In n' Out in Arizona

[convulso]

Another blow to the fast food empire:

I've personally never liked Krispy Kreme. I always thought they were too greasy, and have never really been able to particularly like any donut shop here. But, regardless, they are the epitome of over-expansion and I'm really not surprised that they're gone now after only 4 years in Tucson.

i LOVE the kreme - at least i prefer them to dunkin donuts, but to each his own, etc.

i totally agree about over-exspansion. they went nuts in the past 10 years. i don't even miss the fact their presence out west is threatened, because they still feel so regional (southern) to me.

not related, but on topic: does anyone have any memory of the earlier in-n-out locations in tucson? a native i've talked to says there have been two locations in tucson in the past 30 years (i think he said 30.) i forget where one was, but the other, he says, is the current location of water street station on.....ah, hell, this is what i get for trying to write about tucson when i'm not actually there....speedway? grant? ah, screw it; i'll track it down when i get back. anyway, they apparently closed for reasons other than poor sales. bad management, franchise experiements - i don't know. he wouldn't tell me that part (he's a paranoid attorney.)

[MJLO]

the ones in Phoenix are now gone sir. They went with the Tucson locations.

[colin]

Are you sure that we're not getting back to the Hot n Now confusion?

According to their web site, In n' Out didn't even come into the state until 1993, and I assume that was the one in Scottsdale based on its older appearance and location.

There's a Water Street Station on Grant and Country Club right by the Fry's that has a Hamburger Stand next to it (although that may be gone now). I can't see In n' Out in that space. The other Water Street Station that I can think of is on First and Roger, but there's no way that was it.

Speaking of In n' Out web sites, the Tucson El Con location is on it now, although not on the maps (keep in mind that although Flash is real cutesy and neat, it's a real b*tch to update), just on the all locations list.

I didn't even think of it, but losing Krispy Kreme is going to be a pretty big blow to El Con. It's not like there's already not enough abandoned storefronts there.

[convulso]

Are you sure that we're not getting back to the Hot n Now confusion?

very possible. i'm not putting this out as factual information; rather, i was hoping what this guy told me could be verified. he's credible in terms of honesty (who'd lie about in-n-out!?), but perhaps not in terms of being aware of his past surroundings. he's a 50 year-old tucson lifer, so the memory could be hazy... he could be like my dad, who says 'lone john ranger's' for long john silver and 'caesar's palace' for little caesar's. and he thinks that's what they're called.

it's the water street station at grant and country club that i was thinking of. the stand is still there and the burgers are great. i think that chain is owned by wienerschnitzel - the cups there have the wienerschnitzel logo. never been to one of those.

the area all around el con has life, but el con looks dead. never been inside. thus far i've only managed to go inside the foothills mall (killing time while wal-mart changed my oil) and a couple of stores at la encantada (mainly AJ's and apple). what is it about el con that has led to its demise? the building of park place not far away? the fact that el con seems waaay the hell away from the road and inaccessible? is el con the oldest of the tucson malls? the target right next door is pretty active, so the area is attracting people - just not to el con.

[colin]

Ha!

Yeah, my dad gets confused with dates. Like he always insists that we moved to Houston two years before we actually did. But I guess that's just getting old.

The story I've gotten is that, in the 80's and a lot of the 90's, El Con was the mall. Then, in the late 90's, Park Place (then known simply as "Park Mall") underwent a massive renovation and added that creepy, pseudo-tropical flourescent vibe that they have now, and it become the place to be.

What I think also pushed El Con down more into the mud was the additional retail space around Park Place that brought in other stores and pushed traffic into the mall. Besides that ridiculous parking lot, there's no where around El Con to build any other retail, especially since Reid Park is right across the street.

There was a Robinson's May (until they were bought out), and there is a Radio Shack, Foot Locker, a poster store and some sort of gift shop inside. Both the Target and Home Depot are pretty bustling, and the movie theater at the back of the mall is also pretty popular (they show a lot of indie stuff but are usually cheaper than The Loft). And then, let's not forget Claim Jumper's, which also brings some traffic in.

I drove by today and the In n' Out's structure is already up. It's going in on the southwest side near Randolph Way.

[ErinJ]

Another blow to the fast food empire:

Owner bankruptcy filing shuts Krispy Kremes here

I've personally never liked Krispy Kreme. I always thought they were too greasy, and have never really been able to particularly like any donut shop here. But, regardless, they are the epitome of over-expansion and I'm really not surprised that they're gone now after only 4 years in Tucson. Are the ones in Phoenix still open?

