Walk past Sixth Street and Tucson Boulevard at 8 a.m. and you will find people working quietly over espresso, laptops open, the kind of hush that belongs to a neighborhood coffee shop. Walk past the same building at noon and the room has turned into something else entirely: a bar pouring wine by the glass, a kitchen sending out charcuterie boards and truffle fries. Come back on a Saturday night and you are choosing between two restaurants at the same address, each with its own bar, its own crowd, its own reason to be there.
That is not three businesses sharing a parking lot. It is one former grocery store that figured out how to run on three different clocks, and the fact that it works says something about how Sam Hughes actually spends its days now.
What one address used to mean
For most of the last century, this corner meant one thing: a single stop. Rincon Market operated out of the building at 2513 E. Sixth St. for more than 90 years before closing in 2020, a run long enough that generations of Sam Hughes residents grew up doing one errand there, not three. Flora's Market Run took over the space next, pairing a small grocery with a restaurant, but that concept lasted only a few years before closing in early 2025.
Two businesses moved in to replace it, and neither one tried to recreate a single-stop grocery store. Sonoran House, a coffee roaster and market that had opened its original location at 1610 N. Tucson Blvd. in August 2024, took the building and turned it into a second location built around one word: hours. Redbird Scratch Kitchen + Bar, previously known in Tucson only for its Oracle Road location, moved in next door and opened its own doors on September 1, 2025. The developer behind the pairing, SOAZ Group's Kevin Bedient, framed it from the start as a joint venture rather than two tenants who happened to share a wall, and the way the two businesses now operate side by side, without competing for the same meal or the same hour, backs that up.
Here is the timeline as it actually played out:
- 2020: Rincon Market closes after more than 90 years at 2513 E. Sixth St.
- August 2024: Sonoran House opens its first location in the Blenman-Elm District at 1610 N. Tucson Blvd.
- Early 2025: Flora's Market Run closes at the Sixth Street building.
- July 2025: Sonoran House Sam Hughes opens inside the former Rincon Market space, combining a coffee shop, bar, kitchen, and a retail market for more than 150 local artisans.
- September 1, 2025: Redbird Scratch Kitchen + Bar opens its second location next door, its interior anchored by a mural from local artist Delsa Designs.
- August 1, 2026: Sonoran House Sam Hughes marks one year in the space with new breakfast, brunch, and dinner menus.
That last date matters more than it looks like it should, and it is worth slowing down on why.
The clock that actually runs the building
Most restaurants pick a lane. Sonoran House Sam Hughes picked three, and it switches between them on a schedule a regular can set a watch to. The morning belongs to coffee and pastry, quiet enough that people bring laptops and stay. Vegan pastries from local bakery Houlden's Rise Above sit alongside espresso, and the room reads like any other neighborhood cafe.
At 11 a.m., the building changes character. The bar opens, the kitchen shifts into full service, and executive chef Gabriella Alba's menu takes over, built on dishes like whipped feta with honey, bone marrow on charred sourdough, and a rotating tinned fish plate meant to be shared rather than ordered alone. Alba joined the project after a statewide search that drew more than 200 applicants, which tells you the owners treated the kitchen hire as seriously as the buildout itself.
Breakfast service now runs daily from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., with weekend brunch offered in that same window on Saturdays and Sundays. That is not a short breakfast rush followed by a long dead zone. It is a deliberate overlap designed so the morning crowd and the midday crowd share real estate on the calendar instead of trading off in a hard cutoff.
What changed on August 1
The new menus that launched on the one-year mark are not a reset so much as a confirmation that the format works. Abuelita's French Toast anchors the new breakfast lineup, alongside a new beef plate built around Vera Earl Ranch, and Alba has described at least one of these dishes as something she had been working toward for a while rather than a last-minute anniversary special.
The timing lines up with a broader seasonal push. Earlier this summer, the restaurant rolled out "Summer at the House," a run of food specials, daily drink deals, and extended weekend brunch hours meant to give regulars a reason to stop in on an ordinary Tuesday, not just for a birthday or a date night. Partner Kevin Bedient has said the goal was always bigger than running a coffee shop and a restaurant under one roof. The August menu launch reads like the next step in that same plan rather than a separate event.
For a resident trying to time a visit, the practical breakdown looks like this:
| Time of day | What's running |
|---|---|
| 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. daily | Coffee, espresso, pastry, quiet workspace |
| 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily | Full breakfast menu, including the new Abuelita's French Toast |
| 11 a.m. to close, Saturday and Sunday | Weekend brunch service |
| 11 a.m. onward daily | Bar opens, Alba's full dinner-style menu begins |
| Friday and Saturday | Close extends to 10 p.m., versus 9 p.m. the rest of the week |
Redbird next door runs on a more conventional schedule, comfort food and a sports-bar energy built around televisions and a family-dinner crowd, which is part of why the pairing works. Nobody is competing for the same table at the same hour. One business absorbs the all-day, all-occasion traffic. The other holds down the dinner-and-a-game crowd.
Why this particular corner is worth watching
Sam Hughes has never lacked for places to eat. What it lacked, at least at this specific intersection, was a single address that could hold a resident's entire day, coffee in the morning, a working lunch, a shared plate after a hike, all without changing zip codes. The old Rincon Market model asked for one visit and one purpose. The new one asks for three, and residents seem to be showing up for all of them.
There is a citywide echo of this happening at the same time. Sonoran Restaurant Week returns for its eighth year from September 4 to 13, preceded by a kickoff party at The Treasury 1929 downtown on August 31. It is a separate event at a separate address, but it is a useful reminder that Tucson's restaurant scene right now rewards exactly this kind of format, multiple reasons to visit the same operator across a single week or a single day, rather than a single fixed reason to show up once.
None of this changes what the building at 2513 E. Sixth St. actually is on a deed. It is still one address, one lease line, one roof. What changed is what a resident expects to find there depending on what time they walk in, and that shift from a single-purpose stop to a three-part daily rhythm is a small but real signal about how this stretch of Sam Hughes is living right now.
If you are curious what else has shifted in the neighborhoods around Sam Hughes and the Catalina Foothills, from what's opening to what a specific block actually looks like day to day, Marta Harvey keeps a close eye on these details as part of following the Tucson market she grew up in. Reach out anytime you want a local read on a specific street, not just a spreadsheet of comps.
