a quiet giant is what he is. He never moved into anything with the idea of discord and that’s why boards loved him. In that peaceful kindness that he always led which others followed, he set a tone for this is how we support is behind the scenes. It’s not our show.”

“He just loved, loved Tucson and he wanted to see all the businesses, all the museums and all the culture events to be successful,” Nordin added. “He was just wonderful. We were joined at the hip for so long. I just don’t know how to act.”

Son Michael said his father lived a “long and interesting life” and will be remembered for his undying commitment to his adopted hometown of Tucson.

“His commitment to Tucson will be his legacy, through his philanthropic endeavors and such,” said Michael, one of Luria’s four children. “For all of us, it’s the sense of philanthropy and that we have an obligation as a member of the community to give back to the community. That’s why we all serve on (community) boards because that is the example that he taught us.”

In addition to his wife and son, Luria is survived by daughters Debbie of Washington, D.C., and Cindie of Tucson; son Andrew of Tucson; a brother, Bob Luria, of Silver City, New Mexico; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

Services will be held at 11 a.m. Jan. 8 at Evergreen Cemetery, 3015 N. Oracle Road. Memorial donations can be made to the Bald Beauties Project (baldbeautiesproject.org), founded by Luria’s late granddaughter Kelsey Taylor Luria during her treatment for Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Kelsey died in 2015.