Roccos Little Chicago is going to take a bigger slice of Tucsons Sunshine Mile on Broadway.
Rocco DiGrazia opened his namesake restaurant back in 1998, in a space that was originally a doughnut shop.
We always knew we were a little bit small for the space, he told KGUN 9. Weve learned to live with its confines and its idiosyncrasies. Itll be nice to get into something that weve designed to flow the way we want it to instead of making do with what we have here.
I think were ready to go.
The new space is just a block away, at the Sol Block development where Solot Plaza used to sit.
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Construction crews are restoring the buildings and they will soon add parking behind.
The Sol Block has plans for entertainment, retail, bars, restaurants and more.
Roccos is gonna be a home run here, said Edmund Marquez, vice chairman of the Rio Nuevo board.
Rio Nuevo is backing a few different projects on Broadway to breathe life back into the Sunshine Mile.
The Sol Block project is a combined effort with Larsen Baker Commercial Real Estate.
You really want some of your brightest and best developers working on this Broadway corridor because its ours, Marquez said. Its our boulevard. We just expanded it. And we have an opportunity to make Broadway a destination, which were excited about.
For DiGrazia, the bigger location means be hell able to start catering, and stop turning away as many customers during busy times.
Were gonna double our seating capacity, he explained. Were doubling our kitchen size, were doubling our bar size More ability to do what were good at, and what we want to get good at.
The first Sol Block businesses are expected to open later this year.