It's more of a "restaurant T" than a restaurant row.
Over the last few years, a growing number of eateries have opened where North Scott Avenue runs into East Pennington Street, turning the area where the two meet into a downtown dining destination for fans of food and drink.
Upscale restaurants within the corridor, such as 47 Scott and Café Poca Cosa, along with events like Second Saturdays, which brings thousands of people downtown every month, have helped the area shine beyond the shadows of the neighboring skyscrapers, parking garages and communication towers.
"More and more people are coming down," said Orlando Montes, the program manager for Café 54, a staple on Pennington since 2004. "There is more work to be done for sure, but we see it happening."
Seven restaurants and bars, including the new JunXion Bar, which opened last week on the corner of North Scott and East Congress, can be found in this culinary quadrant, with one more on the way.
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Urban Fresh, a plant-based whole foods cafe that will cater to lunch crowds Mondays through Fridays, plans to open early next month.
For Café 54, one of the longest running restaurants on Pennington, newcomers like Urban Fresh are welcome.
Montes said the café, which is part of a nonprofit program that gives adults recovering from mental illness work experience through training and employment, is not worried about competition.
"In the long run," he said, "it is better for Pennington and better for the downtown area overall."
Urban Fresh
73 E. Pennington St., urbanfresh@cox.net or 792-9355.
This new kid on the block rocks the tagline "a vegucational experience."
Urban Fresh, which is taking over the space once belonging to Bert's Classic Tattoo parlor will be half classroom and half restaurant.
On weekdays, the restaurant will serve smoothies for breakfast and a mix of salads, wraps and other healthy options for lunch.
At night and on weekends, the 800-square-foot space will become a learning center, with workshops and presentations on plant-based nutrition, as well as group and individual health coaching sessions.
The first class at 73 E. Pennington will take place Dec. 8 and revolve around winter holiday meals.
Kathleen Lohnes, who will run Urban Fresh with her partners, Kathy Iannacone and Fernanda Guevara, said plant-based nutrition does not mean vegan.
"You can be vegan and eat things like doughnuts and French fries," Lohnes said. "It doesn't define a lifestyle as healthy. You can still have processed foods if you are vegan. We are about 100 percent plant-based whole foods."
That means meals with minimal oils, salts and sugars.
The three women, all certified health coaches, chose downtown primarily because they knew the area.
Iannacone has owned several restaurants along Congress, starting with the Old Pueblo Eatery, which she opened at 27 W. Congress St. in 1982 and ran for more than a decade.
"Downtown is a great location," Iannacone said. "It was my goal to get back down here."
All three women agreed that the space, while small, is in a good spot with a lot of potential.
"It is really happening down there," Lohnes said. "There are restaurants of all different sizes and different scopes. We think it is wonderful."
Café Poca Cosa
110 E. Penningston St., cafepocacosatucson.com, 622-6400
Café Poca Cosa remains the epitome of destination dining in downtown Tucson.
The modern Mexican restaurant, run by Guaymas-born Suzana Davila, has been a fixture on East Pennington Street since 2006. It moved from the Santa Rita Hotel at 88 E. Broadway after the hotel was closed in a failed attempt to convert the building into a condo and retail space. The Santa Rita was razed in 2009 to make way for UniSource headquarters.
Poca Cosa changes its menu twice daily and features a mix of colorful and tasty, beef, chicken, tamale pie and seafood dishes that are just as fun to look at on the plate as they are to eat.
Want to mix it up? Try the Plato Poca Cosa, a chef's sampler of three menu items for variety.
You can wine and dine amid the large gothic paintings of Daniel Martin Diaz and the sleek, modern design of the restaurant's interior or take your meal to the outdoor patio area just west of the building when it has finished undergoing renovations.