What's bad about the whole thing is what's mentioned in the article regarding wages: no one here is going to pay over $11/hour for that sort of work. Tucson's economy just can't support it.

Have you tried Le Cave's?? I have never tried it myself, but it comes highly recomended by many lifelong Tucson residents.

[convulso]

Have you tried Le Cave's?? I have never tried it myself, but it comes highly recomended by many lifelong Tucson residents.

is that a donut place? know of a location(s)?

[ErinJ]

is that a donut place? know of a location(s)?

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Best/Mai...oid=oid%3A49488

Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I remember reading that it moved north, maybe to the foothills.

Correction:

Looks like they will move, but not have not yet:

http://www.azstarnet.com/altsn/snredesign/...articles/126814

I knew many people I worked with who would rave about it. I can't give you my personal opinion though, I am not really a donut person. As far as bakeries go, 'beyond bread' was my favourite!

[colin]

Yeah, Le Caves is pretty good. I had it once recently when someone brought some into work and told me how great it was. I need to try it again.

Interestingly enough, when I first moved here I saw it while driving down Sixth Avenue and thought "Oh, I need to try that donut shop." When I moved to my place Downtown, I somehow had the idea that it was much closer to Broadway, so I went walking. I got until about Five Points (18th Street) and turned around.

Southerners seem to have the best donuts though, and I haven't found anything like what I used to get in Houston.

[ErinJ]

Ha!

Yeah, my dad gets confused with dates. Like he always insists that we moved to Houston two years before we actually did. But I guess that's just getting old.

The story I've gotten is that, in the 80's and a lot of the 90's, El Con was the mall. Then, in the late 90's, Park Place (then known simply as "Park Mall") underwent a massive renovation and added that creepy, pseudo-tropical flourescent vibe that they have now, and it become the place to be.

What I think also pushed El Con down more into the mud was the additional retail space around Park Place that brought in other stores and pushed traffic into the mall. Besides that ridiculous parking lot, there's no where around El Con to build any other retail, especially since Reid Park is right across the street.

There was a Robinson's May (until they were bought out), and there is a Radio Shack, Foot Locker, a poster store and some sort of gift shop inside. Both the Target and Home Depot are pretty bustling, and the movie theater at the back of the mall is also pretty popular (they show a lot of indie stuff but are usually cheaper than The Loft). And then, let's not forget Claim Jumper's, which also brings some traffic in.

I drove by today and the In n' Out's structure is already up. It's going in on the southwest side near Randolph Way.

I remember that as early as of '91 El con was not "the mall" but it really died in the mid-90's. By the early 90's, maybe before, Tucson mall was definately "the mall". The foothills was absolutely dead and stayed that way until they transformed it into a factory outlet mall. El con already seemed to be farily unpopular, but not yet a ghost town. It had become a gang banger hang out by the mid-late-90's. If you went inside I doubt you would see more that 100 people. By the late 90's, the ONLY reason anybody went there, was to go to the brand new movie theater, it had gotten so bad the food court was boarded up.

I do remember in the late 90's their was a lot of development in the William's Center area, then they redid park mall which was kind of a dump, that whole East Broadway corridor appeared to be really taking off. Sounds like it did. I will check out the enchanted mall when I get back, though I doubt I would want or could afford anything there. That is near the top of campbell, correct? Can you sill drive to the top of campbell and look out at that gorgeous view Tucson at night in that little parking lot, or has that been developed/privatized?

Little bit of stupid El-con trivia, if you look at the trim along the top of the mall, and look

at it for a minute, the design is "...crap crap crap..." but upside down. Rumor has it the architect was not given his bonus he was expecting, but that is probably urban legend. The design doesn't jump out at you, you have to know it is there to see it. Just wanted to point that out so you can entertain yourself for 17 seconds if you are ever down there.

I guess El Con replaced the beautiful El-Conquistador hotel, built in the 1920's. An cool old water tower from the hotel still sits south of Broadway, It's really a shame to have that replaced by dead space.

[colin]

I guess El Con replaced the beautiful El-Conquistador hotel, built in the 1920's. An cool old water tower from the hotel still sits south of Broadway, It's really a shame to have that replaced by dead space.

