022: Ursa's Aaron Lopez

Wine World is back on Congress in downtown Tucson after a sabbatical to open the Los Milics restaurant and tasting room. This return episode stays local—because Ursa is next door at 110 E. Congress. Pavle sits down with Chef Aaron to unpack the genesis story behind Ursa and the path that shaped it.

Aaron grew up in Calexico, a small California–Mexico border town where culture, family, and hard realities coexist. After high school he moved to Los Angeles chasing music, played bass in punk bands, and later opened an Echo Park art gallery. When art didn’t pay the bills, a barback job pulled him into hospitality, and he fell for the intensity of service. Farmer’s markets and unfamiliar produce sparked a fascination with transformation—how a raw product becomes something new—so he started staging in kitchens.

He chose Le Cordon Bleu Pasadena as something he could earn, then sharpened his chops in Los Angeles kitchens that prized creativity. In 2016, a reset took him to Oahu, where hiking and a different pace helped him rebuild. Hawaii also brought June into his life—his now-wife and partner, who had never worked in restaurants but became essential to Ursa.

Later, time in Austin and Southwest road trips pulled them back toward the desert. With foraging guides and a camera, they cataloged native plants and flavors and asked a bigger question: what does the Southwest taste like when you stop defaulting to the usual ingredients?

That inquiry became Ursa: a tasting-driven restaurant built around heritage and monsoon crops, fermentation, and a bar program with cocktails and NA drinks made from native ingredients. Aaron shares how Ursa first opened in El Centro on a shoestring, why it had to evolve, and how they opened in downtown Tucson at record speed. Pour a glass and settle in.

www.ursadesert.com

110 E Congress Street

Tucson, AZ 85701

IG: @ursa_az

Transcript

Michael: 0:03

Welcome to Wine World, the podcast that takes you from vineyard to glass. Each episode your host, Pavle Milch, winemaker, restaurateur, and columnist, explores wine grape growing wine making, and wine and food pairings focusing on Arizona and beyond. Join us as we visit vineyards, chat with restaurateurs and meet the pioneers behind top wineries. Whether you're a wine enthusiast or curious about starting your own winery, wine world offers the perfect blend of education and entertainment. Pour yourself a glass and tune in to discover the stories behind the bottle.

