Drive Sunrise from Campbell east to Kolb on a Wednesday in late July and the corner-by-corner rhythm reads differently than it did a year ago. A former Starbucks on the north side of the street now pulls a morning line for pour-overs. The old Commoner & Co. box at Kolb has a brick oven venting through the roof. And at Skyline, contractors are staging equipment inside what used to be the Living Room, prepping a Champagne bar for late August.
Three operators, three arrivals inside a rough one-mile stretch, all in a single calendar year. Read together, they change the answer to a question Foothills residents have quietly asked for a long time: does the neighborhood work as a full-day room, or do you still have to leave it for the coffee you want in the morning and the dinner you want at night?
The corridor, read as a clock
The three arrivals do not compete. They stack. Each fills a slot the corridor did not previously hold, and together they close a gap that used to send residents downtown or to the resort pads.
- 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. Presta Coffee at 4700 East Sunrise, opened January 2026.
- 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. The Hills by Monica at 6960 East Sunrise, opened spring 2026.
- 5 p.m. into the night. Frida American Brasserie at 2905 East Skyline, inside La Encantada, opening August 2026.
That is a schedule a resident can actually keep without moving a car more than a mile.
Presta at the old Starbucks
In January, Presta moved into a former Starbucks building in the Catalina Foothills and opened its fourth location at 4700 E. Sunrise Drive, with a menu that includes matcha lattes, cappuccinos, cold brews, and pour-over coffee sourced from countries including Ethiopia and Colombia.
The address matters more than the drink list. A specialty roaster with a pour-over program has never anchored this stretch of Sunrise. Foothills residents who wanted an Ethiopian single-origin used to drive to the Mercado or Broadway Village. The Presta pin puts that morning ritual roughly six minutes from Skyline Country Club and four minutes from the Ventana Canyon gate.
The Hills, and why Flores now owns the Kolb corner
The Sunrise and Kolb intersection has always been a restaurant corner. What is new is who controls it.
Nathan Ares had been hinting for months about moving his upscale foothills restaurant Commoner & Co. before he finally pulled up stakes for Gilbert last July. That is when Ray Flores stepped in. The president of his family's Flores Concepts saw the 3,500-square-foot space on the corner of East Sunrise Drive and North Kolb Road as a smart business move, and the space at 6960 E. Sunrise Drive is at the same intersection as the family's El Charro Ventana at 6910 E. Sunrise. One family now runs both sides of the light.
The restaurant that took the Commoner box is an all-day cafe with views of the Santa Catalinas and a menu ranging from pancakes to pizza. The Hills seats 120 inside and another 20 on the patio with mountain views, in what Flores describes as a shabby boho chic aesthetic that departs from The Monica's style, and unlike The Monica, The Hills offers full restaurant service, with a brick oven, full bar and wine list, and coffee. Flores is incorporating local art including murals by Tucson artist Joe Pagac and work inspired by DeGrazia.
Price is the part worth reading closely. Flores has said he is not trying to be high end, and wants to be in the $20 to $30 plate range if not less for lunch and brunch. Mimosas are priced below what nearby resorts charge. That is a deliberate wedge. A Foothills resident who used to choose between a resort brunch at Ventana or Loews and a drive down to central Tucson now has a third option one traffic light from home.
"Our goal is to create a place that feels like an extension of the neighborhood, comfortable, consistent, and genuinely hospitable," the ownership team said when the project was first announced.
The name itself is a local read. "The Hills is a nickname given to all the teams up there," Flores said. "If you play for Catalina Foothills High School, you play for the Hills."
Frida American Brasserie, and the La Encantada endpoint
Push another two miles up the corridor to Skyline and the third piece falls into place at the top of La Encantada.
Frida American Brasserie plans to open in August at 2905 E. Skyline Dr., in the former Living Room space at La Encantada, introducing a Champagne focus and European-inspired American cuisine from owners Charles Hunt and Frida Hunt, who also own Villa Peru. The design cues are unusual for Tucson. The patio will function as a climate-controlled living patio designed to stay comfortable during Tucson summers, and guests seated in booths can press service buttons to request Champagne cart service. The restaurant will host DJs during Sunday brunch and weekend evenings, aiming for an atmosphere that transitions from daytime dining into nightlife.
The menu is a genuine departure from what the corridor already offers:
- Mini lobster rolls, crab cakes, duck confit salad, and filet mignon medallions
- Oysters, lobster tails, and grilled halibut
- Caviar and veal ossobuco
Read against what La Encantada already runs, this is the piece the center has been missing. The existing rotation of North Italia, True Food Kitchen, Firebirds, RA Sushi, and Blanco is a strong lunch and family-dinner bench. A Champagne-forward late seating with DJs is not something the property has previously offered, and it changes what an evening at Skyline and Campbell looks like.
Reading the corridor as a resident
Three things follow from stacking these three openings on one map.
First, the corridor now has a coherent daypart structure it did not have in 2024. Morning belongs to Presta. Late-morning through dinner belongs to The Hills. The late window belongs to Frida. A Foothills resident hosting a visitor for a weekend can build an entire itinerary without leaving Sunrise and Skyline.
Second, the Sunrise and Kolb light has become a Flores intersection. With El Charro Ventana at 6910 and The Hills at 6960, one family is now programming both corners of the same signal. Flores has framed the move as wanting to be more in sync on that corner, and taking advantage of opportunities that are intelligent. For a resident, that translates to consistent service standards, coordinated hours, and a real bench of staff across two rooms. For a homeowner near the intersection, it also means a lower probability of another dark storefront cycle. The corner has been devoted to restaurants since 2010, when The Abbey moved in for four years before shuttering, opening the door for Commoner & Co. in 2015. Institutional ownership breaks that pattern.
Third, La Encantada is no longer just a daytime shopping and lunch stop. Between Frida's August debut and the existing calendar of courtyard events, including the juried La Encantada Fine Art Festival that runs on rotating weekends set among the courtyards and mountain views, celebrating painting, sculpture, jewelry, glass, fashion, and mixed media with free admission, the property functions as a legitimate evening destination for the first time.
None of this is a market call. It is a walk-around observation about how a specific corridor now feels on a Thursday at seven in the morning versus a Saturday at nine at night. If you already live in the Foothills, the practical takeaway is small and useful. The car trip you used to make for a good pour-over, or for a room that stays open past nine with a real wine list, is shorter than it was in January.
If you are thinking about what any of this means for the value of a home two turns off Sunrise, that is a longer conversation, and one worth having in person. Reach out to Thalia Kyriakis for a confidential consultation or home valuation, and we can talk through what the corridor shift looks like from the driveway.