Yeah, the El Conquistador was a damn shame. I mean, we lost a great piece of architecture for a tacky shopping mall. I guess it was that whole "modernization" trip that the TCC evolved out of.

[convulso]

I will check out the enchanted mall when I get back, though I doubt I would want or could afford anything there. That is near the top of campbell, correct? Can you sill drive to the top of campbell and look out at that gorgeous view Tucson at night in that little parking lot, or has that been developed/privatized?

you mean this view:

the park / parking lot is still there. supposedly day-use only, but i don't think it's highly patrolled.

yes, la encantada is at the intersection of campbell and sunrise. you, too, can feel exclusive! and whatnot.

i had read about the loss of el conquistador, but had not the presence of mind to connect this with the site of El Con until i read through these posts. unbelievable. tucson is a missed opportunity, IMO. the el conquistador is one of a zillion examples of this kind of thing in tucson. the loss of wonderful structures, the early (and in some cases ongoing) disregard for pre-american sites and physical artifacts, and the american style of grid development really changed the way tucson could have grown - for the worse. but i think people are more aware of it now than in the past, so there's perhaps reason to be optimistic....*fingers crossed*

here's another of the trashed car in the park at the top of campbell - i bet everyone in tucson knows about that car:

[MJLO]

It looks as if nature has all but reclaimed it, and it has become part of the landscape again.

[ErinJ]

you mean this view:

the park / parking lot is still there. supposedly day-use only, but i don't think it's highly patrolled.

UofA students used to go up there at night, and the lot was always full. I don't know if it was day use only at the time,

but police never came and kicked people out. It was much safer than going up sentinel peak.

i had read about the loss of el conquistador, but had not the presence of mind to connect this with the site of El Con until i read through these posts. unbelievable. tucson is a missed opportunity, IMO. the el conquistador is one of a zillion examples of this kind of thing in tucson. the loss of wonderful structures, the early (and in some cases ongoing) disregard for pre-american sites and physical artifacts, and the american style of grid development really changed the way tucson could have grown - for the worse. but i think people are more aware of it now than in the past, so there's perhaps reason to be optimistic....*fingers crossed*

I think since the loss of the neighborhoods in the barrio to make way for the plaster shedding TCC, Tucsonans have become much more sensitive to historic preservation. For instance, when they widened speedway, the city spent a pretty penny to move ( rather than demolish) those four for five old houses at the north west corner of Euclid and Speedway. They were moved about 10 feet for something like $1.5 million. Some liberatarians in the foothills complained, but still I think there as been a 180 degree attitude shift. I expect the center of tucson will slowly fill out quite nicely,

but there is no doubt that the fringe areas will basically be ticky-tacky track homes in the southwest mediocre style.

Here's another of the trashed car in the park at the top of campbell - i bet everyone in tucson knows about that car:

I had no idea!

[colin]

UofA students used to go up there at night, and the lot was always full. I don't know if it was day use only at the time,

but police never came and kicked people out. It was much safer than going up sentinel peak.

Sentinel Peak is closed off now at dusk until dawn. You can park at the lot at the base, but that was overrun with gangbangers for a while (although I went once with a girlfriend and they didn't bother us at all, nor my car when I left it there). They ran a news story on it about a year ago and the cops said they would increase patrols. I posted an article in another thread on here somewhere a couple of days ago about their plan to install speed cameras on the road, which would probably also serve to keep an eye on the parking lot (or at least lead people to believe so).

Cops do kick you out of most places, although I can't speak for Campbell specifically, but I know they do at Gates Pass. A lot of streets in the Foothills now have no parking signs on them so that light watchers won't freak out the residents. I've heard that there's somewhere on Kolb you can still watch the lights, but I usually go up to Redington Pass, where I've never even seen a cop.

I think since the loss of the neighborhoods in the barrio to make way for the plaster shedding TCC, Tucsonans have become much more sensitive to historic preservation...(snip)

but there is no doubt that the fringe areas will basically be ticky-tacky track homes in the southwest mediocre style.

Well said, Erin!

The loss of the Barrio is what gets brought up a lot in Rio Nuevo discussions. Long-time Tucsonans are now extremely cynnical of the whole "Downtown revitalization" concept because of that. And, I think you're absolutely right, people are so much more concerned about preservation. I mean, even Blenman-Elm (north of Speedway, east of Campbell) now has national historic designation, even though many of its houses were built as late as the 50's and 60's I believe. People are very weary of gentrification.

