Hotrods Old Vail was custom-built to be a car lover's paradise.
When it opens Wednesday there will be a real Nascar race car in the lobby - please don't touch. Soon, it will have company - replicas of a 1965 Shelby Cobra and a 1933 Ford coupe.
Diners will follow a two-lane road - a black path with a broken white line down the middle - into the black-and-white checkered tile dining room. In the back, there's a bar constructed of fabricated stainless steel that looks like a shimmering chrome bumper that sits on a giant faux red tool box. Behind the bar beer taps poke out of the top of a red tool chest with drawers.
There's a similar bar, only in black, upstairs in the 21-and-older Tool Box Lounge, where bands will perform in the corner and patrons can sip cocktails on a sprawling patio that overlooks train tracks.
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But the real treat for die-hard hot-rod afficionados: a wall of windows in the main dining room that lets diners peer into the custom assembly shop to watch veteran hot-rod mechanic Steve Codianni and his team build hot rods from the frame up. The shop closes around 5 p.m.
"There wasn't really a need for another hot-rod shop in Tucson. It was the need to combine good food and classic cars," said Matthew Hallinan, the general manager who runs the 27,000-square-foot restaurant and hot- rod shop for Tucson-based Hot Rod Investments LLC. He said the project has cost roughly $11 million.
Hotrods has been six years in the making, born of a suggestion jotted down on a bar napkin over beers and burgers, said Hallinan, who declined to identify the primary owner by name.
Hot Rod Investments bought nearly 20 acres of desert between Vail and Rita Ranch, had it rezoned commercial and put in infrastructure that included paving about a quarter mile of Old Vail Road from Houghton Road to the edge of the restaurant's property, Hallinan said.
When the project started, Hotrods was to have been conveniently located next to a Mall of America-sized retail project, and surrounded by booming new neighborhoods. But when the economy tanked several years ago, so did those projects, leaving Hotrods as the biggest new development in an area that contains a smattering of homes and Empire High School.
Hallinan said Hotrods has enough going on - from live entertainment to car and motorcycle shows and a menu that includes Harris Ranch beef - to be a destination that lures folks the 23 miles or so from downtown Tucson. The menu, divided into car-themed categories from the Starting Line (appetizers) to Paint Booth Convertibles (open-faced hot sandwiches), includes stone-fired pizzas, flame-broiled hand-pressed burgers and a half-dozen pastas including the Farfalle Hammer, with bowtie pasta tossed in a cream sauce with sauteed beef tips in red wine and mushrooms.
Meal-sized salads run the gamut from the all-veggie Garage Salad to the Fender Orchard Salad that dresses a bed of baby spinach with crispy bacon, pear tomatoes, apple slices and candied walnuts in a poached apple and pear vinaigrette. Upscale fare can be found on the Builds section of the menu, which employs prime cuts of Harris Ranch beef, Gold Canyon loin chops and Regal Crest Farms chicken in dishes with names like Deuce Coupe Top Sirloin and Retro Rod Pork Chop.
The New York strip steak is the most expensive item on the menu at $17. Sandwiches run $8 and $9 and burgers are $8, while appetizers will cost from $4 to $10.
Hotrods also has plans to open an oil change shop. Customers can drop their cars off and stop in for lunch while they wait.
If you go
• What: Hotrods Old Vail, 10500 E. Old Vail Road, off Interstate 10 and Houghton Road.
• Opening celebration: 5 p.m. Wednesday featuring performances by Tucson's Heartbeat, a classic rock cover band, and Al Foul playing the 21-and-older Top Fuel Lounge. Admission is free.
• Hours: Starting next Thursday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Fridays; 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. Saturdays; 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sundays.
• Details: www.hotrodsoldvail.com
Going Green
Hotrods Old Vail has gone green -from LED lighting throughout the 27,000-square-foot building to on-site septic tanks and sewer treatment system that redirect treated effluent onto the property's vegetation.
The goal is to eventually install solar panels, GM Matthew Hallinan said.
The restaurant/custom hot-rod shop also has installed a 150,000-gallon fire water tank and a 48,000 gallon potable water tank.
