Eegee’s pulls the plug on 2 Tucson-area restaurants; Angie’s coming soon

Winterhaven Angie’s-Affiliated Development LLC bought the Marana Eegee’s in July for $2 million and the Eegee’s at 3250 E. Valencia Road for $1.6 million, according to Real Estate Daily News.

Angie’s co-founder Tony Christofellis said Friday he hopes to open the Marana Angie’s in early January. The Valencia Road location will follow in February or March.

The Courtney Page Way location had served Marana’s Continental Ranch area for 25 years before Friday’s closing. The East Valencia Road location near Tucson International Airport opened sometime in the early 2000s.

Eegee’s twin closures come just over a year after the Tucson-born chain emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy that included being acquired by a subsidiary of McLean, Virginia-based Gladstone Capital. At the time in April 2025, Eegee’s had 25 locations — 20 in Tucson, one in Casa Grande and four in the Phoenix area.

Today there are 23, including four in the Phoenix area and one in Green Valley.

Eegee’s CEO Chris Westcott could not be reached Friday for comment.

Eegee’s former owner, 39 North Capital, closed four local stores and filed for bankruptcy in December 2024, citing nearly $2.8 million in outstanding debt.

Christofellis, who launched Angie’s with his wife Roushan, said they are leasing the two buildings from Winterhaven, which is affiliated with the Phoenix-based private equity real estate firm WhiteHaven.

The two new locations will bring to eight the number of Angie’s restaurants in Tucson and 28 overall, with the bulk of the locations — 14 — in the greater Phoenix area. They also have one location each in Flagstaff, Prescott and Las Vegas, and three in Dallas.

“We're opening one Oct. 7 at 19th (Avenue) in Glendale, and we have several Phoenix stores that have been delayed that we'll be opening in the next several weeks,” he said.

Angie’s was born out of the Christofellis’ initial fast-food concept, Angie’s Lobster, and its follow-up, Angie’s Prime Grill. The couple also tried Angie’s Chicken and Angie’s Burgers, both of which didn’t fare as strongly on their own as the lobster and Prime Grill restaurants.

So Christofellis said they combined all of the menus under one roof and rebranded the chain Angie’s, with the tagline “The new fast food.”

The Christofellises got their start in the fast-food industry when they launched Salad and Go in 2013 using the same linear business model as Angie’s, which included smaller footprints, drive-in locations and online or app ordering. Most of the locations were drive-thru or walk-up, and none had dining rooms.

The couple grew the concept to nearly 35 locations by the time they sold the chain in 2021.

Within a few years, Salad and Go’s new owners had expanded to 140 locations throughout Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona and Nevada. But the expansion proved to be too big, too fast, and the owners, And Go Concepts LLC, started closing locations, including pulling entirely out of Texas and Oklahoma.

In August, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and abruptly closed the remaining 70 locations. The following day, it announced it had sold its assets to Dutch Bros., the Oregon-born drive-thru coffee and energy drink shop.