But Civano (a solidly New Urbanist community) is all the way out on Houghton, and I think that some developers are starting to learn that buyers like responsible development and are sometimes willing to pay more for it. When the housing market crashes, or at least slows down, we may see more sustainability in new subdivisions as the competition increases, and not these "studs and cruds" sh*tboxes that KB is pumping out on the southeast side.

The Houghton Area Master Plan is one giant leap forward to stop this, and hopefully it will serve as a benchmark for other areas (Sahuarita seems to have followed suit).

Yeah, I didn't know about that car either. I've found that that's just sort of the nature of the desert though. They seem to be typically cleaned up when development gets near, but I guess that one has become a nostalgic ornament of sorts.

[ErinJ]

But Civano (a solidly New Urbanist community) is all the way out on Houghton, and I think that some developers are starting to learn that buyers like responsible development and are sometimes willing to pay more for it

Interesting you brought that up. I read in the Star maybe 18 months ago that a national builder was going to finish Phase 2 and 3, change the name, and change the design to be more car friendly suburban, wide roads with big garages, etc.

The Civano residents were fighting with the developer over his design. Do you know what happened with that?

.

Peronally I find it ironic that a pedestrian friendly development would be so far from ANYTHING!

[convulso]

when they widened speedway, the city spent a pretty penny to move (rather than demolish) those four or five old houses at the northwest corner of Euclid and Speedway. They were moved about 10 feet for something like $1.5 million.

i'm gonna have to check that out when i get back to tucson! that's mind-blowing and admirable at the same time. i've seen the houses, no doubt, a million times now, but wasn't paying attention. all i think of when i think of speedway is the truly nolen HQ (which my girlfriend loves, for some reason - the...cute...mouse cars, i guess) and the casa video store, which is an absolute paradise. are the houses historic? that's some civic consciousness! a mere ten feet!

wait... this is an "in 'n' out" thread. the current issue of automobile magazine has an article on a nonstop drive in a new corvette from michigan to the nearest in 'n' out (prescott). nice to know that in 'n' out is (justifiably) a pop icon with that kind of power over people's imagination - even if it is just an excuse for affluent ann arbor publications to sell some mags. while i'm back in the south, i have barbecue...but i miss in 'n' out! i was surprised to learn recently that in 'n' out predates mcdonald's. yellow and red - wonder where mickey dee's got that idea?

ritalin makes one garrolous - i apologize.

[loftguy]

Sorry for the late reply-

Does anyone else think that The Atkins diet ruined Krispy Kreme?

[convulso]

Peronally I find it ironic that a pedestrian friendly development would be so far from ANYTHING!

you hit it, lock, stock and barrrrelllll....

we drove south houghton two weeks ago at the height of the floods, and it's amazing how random the residential development is out there. apartments and housing communities that would not be bad, in their own right, in an urban setting are thrown up out there with no concern for what adjoins them. i saw the signage for civano, but didn't explore, so i can't address how that development has turned out. what struck me was how incongruent the new housing was with the area - most of what's there looks like something you would see in a city - yet nothing bore any relationship with anything else. a two-story condo property is situated at an incredibly odd angle with a housing dev't just to its west. one looks urban; the other looks suburban, if not downright rural - and they're staring each other in the face, not 200 feet apart! the condos look like they should be tapped in to city sewage, water, etc.; the houses look like they could all be running solar power and septic tanks. is pima county in charge of this? are there no residential zoning ordinances out in the county? all of it is several miles from anything that could be considered urban - very haphazard.

i'm not at all sold on new urbanism - especially in a country as big as the U.S., with as much diversity as it has to deal with in its relatively new cities. there's a longing to recapture the 1950s style of neighborhood, with walkable communities, etc., but so many of the new urbanist towns are completely fabricated and, by their costs, admit only the fairly wealthy. seaside, FL (where part of the truman show was filmed) is often cited as the primo example of new urbanism at work, but a visit there tells a different story than the new urbanist agenda would have one believe. it's definitely not a self-contained community. many homeowners there are wealthy out-of-state types who rent their properties in absentia. there's a semi-exclusive restaurant there (creoloa's), and a couple of quik-stop type stores, and that's about it. everything is beachfront, and everything is several miles from more robust services that cities provide - full-fledged grocery, non-commuter jobs, churches, the DMV, whatever.

i think that existing city cores are much better suited to the type of 'community' vibe that new urbanism is going for, especially when 'new urbanist' is employed as a marketing euphemism for affluent, self-congratulating suburb. invest in what we have!

