Gus Balon: He never gussied up Balon's home-style fare

A 1977 Arizona Daily Star restaurant review said the eatery was "one of those wonderful places that serves good, solid food for working people … no-nonsense, all-American cooking with generous portions and fast service."

Little has changed since then.

Longtime customers consider Gus Balon's an institution, and his granddaughter, who runs the restaurant, at 6027 E. 22nd St., intends to keep it that way in memory of Balon. He died last Tuesday at age 82.

Balon and his wife of 60 years started in the food-service business in Iowa, where Balon was born. They ran a soda fountain in a Walgreens drugstore.

The Balons worked their way south by renting and operating soda fountains in different stores. They lived for a time in Los Alamos, N.M., and it was during that period that the atom bomb was being developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

While lab workers were cooking up a weapon of mass destruction, Balon was learning to bake from a chef who prepared meals for the scientists and top military brass at the facility, his wife said.

It was there that Balon perfected his cinnamon rolls. The breakfast pastries are so decadent and so big that they've been written about in local and national publications.

In 2002, www.epicurious.com named Gus Balon's Restaurant the home of the country's best cinnamon roll. In 2006, a food writer for www.roadfood.com payed homage to the pastry: "Gus Balon's sweet roll is a scenic wonder. Huge! It is the size of half a six-pack. … It is swirled with veins of sweet cinnamon sugar and frosted on top."

Almost 42 years after the restaurant opened, Balon's granddaughter, Kelli Larson, who runs the restaurant with her husband, Brian, is using the same recipes for the cinnamon rolls and other baked goods.

Balon's grandson, Boyd Bartke, runs Robert's Restaurant at 3301 E. Grant Road. Balon helped his son-in-law, Robert Bartke, open in 1978.

"My grandfather was a baker," Bartke said last year in a Star article. "He made all the breads and pies and cinnamon rolls."

One of Balon's two daughters, Laura Fling, operated her dad's restaurant after her parents retired. She adopted her father's business style.

"His motto always was, 'If I wouldn't eat it, I wouldn't serve it,' " Fling said. Low prices also were important to the Balons.

The restaurant's first breakfast offering in 1965 — orange juice, an egg, bacon, toast and coffee — cost just 35 cents, Kay Balon said. A hearty lunchtime meal of meatloaf with side dishes was only 85 cents. And the first Thanksgiving dinner the restaurant offered, with turkey and all the fixings, cost $2.50. That deal attracted a line of customers that meandered through the parking lot and looped around the building.

"My dad worked on volume," Fling said. "You can have your restaurant full and charge $15, but you won't do as well as my dad did charging $4 and keeping people moving in and out."

Fling's daughter, Larson, represents the third generation to run the restaurant. She took over after her brother, the former operator, changed careers.

"I've worked here since I was 6," she said. "I washed dishes. I thought it was the greatest job in the world to wash dishes."

Larson, graduated from culinary school, didn't want the business run by outsiders.

"I think it's such a Tucson tradition. I couldn't see it sold. They wouldn't do it right," she said.

Auto dealer Jim Click considers Gus Balon's Restaurant to be a Tucson fixture.

"The first time I came to Tucson to look at this community in '71, a friend said, 'I have this great place to go,' and it was Gus Balon's," Click said.

Click estimates that he's eaten at Balon's more than 100 times through the years.

"Gus used to be there a lot, so I got friendly with all the waitresses and Gus and his daughter," Click said. "He was just a great guy, and boy, he made great bread."

Patti Kerns was 18 and had just graduated from high school when she got her first job waitressing at Gus Balon's. She left after several years to start a family, but she returned to the eatery a few years ago.

"I learned so much" from Balon, Kerns said. "He taught me some really good work values. He was like everybody's grandpa."

Occasionally, a competing restaurant would move in nearby, but Balon outlasted them all, his family said.

"He thought competition was good for business," said son-in-law Bartke, "because people would go to the other restaurant, see how crummy it was, and come back here and know how good it was."

Life Stories

This feature chronicles the lives of recently deceased Tucsonans. Some were well-known across the community. Others had an impact on a smaller sphere of friends, family members and acquaintances. Many of these people led interesting — and sometimes extraordinary — lives with little or no fanfare. Now you'll read their stories. "Life Stories" will be kept online at go.azstarnet. com/lifestories.