Thursday, June 23, 2011

Doughnuts, Mohawked Chefs, Barbecue and Other Things

Posted By on Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 12:13 PM

There’s another new restaurant opening on the first floor of the building at 44 E. Broadway Blvd. The paper-covered windows say breakfast, lunch, cocktails and the like will be available at some point, but no opening date, name or any other information is posted.

Meanwhile, up north in the old Acacia spot, people still aren’t talking about the restaurant that’s going in there. We heard gastropub, and then heard that was wrong. We heard this rumor, and then that rumor, and we looked through the taped up windows like a Peeping Tom, and all we can report is that we know nothing but the name: Union.

Also in new restaurant news: Mr. K’s, the barbecue shop over on South Park Avenue, is opening a location in an old Chili’s restaurant by the Tucson Mall. We’ll have more on that in next week’s Noshing Around.

Has anyone eaten at Lindy’s at Redline Sports Grill yet? We haven’t, but friends say the burgers rock and that everything else is fried. In other interesting tidbits: Joel Harrington, the wonderfully mohawked chef who was heading up the restaurants at the Ritz-Carlton, Dove Mountain, now works at Lindy’s at Redline Sports Grill.

Is bringing a skilled chef like Harrington - he’s got a long resume that includes huge accomplishments at several Ritz-Carlton hotels — some sort of preparation for taking the Lindy’s/Redline concept to Phoenix and beyond, as we’ve heard is a possibility? We’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime, the restaurant just debuted a new menu, and we hear it's quite the party on busy nights.

If you’re into food trucks, you’ll want to keep your eyes peeled during the next couple of weeks. Several businesses are working up plans for “mobile food courts,” where certain food trucks will be parked on designated days of the week. There are also rumblings of a food-truck festival in August.

We also got an update from the guys down at Borderlands Brewing Company. Apparently the brewing tanks are arriving this week, a major milestone for the brewery. We’ve toured the warehouse where the brewery is going, and it’s truly something else. Much of the old gear from when it was a produce warehouse is still in place; it gives it the coolest industrial feel. We can’t wait to have a pint there.

Depressing doughnut news: Krispy Kreme employees up north tell us all of the Tucson-area locations have closed for good. I’ll tell you what: Krispy Kreme can’t get a break in Tucson. The first time a franchisee gave it a whirl several years ago, the stores closed unexpectedly with doughnuts still on the racks. The newest franchisee pulled out every trick in the books, and still couldn’t pull it off.

But hey, he was trucking the doughnuts in from Mesa anyway, so whatever.