I expected a place called the Hot Rod Cafe to have an automotive theme. What I didn’t expect was how deep the gearhead lifestyle figures in the lives of the three generations of women who run the place.
“Mom drives a Harley,” said Lucy McIntosh, who operates the new restaurant at 2831 N. Stone Ave. with her mother, Deanie Burris, and grandmother, Madonna Toia. “Grandma has a 1939 hot rod and a motorcycle.”
The eatery opened about two weeks ago in what was once McIntosh’s great-grandfather’s muffler shop. The cherry-red interior is draped with checkered flags. The bases of the tables are chrome tire rims. Racing and Harley Davidson memorabilia are displayed everywhere.
The menu is broken down into “The Starting Line,” “Souped Up Soups,” “Super Charged Salads,” “Cold Hearted Sandwiches,” and “Hemi Hot Sandwiches.” Drinks are called “Racing Fluids,” and sandwiches are given names like “T-Bird” and “Pink Cadillac.” Breakfast and lunch are served from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday. Nothing on the menu is more than $5.
And should you find yourself inspired by the menu and décor, feel free to indulge your inner grease monkey right up the street at Don’s Hot Rod Shop at 2811 N. Stone Ave. It’s run by McIntosh’s grandpa, a former drag racer who has operated the shop for decades.
Visit the restaurant’s website for more information.
This article appears in Jun 17-23, 2010.
A fun local place with nice folks and incredible chili…great even in a power outage!
We were so excited to try this place. There was a considerable wait, but we decided to sit out on the patio and tried to enjoy the scenery. We had to wait on ourselves to get our drinks, and the hostess informed us that if we expected to eat, we had to serve ourselves the food from the bar. We didn’t think much of this, but then we waited for 58 minutes for someone to give us a menu. When we finally received our menus, we asked if we could eat outside. The hostess told us that she would send her waitress to us….another 35 minutes passed and still no waitress. I went inside to see where our server was, only to learn that the waitstaff was not serving food outside. Ha! We waited for an hour and a half for nothing. We decided to leave….horrible service. We will NOT be patronizing this establishment again.
It know (I have done it before) it is very hard to start a restaurant–expensive, time consuming–very difficult..However if you cannot take care of your guests when your doors open, don’t try to make them believe that you can when they are open.
Hello, I am responding the the previous comment. Unfortunately the original Hot Rod Cafe in Tucson is on Stone Avenue and Glenn Street and we have been getting a lot of bad reviews on our restaraunt because of the new Hot Rod at Old Vail. We are in NO WAY affiliated with the Old Vail location and have had to repeatedly defend ourselves because of their bad service. The above comment is about Hot Rods at Old Vail and not the original Hot Rod Cafe and I know this because we do not have a patio and or a hostess. We are a small locally owned cafe run by a mother and daughter team. We pride ourselves in service and get to know just about every one of our customers. We have been open for 2 years and have a lot of happy customers. Our family has been in to drag racing for over 50 years and our cafe is decorated with mostly local memorabilia.
If you want to really experience a Hot Rod Cafe please come visit us at 2831 N. Stone Ave and check out our website at TucsonHotRodCafe.com You won’t be dissapointed and we look forward to meeting you.