Create Cafe, the funky family-friendly east-side restaurant known for its chicken curry salad and charitable good deeds, will end its 13-year run today.
Create will close at the end of business today, ending a tenure that began in 1999 in a sweaty gym on East Speedway and grew into a sprawling restaurant on East Camp Lowell Road.
Owner Lauri Kaye, the mother of a 6-year-old son and stepmom to two grown children, said the time demands to run the restaurant put too much strain on her personal life.
"So I made the personal decision to close," she said.
Kaye will continue to operate Create as a catering business at another location. She also is exploring plans to roll out a food truck that will be part of community events including the Tucson Festival of Books and the food truck roundups. She plans to use her catering truck with a large red tomato painted on the side and will ask her customers where they would like to see her set up.
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"I'm kind of keeping my options open," Kaye said Friday. "I would love to do a little piece of what we've created over the past 13 years. I know we have an awesome product. I would like to stay true to what we've created but keep it on a small scale."
"We will continue to exist. We're just metamorphosing," she added.
Create's executive chef Christopher Duncan will stay on with the catering company, she said.
The East Camp Fort Lowell restaurant was Create's third home. It started as a smoothies and sandwich shop in the former Metro Fitness gym on East Speedway before moving into a small strip mall on East Grant Road near Craycroft Road and finally to East Camp Fort Lowell, moving into a large space that once housed a Mexican restaurant.
Create's menu of house-made burgers and fresh meal-sized salads and creative sandwiches and wraps were a hit with customers. But the restaurant's kid-centric theme, with stacks of popular board games and toys and its Saturday night $2 kid meal specials served with a side of fun - an inflatable jumping castle, hula-hoop contests and a conga line led by a dancing tomato - established the restaurant as a family destination.
Create also was an outlet for emerging artists and musicians, who were invited to showcase their talents, and a ready partner with charitable organizations including the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast-cancer organization and the Humane Society of Southern Arizona.
Final weekend
• Create Cafe will be open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. today. Christopher Duncan will prepare his final chef's special surprise served with a tap beer, which has always proved to be a big hit with diners, owner Lauri Kaye said.
• From 9 a.m. to noon Sunday, Kaye will auction off the restaurant's vintage, retro and modern furnishings at the restaurant, 4660 E. Camp Lowell Drive.
Contact reporter Cathalena E. Burch at cburch@azstarnet.com