0:40

Hey friends. Welcome back to Wine World. I'm finally back behind the mic after a bit of a sabbatical opening the new Los Vineyards restaurant and tasting room in Congress in downtown Tucson. Which definitely did what openings do. It took everything. But I'm back and I'm so excited about today because this episode is very right here, right now, Tucson, our neighbors at Congress are Ursa, and I sat down with Chef Aaron to talk about his path from Calexico to the punk scene and art world in LA all the way to building a desert driven tasting menu in downtown Tucson. So pour glass, get comfortable, and let's get into the Genesis story, how Ursa came to life, and how Aaron found his way back to the desert. I. Aaron, where are you from originally? I'm originally from a small desert town called Calexico, which is on the border of California and Mexico. Okay. Does that name have anything to do with the actual group that hangs out a lot in Tucson? There's a few stories I've heard. One is that they were traveling through it, saw the name, thought it was clever, but, uh, no, the town was there much before the band. Okay. Yeah. And, and what's Calexico like? What's it like growing up there? Calexico is a town, is a very, very small town. Everybody knows everyone. A lot of us are related. We all grew up together. It's a tough town, you know, it's a, it's a border town and that's everything that, everything that comes with a border town, whether it's, you know, uh, I mean from. From the greatness of culture that crosses both sides to narcotics that also cross. Right? And you get the gang culture, but you also get the family and the love. All right. All right. And, and growing up, Aaron, um, what was, uh, what was life like after high school? You are still relatively young. Were you always wanting to be in the restaurant business? No. No, not at all. Um, so yeah, after I graduated high school, I, you know, as like a lot of us in, in those types of towns, we, we need to leave. And I, I always had my, my eyes set on the big city. And so as soon as I graduated high school, I moved to Los Angeles. And, you know, I was a, I was a musician. I, I played in punk bands. I, I grew up in the punk scene. And, uh, so I, I went to la I moved to Los Angeles, um, early, early two thousands. And, you know, I, I ended up in Echo Park, which is also, at that time a pretty intense town. Okay. It's changed quite a bit and, um, played music there and eventually I opened an art gallery. So, hold on a second. While you playing music, Aaron, are you subsidizing your life in the restaurant business? No. Or are you able to, to, to, to gain some revenue from gigs? No, neither actually. I just had some, you know, some, some, like I worked at a video shop at some point, you know, just little, like little jobs making ends meet here and there. Yeah. I was think an end meet, meet and yeah, I was able to like tour a little bit and travel. So these little side gigs gave me the opportunity to request time off. Um, yeah, nothing, I mean my, at that point I had no, I didn't even really know that cooking was a career. Like it wasn't in front of me yet. Um, what was the name of the band? Oh, we had so many, I mean, I was in a band for a, for a while called Bestial Mouth. Uh, and and what, what, what was your role in the band? I played bass. Okay. I mostly played bass. All right. Um, it was, you know, I was like, I had mentioned, I I, I ended up in Echo Park in the early two thousands, and there was this shift between what it used to be in the nineties to sort of this art community that was moving in because it was because rent was so affordable. Right. Uhhuh, because it was kind of a, a, a bad, bad community. Uh, I wouldn't say bad, but it, you know, lower income. Lower income. And yeah. So we were, we were able to, you know, move in there and, and, and find cheap places. And so you had this, this little pocket of these artists that were really pushing the envelope of what art can be and. I felt like I felt belonged there. You know, I felt like you could just be yourself. There was no judgment. Um, and, and I felt a sense of community, which was really important to me at that time. So how long were you in the quote unquote music world? Well, I played in, I, you know, I, all through high school, I played in punk bands. And then not very long when I got to la, maybe two years, and then I opened an art gallery in Echo Park in 2005. All right. The transition there? Mm-hmm. Can you unpack that a little bit? Yeah. Actually it wasn't a huge transition. It was just sort of like me and two friends. Uh, one of our friends had a, a clothing company and she wanted a storefront. And we found this place in Echo Park, under the bridge by the Echo, and she asked if I take one spot to do my. To do my company, you could take the other two, do your thing, rent was like$400 and we're like, let's do it. So, you know, we'd play records after, after hours and we'd turn it into this, you know, after show party. But then we'd curate art as well and we'd have different people come in and, and show stuff. And then at that time I was really into sculpting. That was my medium, so I got to show off my stuff as well. Um, do you still no dabble? I, I don't, I don't sculpt anymore, but I think in hindsight that's what led me to food was, was manipulating a product. All right. So say more. So what happened after the air gallery? So, you know, it's hard making, paying bills with art. So I asked my friend