Drive Sunrise between Campbell and Kolb this summer and the storefronts read differently than they did a year ago. A former Starbucks is pouring Ethiopian pour-overs. The corner that hosted Commoner & Co. is a brick-oven café again. A wine bar with locations in Austin and Peoria has signed a lease two doors down from your dry cleaner.
The thesis of this post is simple: the Sunrise Drive corridor is quietly consolidating into the Foothills' everyday-luxury spine. For years, an all-day café, a serious pour-over, or a walk-in wine hour meant a drive to Fourth Avenue, downtown, or the Mercado. In 2026, most of it is within four miles of Skyline and Campbell.
Here is what has opened, what is coming, and why the geography matters.
The corner at Sunrise and Kolb keeps rewriting itself
The 3,500-square-foot restaurant space at 6960 E. Sunrise Drive has anchored this intersection since 2010. The Abbey moved in that year and 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. Ares eventually decamped for Gilbert, and the space sat waiting.
Enter Ray Flores. The president of his family's Flores Concepts, the group behind El Charro Café, Charro Steak, and downtown's The Monica, saw the corner as a smart business move on what he described as "one of the best looking corners" in the Tucson market. The family already runs El Charro Ventana at 6910 E. Sunrise, directly across the intersection, so the acquisition tightened their footprint on a single corner.
The new concept, The Hills by Monica, is inspired by the downtown all-day café but built for foothills routines. It seats 120 people inside and an additional 20 on the patio, with views of the Santa Catalina Mountains, and leans what Flores calls shabby boho chic, a departure from The Monica's style. Unlike The Monica, The Hills offers full restaurant service, with a brick oven, full bar and wine list, and coffee service.
Pricing is the interesting part. "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," Flores said. Mimosas are priced below what nearby resorts charge. For a neighborhood where a light brunch at a resort patio often crosses $60 a head, a walk-in $22 pizza and a $9 mimosa reframe what an ordinary weekday looks like.
A small design touch worth knowing: Flores is incorporating local art to give the space a personal and cultural feel, including murals by Tucson artist Joe Pagac and work inspired by DeGrazia.
Third-wave coffee, four miles from home
If you were driving to the Mercado District or downtown for pour-over, that trip is now optional. In January, Presta moved into a former Starbucks building in the Catalina Foothills and opened its fourth location. The menu includes drinks such as matcha lattes, cappuccinos and cold brews, as well as pour-over coffee sourced from countries including Ethiopia and Colombia. Location: 4700 E. Sunrise Drive.
The choice of building matters more than it seems. A drive-through Starbucks pad on a signalized corner is a specific piece of real estate, engineered for morning throughput. Handing it to a specialty roaster is a small shift in what the neighborhood expects a morning coffee to be.
A wine bar you no longer have to drive downtown for
Two doors east, another lease is quietly reshaping the block. A national wine bar with boutique wines from around the world will open in the foothills this year. Turquoise Wine Bar leased 1,500 square feet of retail at Sunrise Village Shopping Center, 4772 E. Sunrise Drive, from Sunrise Village Investors LLC. The Tucson location is listed as "coming soon."
Turquoise Wine Bar has a monthly rotating selection of wines as well as sangrias, spritzes and non-alcoholic drinks. The shop also serves appetizers, sandwiches, salads and pizza. The franchise has wine bars in Austin, Cypress and The Woodlands, Texas, and in Arizona has locations in Glendale, Peoria, Roosevelt and Surprise.
Read the map: Presta at 4700, Turquoise at 4772, The Hills at 6960. Three walkable-adjacent additions on a single road, all within twelve months.
La Encantada, still adding on the second level
Up the hill at Skyline and Campbell, the tenant mix is moving too. A clothing brand known for its simple shapes and effortless fabrics has arrived at the open-air shopping center in the Catalina Foothills. The new EILEEN FISHER store at La Encantada offers timeless pieces designed to mix, match and create endless possibilities. Alongside new arrivals from the latest collection, Tucsonans can shop gently used EILEEN FISHER Renew pieces.
On the wellness side of the directory, The Tox opened at La Encantada on February 28, 2026. Both slot into a center that has spent the last two years absorbing first-to-Tucson tenants without changing its architectural character.
Worth remembering when you plan the visit: restrooms are available on level two near AVEDA and Warby Parker, and a water bottle filling station is also available near the restrooms.
A short list, for the fridge
| Spot | Address | What it is | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| Presta Coffee | 4700 E. Sunrise Dr. | Fourth Presta location, pour-over and matcha | Opened January 2026 |
| Turquoise Wine Bar | 4772 E. Sunrise Dr. | Rotating boutique wine, small plates | Coming 2026 |
| The Hills by Monica | 6960 E. Sunrise Dr. | All-day café, brick oven, full bar | Opened spring 2026 |
| EILEEN FISHER | La Encantada, level two | Women's clothing, Renew resale | Now open |
| The Tox | La Encantada | Wellness studio | Opened Feb. 28, 2026 |
Why this cluster, and why now
A pattern this concentrated is rarely accidental. Look at who is behind each move.
Flores Concepts already owned El Charro Ventana on the same intersection, so The Hills consolidates two family restaurants on one signalized corner. Presta chose a drive-through-ready building on Sunrise for its fourth location rather than expanding downtown. Turquoise selected Sunrise Village, a center whose tenant mix already skews toward daily-need affluent traffic. Each operator is betting the same thing: that a resident with a two-car garage in the foothills would rather walk into a familiar room three times a week than drive twelve minutes downtown once.
For anyone who has lived here more than a decade, the older mental map assumed downtown or the Mercado for anything "elevated," and Sunrise for the practical stops. That map is stale. As Flores put it in the Tucson Spotlight piece announcing The Hills, "Catalina Foothills is a great neighborhood, it's a great community, but they don't have restaurants that serve everything." Two years of leasing decisions along the same three-mile stretch suggest the operators agree, and are correcting the gap in real time.
A weekend that only uses Sunrise Drive
If you want to test the thesis yourself, one Saturday will do it. Pour-over and a pastry at Presta at 4700. A short drive east to The Hills at 6960 for a brick-oven lunch on the patio, with the Santas visible from the seats. Back west to La Encantada for a browse at Eileen Fisher and, if the timing is right, an appointment at The Tox. Home before the afternoon light turns. When Turquoise opens later this year, add a wine hour at 4772 to the loop.
The odometer moves about eight miles. A year ago, the same day would have required a drive downtown and back.
For clients relocating to the Foothills
Buyers moving in from out of state often ask the same question in the first week: where do you actually go on a weekday morning. In 2025, the honest answer required a caveat about driving. In 2026, the answer is a five-minute loop on Sunrise. That is a real change in daily-life density, and it is one of the underappreciated shifts making the Sunrise corridor easier to recommend to design-minded downsizers and relocating families this year.
If you are considering a move within the foothills, or curious what your current home would trade at against this backdrop, Marta Harvey is glad to walk the neighborhood with you and share the details behind each closing. Get My Valuation when you are ready to see what your home is worth in today's market.
