NOW OPEN: New downtown restaurant Blue Front is home to American comfort foods
I don't normally respond to Facebook comments on our articles. When we posted about Blue Front opening, though — a fashionable downtown restaurant charging big-city prices for American classics — many users echoed a similar complaint: this restaurant is expensive.
I feel their pain. When I'm not going to restaurants for work, I eat on a budget. Like many Tucsonans, most of my salary goes to rent, which has been rising sharply, along with the cost of food.
Blue Front's prices are comparable to other destination restaurants around town, like Arizona Inn or Hub. What can feel painful or exclusionary to some can feel like a special occasion or an exciting experience for others. Writing this blurb, I want to make space for all these emotions around a new restaurant.
Blue Front is run by Patricia Schwabe, the visionary behind other hip spots like Penca and the Owls Club. The standard menu is made special by an inversion: growing up in Mexico, her interpretation is that American food can be exotic and special. If you do end up trying out Blue Front, I hope you'll leave with the feeling that the food is exotic and special, too.
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