It was in 1940s that Johnny Gekas opened the original Palomino restaurant at the corner of N. Swan and E. Fort Lowell Road. Located at the end of rough road far from town, the spot had originally been called the Watering Hole.
Gekas renamed it Venice Gardens and provided music under the stars for dining and dancing. It was renamed the Palomino several years later.
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1985 Star photo
The restaurant was sold a few years later and burned down in the 1950s. It was rebuilt and continued to be known as the Palomino. Gekas again took over the restaurant in the mid-1960s. According to his wife Mary “When I saw it for the first time I nearly had a heart attack. It had orange walls and lime-green carpeting and chrome tables and chairs.”
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The had the restaurant redone in a Spanish-Mediterranean style. There were separate dining rooms and seating for 120 diners. By the 1970s, the focus of the restaurant switched from a nightclub atmosphere to fine dining. It quickly became a Tucson favorite.
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1981 Star photo
One of the Palomino dining rooms.
Over the years, such notables and celebrities as presidents Gerald R. Ford and George W. Bush, comedian Bob Hope and actors George C. Scott, Richard Boone, Walter Matthau, Kris Kristofferson and Jamie Farr. Mary Gekas stated they came there to left alone and she made sure their privacy was respected.
In 1994, the Palomino closed for good. Mary Gekas planned to retire. Her son, Jim, would help with the restaurant’s transition to Encore Med and then move on to something new. It was the first time in 52 years that some member of the Gekas family was not involved in operating a Tucson restaurant.
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