Sally and Glenn Murphy, left, bought Jonathan’s Cork from Jonathan and Colette Landeen. The Murphys take over on Monday, March 27.

 Alex Landeen

Jonathan Landeen made a promise back in 1994 when he bought The Tucson Cork from philanthropist Bill Hillenbrand.

β€œHe said please don’t ever give it back to me,” Landeen recalled this week. β€œAnd I never did.”

On Saturday, March 25, Landeen will preside one last time over the dining room of Jonathan’s Cork steakhouse, a throwback to Tucson’s fine dining heydays that included cowboy steakhouses alongside the white-tablecloth ambiance of The Tack Room.

On Monday, March 27, Glenn and Sally Murphy will take over the historic restaurant that has been operating at 6320 E. Tanque Verde Road since 1966, when a Phoenix restaurateur brought the Cork & Cleaver to Tucson’s then remote east side. A few years later, the restaurant became a national chain.

The Murphys will be only the fourth owners of the restaurant, which despite name changes has always been fondly referred to by regulars as The Cork.

β€œThe Cork is a tradition that is pretty special to the east side,” said the 73-year-old Landeen. β€œThe Cork isn’t me, even though it is. It’s the people who dine here. It was that way when I bought it.”

That sentiment resonates with the Murphys, who said they plan to keep the restaurant pretty much as is, from the staff to the menu staples. The name will change; the couple is going through the city’s sign permitting process to rechristen it The Cork Tucson. Possibly by fall they will add a few more sides to the menu and prop up the salad offerings.

But Glenn Murphy, who operated the Backstage next door to the restaurant in the early 2000s and has owned and run dozens of restaurants and bars in the U.S. and his native Perth, Australia, said he also will bring the restaurant into the 21st century with more computer enhanced operations that will include taking orders on digital devices instead of handwriting them as they have done since the beginning.

β€œWe’re taking on a legacy restaurant and people get scared that we’re going to change everything. But one of the reasons we bought this place is it’s good. We’re not going to change anything,” said Murphy, who trained as a chef with the Hilton Hotel culinary program when he was a teen and has spent years as a restaurant consultant.

Landeen has been flirting with retiring for several years. During the pandemic, he said, he cut back his role in the restaurant and spent some time traveling and taking care of his wife, Colette. At one time, he considered selling the restaurant to his staff, although that plan never materialized.

Murphy said he and his wife, a native of Bisbee and former KVOA TV anchor who went by her maiden name Sally Shamrell, had wanted to get back into Tucson’s restaurant business when they moved back to town from Los Angeles at the beginning of the pandemic. The couple, who owned the short-lived Aussie Cantina at 1118 E. Sixth St. near the University of Arizona in 2013-14, set their sights on a legacy restaurant, a place that was well-established with deep culinary and community roots. When they heard last October that Landeen was interested in selling, Murphy said he felt like he had stumbled onto the perfect situation.

β€œI looked at this and I thought this is exactly what I’m looking for,” said Murphy.

The restaurant is open from 3 to 9 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays and until 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; it’s closed on Sundays.

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