who worked at a bar if there was a job for me, and he said, yeah, like I talked to the owner, you start next week. And I was a bar back. I did that for about a year or so, and I, I fell in love with the industry. Like I, I had no idea what I was about to step into, but What, what, what about it bit you, for lack of a better word, about the industry? The energy. I mean, it was, I basically walked into a pirate shit, you know, it was just this intensity and I think I had so much of that inside of me from growing up in this small, you know, burning up town to this, the punk scene. To this sort of aggressive art. I mean, there was just so much of that in the industry. And again, I grew, you know, I came up in the, well, I started in the bar scene, and this bar in particular was extremely high volume. And so I was only doing three nights a week. And I was, you know, I was making good money and I was seeing all these creative people around me, and, and everybody just wanted to be there. And we were making people happy, right? Like, there was just, the music was loud, the lights were dim, and it just felt like home. Um, now keep in mind, I was also in Los Angeles for the first time, okay? After growing up in a small town. So I had all this access to these really beautiful farmer's markets. And so after work, I'd ask, you know, across the way there was a restaurant, so it was a bar on one side and then a restaurant on the other. And so the, the chef would come sit at the, sit at the bar after work and we'd talk about food and stuff. And I'd ask him like, Hey, I just got this kohlrabi, or like, how do I treat it? Or like, this tuna belly, like what do I do with it? And, and was this a bar that the food component was a well known for the food component or was it more like gastro pish kinda stuff? Yeah, it was, uh, maybe a step above gastro pub. I mean, like, it was, you know, it was approachable, but it was, it wasn't the most thought provoking, but you know, it, it was rustic, but it, it, you know, it, they were doing their thing at that time. For sure. Um, and, and your desire, Aaron, I dunno if the word is desired. Your, you, you're penchant, I guess, for farmer's markets and picking out stuff you've never seen before and, and wandering and having the curiosity to say, Hey, what can I do with this? Was that because of someone's influence or was it you just going on your own, getting lost in a farmer's market? Finding a cool place for you there? I think it was more getting lost in la. Okay. Like, I think just being sort, uh, sort of tailored into the city was, was more important to me than, than finding delicious produce. It was just sort of the next thing. Right. Find these farmers' markets, or through fashion district or, or you know, go up to Mulholland Drive. It just sort of was the, an organic chapter of my life. Part of the environment, yeah. Mm-hmm. And the milieu of being there. Mm-hmm. And so I'd come up on these products and, and, and again, like a lot of the time, you know, I, I was fortunate enough to make. Friends with people from Los Angeles or that had been there for a while, so they'd take me to markets or they'd take me to these places. And, and I'd never seen like street vendors like that, you know, and, or it wasn't even street vendor. I'd just never seen farmers putting themselves out there like that, because I guess rewind a little bit. I grew up in the Imperial Valley, which is the county of Calexico, and it's a very, very farm agricultural town, but there is no farmer's markets. You know, it, it sold on a, it, it grew on a macro level. So I'd never seen that sort of precision and care. Um, to me it was just grown for, for either outsourcing or, or grocery or, um, grocery stores, you know? Yep. So I'd never seen like a, the Santa Monica Farmer's market is like, who needs toys? Or us, right? This place is crazy. Um, and so yeah, I talked to the chef after work, like, what do I do with this? Like these colors and these smells, they were so exciting to me. Um, because, you know, we, I grew up pretty poor and so, you know, we, we grew up eating lentils and, and machaca and, you know, stuff like that. Nothing wrong with that either. Nothing wrong with that at, at all. In fact, I think most of our cooking now is a reference to that uhhuh. But, you know, to, to get these more exotic, at that time, what I thought was exotic, um, I wanted to know more. And so I'd asked the chef after work, like, how do I treat this and how do I cook this? And, and he'd tell me, and I was just so, and. Captivated by, by the idea of turning something into something else. So I had asked him if I could work in the kitchen one day a week. Hmm. And he's like, yeah, I can't pay you, but totally. I was like, let's do it. And so I started working in the kitchen. I, I was like, st. Staging, you know, like, I think it was like every Wednesday I'd be in the kitchen. I then Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I'd be at the bar and tell me, what year is this? More or less put me in the time. It must have been like 2005 or no, 2006. Okay. And yeah, I mean, I was there for a little while and I just, I drank the Kool-Aid. I was so obsessed with the kitchen. I was working with these people that were just insane, right? Like, they were just talking about how much whiskey they drank the night before and, and drugs and all these like, crazy things. But then when it came down to like, um, a fire ticket or service, they were just on, they