[convulso]

Sorry for the late reply-

Does anyone else think that The Atkins diet ruined Krispy Kreme?

lol - you should write a conspiracy book.

i think the atkins diet did ruin my aunt's self-image after she gained weight on its regimen. for her, there wasn't much to work with from the start, though.

[colin]

Interesting you brought that up. I read in the Star maybe 18 months ago that a national builder was going to finish Phase 2 and 3, change the name, and change the design to be more car friendly suburban, wide roads with big garages, etc.

The Civano residents were fighting with the developer over his design. Do you know what happened with that?

Peronally I find it ironic that a pedestrian friendly development would be so far from ANYTHING!

You're right, it is strange that they built it out there and not as in-fill. The El Mercado district on West Congress should be a walkable community, although not completely New Urbanist.

Pulte bought up the rest of Civano. I went out there for a presentation from Tom Doucette (the builder), the guy who owns the Civano nursery and the president of their neighborhood association. They were all pretty bitter toward Pulte for not following through with a lot of their guiding principles (they had had meetings with Pulte, who refused to budge on most things), and the Pulte side, although a little more responsible than other developments on the Houghton corridor, is still pretty lame. At least Civano is there, though, and I guarantee you that the resale values are going to be much higher there than in the Pulte section.

New Urbanism is certainly not the end all of development models, although I know that I come off sounding like that most of the time, but it's just so much better than what's going on now. I'd personally like to see them just take elements of it and use it with their own ideas to make better communities (but a home builder be innovative and original??). But I don't want to see what effectively amounts to structured elitism in a re-creation of segregated post-war Americana. Idealizing the repressive-oriented mid-century living is not the way. Civano actually wasn't meant to be that way, as the houses are actually pretty small and originally started at about $150k, although the absence of follow-up with the live-work scenario and its distance from public transit makes it very unlikely that anyone in the lower income brackets will live there.

I got a lot of my ideas from The Woodlands in Houston, or rather what The Woodlands was originally supposed to be before it was bought out. Another example, however white-bred, is Chattaqua, New York, which was actually on a "20/20" type show a couple of years ago.

[edit]

Oh yeah, my dad did the Atkins fad for a while. He insisted that it was the greatest thing ever and that he had lost so much weight. I never mentioned to him that it was probably because he was just eating less.

[/edit]

[MJLO]

The anti carb craze might have had a hand in it. But look at other chain restaurants. Mcdonalds is cash rich and making more $ than it ever has. I think the hallmark of a good and competitive business is it's ability to change and adapt to the constantly changing world. Krispy Kreme has expanded to fast, not marketed itself well enough, and has not yet tried to adapt to consumers changing wants. So it's crumbling. In this instance however it could be as simple as the franchisee mismanaging itself into bankruptcy. It's not uncommon for national chains to have units close en masse in certain areas because of local franchise mismanagement. Don't be suprised if you see some of those restaurants reopen either under Krispy Kreme Corporate, or a new franchisee. It happens more than you guys might think.

[shrek05]

^^Ya, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Krispy Kremes reopen. I don't think they would abandon such a large market and the KK in north scottsdale does pretty well. When you go there in the mornings, there are still long lines to get donuts...

On a side note, I love In N Out and Im really happy its in arizona, and to someone earlier who said it expanded east, it did not. The first location outside of California was in Las Vegas and then now Phoenix. They don't plana on expanding further because they are only wiling to expand to cities where they can deliver fresh meat and vegetables in a timely matter each day (or maybe every couple days, this might have changed). Im pretty sure In n Out has no intentions of expanding to more states, but perhaps Oregon in the near future, but thats still a stretch as the company is based in Los Angeles. Similarly, im pretty sure the chain isn't franchised so expanding to the east coast is very unlikely.

[convulso]

Don't be suprised if you see some of those restaurants reopen either under Krispy Kreme Corporate, or a new franchisee. It happens more than you guys might think.

[colin]

Ya know, we were just talking about that at work the other day. I was complaining at how they were building this brand spankin' new establishment next door to something that had been abandoned but seemed like about the same square footage.

The story goes that the man who owned all KK franchises in the state flaked one day out of the blue and closed them all. They weren't doing well and kind of reflected Krispy Kreme's woes of over-expansion. I doubt that they'll be coming back in the next 5 years.