Reilly Craft Pizza & Drink
101 E. Pennington St., reillypizza.com, 882-5550
The funeral parlor-turned-craft pizza joint boasts a mouth-watering selection of specialty pizzas you won't find on any Papa John's menu, in addition to sandwiches and pastas like cavatelli (here, pasta shells with fennel sausage and spicy braised kale) and papardelle (in this case, broad noodles with braised short ribs and mushroom).
Wash that last bit of crust down with your choice of 20 craft beers, nine cocktails or wine from the bottle or keg.
The "Drink" in Reilly's name isn't there for show. The restaurant takes its alcohol seriously. So seriously that owner Tyler Fenton and his brother/partner Zach plan to open an outdoor beer garden that will stretch along the east and south side of the restaurant, within the next few months.
The garden will feature an estimated 40 beers on tap, according to Jay Zimmerman, director of beverage and hospitality at Reilly.
47 Scott
47 N. Scott Ave., 47scott.com, 624-4747.
When they aren't working on their upcoming Caribbean-themed restaurant, Saint House - set to open on East Congress in early 2013 - Travis Reese and Nicole Flowers are serving up fine dining at their primary downtown restaurant, 47 Scott.
Unlike many of the other restaurants downtown, 47 Scott is closed to the lunch crowd during the week, with a focus instead on a daily dinner and weekend brunch service.
The only common thread that 47 Scott follows on its menu is that the food tastes good. Meals vary from a phyllo-wrapped chicken, stuffed with spinach and goat cheese to a mustard-crusted salmon filet with bacon lentils and grilled asparagus.
47 Scott's adjoining bar, Scott & Co. at 49 N. Scott, recently received national kudos as one of the nation's top 10 best new bars by Food & Wine Magazine.
Cafe 54
54 E. Pennington St., cafe54.org, 622-1907
As one of the longest running restaurants on East Pennington and North Scott, open since 2004, Café 54 dishes more than just a rotating menu of daily specials amid artistic surroundings.
The establishment doubles as a nonprofit and specializes in providing work experience to adults recovering from mental illness. Many of the restaurant's employees, from the waiters to the dishwashers, are trainees in the program.
"The main thing we do here is break down the stigma around individuals with mental illness and working," said Montes, the program manager. "These people can and do work."
Alejandro's Cafe
31 N. Scott Ave., 623-3277
It's not uncommon to see customers line up to order the more traditional Mexican fare offered at Alejandro's Cafe, a weekday spot that is open bright and early at 6:30 every morning.
The restaurant sports a menu filled with typical Mexican comfort foods, burritos and enchiladas, and it is decorated with brightly colored serapes and sombreros, with a large storefront window facing the street that allows diners the chance to people watch from their tables.
The JunXion bar
63 E. Congress St, facebook.com/TheJunxionBar, 358-3761.
The JunXion bar sits on the corner of East Congress and North Scott and, at 4,000 square feet, takes up a large piece of real estate in downtown Tucson.
Once home to the Knucklehead Alley motorcycle shop, JunXion now has all the amenities of a good watering hole, including an outdoor patio space that runs along the side of the building along Scott.
Live music will play a significant role at JunXion, as will the roof, which owner Michael Skwiat hopes to open to customers sometime in the next year.
JunXion will hold grand opening festivities starting tonight and running through Saturday.
parking
Street parking is available along both Scott and Pennington, and there's a large public parking garage on the southeast corner of where the two meet. If you can get in and out of the garage in under an hour, parking is free. It's $2 after the first hour and a buck more for every hour after that.
What is your favorite restaurant corridor? Tell us what you love about it on our Facebook wall at facebook.com/caliente.star
On StarNet: See more downtown dining photos by the Star's A.E. Araiza at azstarnet.com/gallery
No doubt about it - Tucson's home to plenty of good eats. And often, these restaurants tend to be clustered together. The city's full of unexpected pockets of eateries that offer a little bit of everything for every taste and price. Here's a look at one restaurant row in the middle of downtown. It's the second in an occasional series scouting out neighborhood culinary finds.
