Drive east on Sunrise Drive at six on a weeknight and the intersection at Kolb tells you something about how the Catalina Foothills eats. The El Charro Ventana patio is already full. Across the street, in a 3,500-square-foot building that spent most of the last fifteen years cycling through upscale concepts, the lights are finally back on. The Hills by Monica opened this spring, and the corner is once again working the way it was designed to.
For residents who have watched this address turn over twice in a decade, the story is less about a new restaurant than about what kind of restaurant finally landed here.
What Actually Opened at 6960 E. Sunrise
Flores Concepts/Si Charro, the family behind El Charro Café, Charro Steak and The Monica downtown, took the space at the corner of East Sunrise Drive and North Kolb Road after Commoner & Co. closed. The Hills by Monica opened in April 2026 at the base of the Catalina Foothills, positioned as a neighborhood café offering casual breakfast and lunch service followed by an elevated dinner experience.
The dining room seats 120 people inside with an additional 20 on the patio, which faces the Santa Catalina Mountains. The kitchen is built around a brick oven, and the menu leans wide on purpose. Ray Flores has described a brick-oven pizza program with pizzas, focaccia and sandwiches, alongside pasta, salads, a full coffee program and a full bar with a focus on value.
"We're not trying to be high end. We want to be in that $20 to $30 plate range if not even less for lunch and brunch. The menu will be derived from some of The Monica's most successful recipes, as well as evolutions to fit the neighborhood's needs."
That price band matters more than it sounds. Mimosas are priced below what nearby resorts charge, and the menu accommodates gluten-free, vegan, keto and high-protein diets, with the concept framed as a little bit of breakfast, lunch and dinner available all the time. The name is a local reference, not a marketing exercise. Flores has explained that "The Hills" is a nickname for the teams at Catalina Foothills High School — if you play for the high school, you play for The Hills.
The interior is Tucson-specific in a way the last two tenants were not. Local art is central to the space, including murals by Tucson artist Joe Pagac and work inspired by DeGrazia, with vintage Tucson items throughout in what Flores calls a shabby boho chic aesthetic.
Why This Corner Keeps Drawing Restaurants
The intersection has a longer restaurant history than most Foothills residents realize. The corner has been devoted to restaurants since 2010, when The Abbey moved in. It stayed four years before shuttering, opening the door for Commoner & Co., the upscale sister to Nathan Ares's breakfast and brunch spot Prep & Pastry, in 2015.
Here is the tenancy in order:
| Years | Tenant | Concept |
|---|---|---|
| 2010–2014 | The Abbey | Upscale gastropub |
| 2015–2025 | Commoner & Co. | Upscale New American |
| 2026– | The Hills by Monica | All-day neighborhood café |
Nathan Ares had been hinting for months about moving his upscale Foothills restaurant before finally pulling up stakes for Gilbert last July. That's when Ray Flores stepped in. Flores has described 6960 E. Sunrise as one of the best-looking corners in the Tucson market, and the reasoning is visible from the parking lot. The space sits at the same intersection as the family's El Charro Ventana restaurant at 6910 E. Sunrise, which means one operator now controls both anchors of the corner. That kind of two-address density on a single Foothills intersection is rare, and it changes how the corner functions during a normal week. A Sunday brunch overflow at El Charro Ventana no longer sends people back down the hill.
The pattern across the two prior tenants was upscale, dinner-forward, reservation-heavy. The Hills is a departure. All-day service and a $20–$30 dinner ceiling in a submarket where Flores says the pricing is intentional, designed to fill a gap he sees in the neighborhood — Catalina Foothills is a great community, but doesn't have restaurants that serve everything.
What Actually Fills the Gap
Look at the everyday-eating options a Foothills resident within a mile of Sunrise and Kolb has been working with:
- Resort dining at La Paloma and Ventana Canyon, priced accordingly
- La Encantada anchors including True Food Kitchen, North Italia, RA Sushi and Firebirds, none of them walk-in casual
- Coffee-and-quick at AJ's Fine Foods and, more recently, Presta
- Takeout from a handful of pizza and Mexican options
What has been missing is the middle. A place you can walk into without a reservation on a Tuesday, order a pizza and a glass of wine for under fifty dollars, and be home in an hour. Downtown residents have The Monica for that. Sam Hughes has a rotation of cafés. The Foothills, until now, did not have a direct equivalent in easy reach.
The Hills is trying to be that. Whether it holds the position depends on execution, but the concept is aimed squarely at a hole in the local map.
The Five-Minute Drive from the Corner
The dining node around Sunrise and Kolb is denser than a single intersection. Within a short drive:
- 6910 E. Sunrise Drive — El Charro Ventana, directly across the corner
- 6960 E. Sunrise Drive — The Hills by Monica, new this spring
- 4700 E. Sunrise Drive — Presta Coffee, which moved into a former Starbucks building in January and opened its fourth location, with matcha lattes, cappuccinos, cold brews and pour-over coffee sourced from countries including Ethiopia and Colombia
- La Encantada at Skyline and Campbell — a short drive west, with Ra Sushi Bar, Firebirds Wood Fired Grill, True Food Kitchen, North Italia, Haute Coffee and Blanco among its restaurants
Presta's move is worth pausing on. The chain planted its fourth Tucson café in a former Starbucks bay, which is a fairly specific vote of confidence in the daily-use traffic on Sunrise. Combined with The Hills' arrival two miles east, Sunrise Drive between Craycroft and Kolb is beginning to look less like a scenic corridor between resorts and more like a street with actual pedestrian-scale dining density.
What Changes on a Normal Week
The practical shift for someone who lives in the Catalina Foothills is small but real.
Morning coffee has a new address that is not a chain. Weekday lunch has an option that is not takeout or a country club. Sunday brunch has a second seat if El Charro Ventana is booked. And weeknight dinner has a room that seats 140 total, which means the reservation dynamics on this corner are different than they were with Commoner & Co.'s tighter footprint.
Whether The Hills becomes the neighborhood default or another four-year tenancy is a question the corner has answered before, twice. What is different this time is that the operator already runs the restaurant across the street. Flores has said that as important as the family's existing store at Kolb and Sunrise is, they wanted to be more in sync on that corner, and to take advantage of opportunities that are intelligent.
That is a long-horizon statement from a family that has been feeding Tucson since 1922. It is also the reason this opening is worth paying attention to even if you were perfectly happy with the corner before.
For anyone thinking about the Catalina Foothills beyond dinner reservations, small shifts like this one are the kind of thing that quietly changes how a neighborhood feels day to day. When the everyday infrastructure improves, the case for staying — or moving in — gets easier to make.
If you are weighing a move within the Foothills, or from out of town, and want a read on how the neighborhood actually functions at street level, let's connect. Working with Daniel Sotelo means starting the conversation with the corner, the block and the walk, not the listing sheet.
