Tucson's having a big fast-food reshuffle

As many as six 7 Brew drive-thru coffee stands could open in closed Tucson Salad and Go locations.

An Eegee’s that abruptly closed on East Speedway last week is moving up a few blocks to a soon-to-be-closed New Mexico burger joint.

And the OG of Utah’s dirty soda craze might be coming to Tucson’s south side in another Salad and Go drive-thru that abruptly closed Aug. 5 when the chain’s owner filed for bankruptcy.

Spaces throughout Tucson that might otherwise have been left vacant are finding new life in Tucson’s ever-evolving fast-food chain restaurant scene.

Eegee’s navigates change 

Over a four-day period late last month, Eegee’s quietly and inexplicably shuttered three Tucson locations, setting off a social media frenzy from people speculating about the company’s future and prompting Eegee’s CEO Ken Kenwood to issue a public statement:

“Eegee’s isn’t going anywhere.”

The closures were temporary, he said in an interview last Wednesday; the company’s leases were up “and the owners wanted to sell the property.” Eegee’s, he said, wasn’t in the real estate business.

“We’re looking to relocate,” said Kenwood, a 33-year veteran of California’s In-N-Out Burger chain who moved to Tucson and started working for Eegee’s in February. He became CEO last spring.

Eegee’s already has a new home for the restaurant at 2510 E. Speedway that closed Sept. 28. It will move just up the boulevard to 2810 E. Speedway, which has been home since 2016 to the New Mexico green chile burger chain Blake’s Lotaburger.

Blake’s is closing Oct. 11, according to manager Gino Zeneiano. The chain’s two other Tucson locations — 1600 W. Valencia Road and 3560 N. Craycroft Road — are apparently unaffected by the closing, according to employees. Company officials in Albuquerque could not be reached for additional comment.

Eegee’s Kenwood said he hopes to finish the buildout at the new Speedway location later this year and open in late December or early January.

But it will take a bit longer to reopen the Eegee’s restaurants at 3250 E. Valencia Road near the Tucson airport and 8160 N. Courtney Page Way in Marana that the Tucson-born sandwich and iced drink chain abruptly closed on Sept. 25.

Both stores had been open on Sept. 24; the following day, the buildings were empty and the Eegee’s signs were stripped from the exterior. There was a similar overnight turnaround for the Speedway location, as well, which Kenwood said “was just part of the process.”

“I know there's a lot of other rumors out there that I'm reading about,” he said of the social media reaction to the sudden closings.

Kenwood said he is scouting new locations and hopes to reopen those stores; “the sooner the better for us would be great,” he said.

“It's just trying to find the right location so we don't saturate our own brand ,” Kenwood said Wednesday. “There is really no timeline. It's more about picking the right site.”

Angie's builds a brand

Eegee’s’s loss will be a gain for Angie’s, the fast-food chain started by the couple who created Salad and Go in 2013.

Tony and Roushan Christofellis plan to open two more outposts of their growing Angie’s “new fast food” chain. After selling their interest in Salad and Go, the couple launched the drive-thru-only/digitally-focused Angie’s Lobster in 2021; they brought it to Tucson in late 2024.

In 2022, they introduced the follow-up, Angie’s Prime Grill, then Angie’s Burgers and Angie’s Chicken, all of which are now on one menu under the umbrella of “Angie’s.”

The two new locations will bring to eight the number of Tucson restaurants, with 28 overall — 14 in the greater Phoenix area and one each in Flagstaff, Prescott and Las Vegas. There are three other locations in Dallas.

Christofellis late last week said that aside from the planned Marana and East Valencia Road restaurants, he has no plans for any additional locations in Tucson.

7 Brew could expand Tucson footprint

Arizona didn’t come on the Arkansas-born coffee drive-thru’s radar until 2025, when 7 Brew opened its first Arizona locations at 960 E. Tucson Marketplace Blvd. on Tucson’s south side and at 135 E. Speedway.

The first Phoenix-area location just opened weeks ago in Queen Creek.

But the company is about to make major inroads in the state after a Texas bankruptcy court last week awarded the company’s bid to the leases of 73 closed Salad and Go locations— 30 of them in the Phoenix area, six in Tucson.

P2 Brew, the franchise owner/operator of 7 Brews Tucson locations, is expected to convert the former Salad and Go drive-thrus at 3220 N. Campbell Ave., 5501 E. Speedway, 7980 E. Speedway, 2080 W. River Road, 1302 S. Kolb Road and 10071 E. Old Vail Road into 7 Brews drive-thrus.

Officials from 7 Brew and the franchise operator did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Dirty soda store that started craze is coming soon

Swig, the little Utah shop that started the “dirty soda” craze in 2010, is expected to move into the former Salad and Go in the south-side Tucson Marketplace.

It is one of eight Arizona locations the Utah-born soft-drink company could open after it acquired 11 former locations of Salad and Go as part of that company’s bankruptcy. The three additional locations are in Oklahoma and Las Vegas.

Despite numerous attempts, Swig officials could not be reached last week to comment.

The shop at 1730 E. Tucson Marketplace Blvd. will be Swig’s first Tucson location — it has a dozen in the greater Phoenix area since entering that market in 2017. But it won’t be Tucson’s first experience with dirty soda.

Swig’s competitor Sodalicious was the first to arrive when it opened a drive-thru in 2023 at 9170 N. Silverbell Road in Marana’s Continental Ranch community. It has three other Arizona locations, including in Safford.

An outpost of FiiZ Drinks, another Utah-born dirty soda chain, opened at 904 E. University Blvd. just as students were returning to the University of Arizona campus in August 2024.

Several local restaurants also serve their own version of dirty soda, which Nicole Robison and Todd Tanner popularized from a small storefront in picturesque St. George, Utah, in 2010, with their Swig flagship.

The idea was to take Coke, Pepsi, Dr Pepper or any other popular name-brand soda and reinvent it with fruit-flavored syrups or flavored coffee creams. The store also offered frosted sugar cookies baked in-house to complement the sugar load from the sodas.

Sodalicious arrived in 2013 with its version, which Swig, in a 2015 lawsuit, claimed was too close to their original, including the use of the term “dirty soda.”

The parties later settled out of court.

Swig has more than 170 locations in 17 states. Soladlicious has 16 locations in three states, while FiiZ has 45 locations in at least 10 states.