That Ari Shapiro enjoys riding a one-speed bicycle up Mount Lemmon is not unrelated to his steadily expanding business portfolio. In each leg pump is his aesthetic, not to mention his strategy.
The one-time San Francisco bike mechanic turned closely watched Tucson food-and-drink entrepreneur is dogged (see: man-powered mountain ascent) and he's steady, expanding even during the recession but resisting unsustainable bursts.
He's inspired by the efficiency he sees in the form of a bicycle, "beautiful efficiency," he would say, of the object and the action.
It's an aesthetic on clear display in the clean-lined interiors of each of Shapiro's businesses - three Xoom Juice smoothie shops and downtown's popular Sparkroot coffee house, which even has a bike rack built into the wall.
It's also an idea Shapiro operates by, in life as in business. Without that commitment to simplicity, he might not be able to be a hands-on manager of four businesses while planning yet another two.
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Shapiro does all the bookkeeping, hires employees and even orders the ingredients for all his businesses. And, of course, he rides his bicycle among them, undeterred by modern streetcar construction and other potential obstacles.
By January, Shapiro hopes to have launched two new business concepts, each bearing his signature simplicity.
Falora - a cozy Neapolitan-style pizzeria - is slated to open in January in Broadway Village, near the intersection of Broadway and South Country Club Road.
The curve of the imported Italian stove will be echoed in the brick arches of the windows of the 1930s shopping center designed by celebrated architect Josias Joesler.
The wood to fuel the oven will serve as décor, stored along a wall of the eating area dominated by a long community table.
There will be an outdoor patio and a menu featuring the same careful spareness - espresso, pizza, salads, that's all.
"To me, there was a lot of simpático going on between the bones of the space and the bones of the concept," Shapiro said.
His other new venture - urbonsale.com - is a new twist on online deals sites, what Shapiro calls a "real-time broadcast site."
Predictably, it's pared down from the familiar form. It's a website with four main fields - go, here, mention this, at this time.
"I think of it as the bastard child of Twitter and Craigslist," Shapiro said.
For a small fee, businesses can post deals, but the post will last just three hours.
The site is intended to be used as a quick fix if, say, a business orders too much of one ingredient or gets little business while it's raining.
For consumers, it just means deals.
There will also be a consumer-to-consumer function added eventually. Again for a small fee, people will be able to post an ad that will be up a short time.
"It's like a come-and-get-it type thing," Shapiro, 45, said. "It could also act like an Etsy (craft sales site) for local artists. It facilitates face-to-face meetings here and now."
For Shapiro, those face-to-face meetings define urbanism. They are what the native New Yorker likes about living in a city, and they underly what he hopes to achieve.
They are why he decided to drive a cab when he first moved to Tucson more than 10 years ago, meeting people while scoping a location for his first Xoom Juice shop, at East Speedway and Treat Avenue.
They are why he first considered opening a bike messenger operation here, after having sold his biking fashion company, Zoic, when he left San Francisco.
"Urban is more of a frame of mind rather than a metropolis," he said.
In nurturing that frame of mind, Shapiro has helped Tucson's downtown gain momentum, said Michael Keith, CEO of the Downtown Tucson Partnership.
The 2009 opening of a Xoom Juice shop in the newly renovated One North Fifth apartment building coincided with the beginning of a burst in private investment in the area, Keith said.
He estimates that more than $200 million will be spent between 2008 and the end of 2013, following more than $500 million in public investment.
Shapiro alone says he's invested about a half-million dollars in his downtown businesses, and a little over a million overall in his Tucson enterprises.
"I think downtowns are successful because they create a lot of opportunities for communities to come together, and that's where cultural, personal and economic information is shared," Keith said.
Places like Sparkroot are "the heart and soul of downtown because people linger there," Keith said. "I went in one morning for coffee and to read the paper, and I was there three hours as people I knew came in. It was the best day of my life downtown."
Jamie Williams, a photographer who lives in the university area and is a big fan of Sparkroot, agrees that the ambience is key to its success both as a business and as a downtown hub.
"You feel like you're in a big city, yet it's quiet, a nice place to relax," she said. "(Shapiro) gets in there and talks to the customers, and I really like that," Williams said. "There's a lot of attention to detail. It's clean and simple."
What Shapiro was able to do downtown is what the owners of Broadway Village are hoping he can do a bit further east.
"The day he called me, I went down to Sparkroot," said Craig Finfrock, one of the managers of CRI Broadway Partners, which owns the shopping center. "It just kind of fit right."
When Shapiro insisted on spending time in the space before proposing a full restaurant concept, Finfrock's suspicion he had found the right person became more sure. "It's not just finding someone to pay the rent. It's about creating a sense of place," he said.
Contact reporter Carli Brosseau at cbrosseau@azstarnet.com or 573-4197. On Twitter: @carlibrosseau