Two restaurants, one roof.
That was always Deborah Tenino and Nick Kreutz’s plan for their Locale Neighborhood Italian restaurant on North Alvernon Way.
A year into the venture, the pair on Friday, Feb. 4, will open the Bakery at Locale, a grab-and-go bakery/breakfast cafe tucked into a space that had once been a night club at the historic former farmhouse at 60 N. Alvernon Way.
“The idea was to have kind of an all-day space for people who were going to the park or walking with their kids in the neighborhood to grab a bite for lunch or go to dinner,” Tenino said.
The Bakery at Locale on the south side of the 8,100-square-foot property will serve a menu of breakfast sandwiches and pastries alongside more elaborate breakfast/brunch fare including open faced Paninetti sandwiches and pizza al taglio curated by veteran Tucson chef Karen Lustig. Lustig is the former Café Terra Cotta pastry chef whose résumé includes creating decadent desserts and pastries at Pronto, Boccato Bistro and Feast.
The bakery takes up an area that was the Lundt Avenue Marble Club for 13 years.
The bakery can seat about 50 inside and dozens more outside on a pair of patios — a small enclosed patio adjacent to the space or the larger patio fronting Locale. The bakery will be open from 8 to 11 a.m. Tuesdays through Sundays; Locale is open from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays.
Tenino and Kreutz opened Locale in early December 2020 after months of renovation work at the former home of Old Pueblo Grille. Tenino and Kreutz signed the lease for the space in 2019 and had to put their plans on hold when the pandemic closed everything down in early 2020.
The Bakery takes up an area that was the Lunt Avenue Marble Club for 13 years. The dance club, which was known for its giant drinking glasses that reportedly resembled pots for plants, closed in 1990.
Tenino and Kruetz also own the 12-year-old Contigo Latin Kitchen at 3770 E. Sunrise Drive, which they renovated last October to increase the patio area.
