- Last May, I was looking for a building
like Northwest side, Marana.
And it wasn't happening, so I called
a real estate buddy of mine,
two days later he found me a kitchen.
Pulled up, I wasn't too impressed
by the building right away.
But as soon as I walked in the doors of the patio
I was like hey cool, I can make a patio concept.
People didn't see my vision here until I opened up.
People are, you got a donkey, nothing's making sense.
I was well, just wait until I open and you'll see.
And the day I open everybody's all,
oh now we see, now we know that you're not crazy.
But everyone knows I am crazy.
So, our specialty over here is our rolled tacos.
That's where the name Rollies came from,
for rolled tacos.
You get them in chicken, beef or cauliflower.
You can get it with the queso sauce or rojo sauce.
So our drowning flautas here.
With the cheese sauce, it's topped with
green chile, cotija cheese, green onion and sour cream.
And, this is a Rollies beef queso right here.
Literally got this restaurant open in three weeks.
I didn't think it was gonna pick up as fast as it did.
As soon as we opened the doors it was, full speed.
I'm from Tucson Arizona.
I was born and raised here.
I actually went to school right down the street.
Right here on 12th and Ajo, Catholic School, St. Johns.
When my grandparents moved from Mexico,
they moved from Hermosillo Sonora.
The first house my tata bought was
right here on 12th and Ohio,
this is exactly where the restaurant's at.
So, I feel like it was meant to be right here.
- [Woman] What number are you on?
- Um, 18.
These are ground beef patty tacos.
We call them nana's tacos here.
This is a Tuesday special we do here every Tuesday.
Basically it's ground beef,
a little oregano, salt and garlic, cotija cheese and peas.
This is it right here.
These ones are missing the peas, they said no peas.
If you're from Tucson, you were raised on these,
If you came from a chicano family.
I was in a program, it was called In Step Program,
for high school kids,
so at 14 I was getting a paycheck already,
cooking at different restaurants in the student union
and then I started busting studs at Tucson Mall
back in the day, it's called Louies, no Luby's.
It was like a cafeteria, like a Furrs Cafeteria
type deal inside the mall.
And, I was the big time pot washer there.
When I got out of culinary school,
I started a catering business.
So I started catering, I did it 13 years.
People would say, hey you need to open up
your own business already.
You know knowing it's a hard business,
I really didn't want to.
I didn't want to do the whole food truck thingy.
So, I thought this was perfect.
This is like between a food truck and a restaurant,
it's like right in the middle.
We have our specials on Tuesdays, Wednesday and Thursday,
and today's special is carne asada bacon wrapped torta.
Which has caramelized onions, roasted green chile,
molded with mozzarella cheese and then
it's stuffed in a bacon wrapped torta
then finished with sliced avocado
and our signature Rollie sauce.
I feel like I've thought outside the box
but not way outside the box.
These are old Sonoran Tucson recipes, chicano food
you would call it, Mexican American food
with a modern twist to it.
But I still keep my sauces and everything really authentic,
but I just throw a little twist.
I'm wanting to say it's Sonoran, new style Tucson food.
(upbeat music)