Jeffrey Flores, left, and Auxi Navarro at Flaps and Racks and Acai Paradise, 3253 E. Valencia Road.

 Kelly Presnell photos, Arizona Daily Star

Jeffrey Flores was expecting the sneeze guards for his new restaurant to arrive last Monday, but a recent COVID-19 outbreak at the factory forced a delay.

So when he opens his twin south-side restaurants on Monday, Nov. 22, he will make do with plastic covering.

After months of waiting for equipment to arrive and struggling to hire enough staff for Flaps and Racks and Acai Paradise at 3253 E. Valencia Road, he and his partner/wife Auxi Navarro weren’t about to let a sneeze guard stall them.

β€œIt’s a sigh of relief to finally open, but it is something that is a little bit scary, too,” Flores said late last week, admitting that he still doesn’t have the number of employees he thinks he’ll need. β€œWe don’t have the full manpower and I guess that is the way it is and the way it will be.”

Flores and Navarro, who are in the venture with Flores’s brother Miguel and sister Keila, announced plans for the restaurants in August and had hoped to open by September.

The supply chain hiccups and hiring woes pushed the opening back, from a couple of weeks at first to a couple of months by the time they take their first order of chile verde wings at Flaps and Rack or housemade oatmeal and acai bowls at Acai Paradise on Monday.

Junior Roman, left, and Flaps and Racks manager Miguel Flores talk while the work goes on around them at Flaps and Racks restaurant and its companion, Acai Paradise.

The ventures are across the street from Flores’s Los Betos restaurant, 3216 E. Valencia, Flores’s first Tucson restaurant venture that he and Miguel bought a few years after he moved to Tucson from his native Puerto Rico in 2000.

The brothers kicked around the idea of opening a wings and ribs restaurant and were looking for a location when they saw the plaza being built late last year.

After signing the lease last summer, Flores put out β€œnow hiring” signs on social media and started ordering equipment.

The hiring has been slow going, he said, which is endemic of restaurants throughout Tucson and beyond. And equipment orders have been delayed weeks and months; a walk-in freezer Flores expected to be delivered and installed weeks ago just arrived, he said.

But the hiccups have not dimmed their spirits. Flores said he is excited to see the public’s reaction to his inventive wing sauces, from the chorizo flecked wings to his take on chicken and waffles: A cinnamon bun sauce that will add sweet with a hint of spice.

Flaps and Racks and Acai Paradise, 3253 E. Valencia Road.

β€œChicken and waffles has been very popular for a long time and we were trying do something similar but different,” he said.

Hours for Acai Paradise will be from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. Flaps and Racks will be open from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily. Both restaurants will be closed on Thursday, Nov. 25, for Thanksgiving.

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Contact reporter Cathalena E. Burch at cburch@tucson.com. On Twitter @Starburch