were speaking this language that. That was foreign to me. I had no idea what they were saying, like, how long on this fire, this behind, like it was this, this dance they all had amongst each other that I wanted in on. Um, but just being in that environment, it was, it was again, back to this sort of aggression, um, that I love. And maybe it was growing up in the desert that I was, I was attracted to, you know. And while you're quote unquote studying, are they moving you to different stations or are you just building peaches all day? Are you just doing prep? Oh no, they threw me right on grill. They just watched me go down while they left. Right. For day one. Here's the grill. Um, and it was incr like managing temperatures on steak. Yeah. Grill. Yeah. Yeah. They just threw me right into it. Um. Uh, somebody was there to sort of pick me up, but Okay. I mean, these guys just wanted to watch me go down in flames and it was, it was kind of incredible, you know, like, wow. And they're, they're off to the side laughing and, and you know, it was a, it was a hazing, it was those days, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So how long were you there, Aaron? I think by the time that I, I think by the time that I was in the kitchen, it wasn't, it wasn't very long until I told the chef I wanted to go to culinary school. So I think what ended up happening was, and, and, sorry. And the approach for you of, or rather the decision to go to culinary school versus, let's say go work under the tutelage mm-hmm. Of different chefs and learn different things. How did you approach that decision, Aaron? I needed something that I could claim as my own, something that I earned. I was in a point of my life where. I was fishing for something, you know, I was doing these odd end jobs and I was sort of like gigging, but I didn't feel accomplished. And I think the, by going to culinary school, I felt like this is something that I could wake up in the morning and earn. And although a lot of people said, you don't necessarily need that, it was just something I needed in my life at that time. It was very personal for you to have that It was a personal decision. Yeah. And, and training and validation via mm-hmm. Whether it's the paper or not, but some, a challenge that you wanted to I think at that point I wasn't even confident that I'd cooked the rest of my life. It's just that I needed something I needed to earn. So where did you end up going? So I ended up going to La Cordon Blue. Okay. In Pasadena. And, um, you know, just, I was working a morning, morning catering job. Cater from like four 30 or five in the morning to seven or like prep, prep for these catering events. And then I'd go to school all day, and then I'd leave school and I'd go to my, my kitchen job. And it was nonstop for two years. And I think at that point I, you know, I was, I was all in, like I, I got bit by the bug and, or maybe I was forced in. I'm not really too sure. You know, Uhhuh, I was just, I was just so saturated with this, with this industry. I couldn't think of anything else. And then after, you know, a couple years went by and you start to feel yourself physically get better, mentally get stronger, your techniques get better, your knife cuts get better, then your, all of a sudden you're just like, I mean, if you've ever felt growth, you can't go backwards, you know? And so to be in an environment where you fit in, where you belong, where you're graceful, um. It's a sign of a and and, and then when guests like your food or your chef approves Right? There's nothing more than, uh, it's that instant dopamine hit. Yeah. Yeah. The validation. It really is. It really is the validation. And so, I mean, I was all in, I was all in at that point. I couldn't, I mean, I'd show up at six, seven in the morning just to watch my chef break down an animal. Wow. You know, I, so, yeah. Did you hang your hat or cut your cooking teeth per se? Mostly in Los Angeles. Mostly in Los Angeles. So I left that restaurant early on, and I went to go work for as many as the best chefs as I could in Los Angeles at that time. That Bean, um, you know, I worked for, uh, Joseph Centeno. I worked for, uh, chef Neil Frazier. I worked for Chef Mike Gio. I worked for Can you, can you help us out and, and, uh, associate the name of the chef with the restaurant? Sure. Yeah. I, you know, a restaurant that I'm, I'm very proud to be a part of was Orson Winston, which was at that time, um. It was a 25 course tasting menu restaurant, and we changed every night. Wow. So every night we'd deep clean, we'd stand around and dry erase board till, you know, one in the morning and we'd talk about new dishes for tomorrow. Um, I worked at, uh, like a, it, I guess it's vegan by definition, but none of us were after the cause of being vegan. But it was a vegetable forward restaurant that's now closed. It was a tasting menu restaurant called The Gathering Swine. Um, I worked at Inc, which was just very molecular forward. Um, I worked for, and my last restaurant in Los Angeles was under Chef Neil Frazier, which is a titan in the industry at Redbird, and still sort of a father figure to me. Like he, you know, he checks in on me and, and he checks in on a lot of his staff. But you can go anywhere and be like, I work for Chef Neil. And they're like, alright. You got the, you got the juice. You know, you get a little strict credibility right away. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. He just, you know, he, what he's done in the industry is very important. So, um, yeah. Yeah. So you are ostensibly becoming, for lack of a better word, classically trained. Yeah, classically trained, but I, you know, yes. In the culinary arts. In the culinary arts. However, I chose to work for chefs who were more esoteric, who actually, yes. I think that, I think that technique is inevitable. Everyone's gonna learn it eventually. It's this, this, I, I think what the chefs that I chose to work for tried to hone in on my creativity and they said, you know, this is what's gonna catapult the industry forward. Techniques inevitable, right? It's gonna get passed on no matter what you do. But creativity is, I think, really gonna set us free in this industry. And so those were the chefs that I worked for. So we are gonna get to the point that we begin to talk about Ursa, but how you leave Calexico, you go to Los Angeles following this musical itch. Mm-hmm. Then you get into the art world to find out that's not gonna subsidize the cup of noodles at the end of the night. Right now, you really go down the rabbit hole in the world of cooking and working for people who, uh, you can not only glean something from, but admire, how do you wind up in Tucson? And was la the last stop before returning to this part of the world? Far from it? Okay. So in 2016, um, I was in Los Angeles and I had a, a fellow line cook who's he was the best man at my wedding. Like still to this day, one of my best friends in the world. He left the restaurant to go work in Hawaii, and we threw him a going away party. And we just said like, it sucks to be you. You know? We were so obsessed with the city. Yep. And, um, and a month later he called me, well, he texted me and said like, I need to talk to you. And I knew what that was gonna lead to. I knew it was gonna have something to do with Hawaii, and I had no interest in it, so I didn't answer the phone for a long time. So, fair to say, you are loving your life in Los Angeles right now. I am enjoying, I, I'm doing okay. Okay. I'm doing okay. Um, I'm, I'm very confident in LA now at this point. I've been in LA for 11 years, so it's home. Um, but I was getting bored, you know, and I just rewind a little bit. At that point, I was actually in the process of switching to pastry just to keep creativity juices flowing. So there was a whole new set of growth for me there, which was getting me through, you know, some, some hard days. I, I guess. So I, I talked to my friend and he said, listen, I'm in Hawaii now, as you know. Um, we're opening this restaurant, we need some help. I like, what do you like? LA's not going anywhere. You should come to Hawaii. And you know, at that time I was struggling with, uh, I was struggling with addiction. I was struggling with, you know, keeping money. I was just, you know, in the, in, in those days of the industry was, it was barely the turning point for cooks making better money. So there wasn't a lot coming in. So yes, I was enjoying myself and I was growing in my career, but I was, I was just sort of stagnant as well. And, um, and I think it was more the addiction thing for me, where my friends were like, we gotta get you out of, out of la and you did. Um, d let's get you in a different environment. Yeah, let's do a little reset. Let, let's clean you up a little. And so, um, I talked to my chef about it the next day and my chef. Had been sober for a very long time. Mm-hmm. And he really helped me. And, um, he, uh, I was waiting for him to say like, you know, that's a silly idea. Why, why you go to Hawaii? I was waiting for that. Right. And as soon as I told him, he said, I love Hawaii. I go surfing there. Once a year, you should go. And I was like, really? He's like, yeah. Like, what are you doing here? I was like, all right. Well that's amazing. I quit, you know? And so I ended up in Hawaii. I was there for six years. So Where in Hawaii? Oahu. Okay. I ended up in Oahu. I was, I helped him with his spot for maybe six weeks just to get it up and running. And then I became a pastry chef. Uh, sorry, but was the intention to move back, just go there and help him move back? No. No. Or you went with an intention like, I'm gonna hang my hat there for a while. Yeah. It was an indefinite move focused on hiking and sort of just being outdoors. I made this huge life change. Um, you know, I'd gotten silver and I was just, I was trying to get a sponsorship with hiking, through hiking, and I just was onto a better track, you know? And, and so the intention was to cook not at an, at an intense pace, but just to kind of keep my chops up and to make money and say, I still, I didn't give up on this industry that I love so much, but really to find balance. And, uh, I'd never heard the word balance associated with working in the restaurant business. Mm-hmm. Especially in the kitchen. But go ahead. Yeah. I mean, you know, at that point I, I just. I just needed it, you know, I just, but I didn't want to give up on the industry. I think it's really important to state that, like I didn't want to go find another job. But also, I was also so deep in it, right? We're talking 11 years at that point of, of, of sacrifice and, um, and so yeah, I mean, but I, but I did need to find a way to survive mentally and, you know, mental health is, at that point I discovered that it was, that was a thing. Like we could talk about mental health and or not even that we could talk about. I, I guess I didn't really know it existed, you know? And so by moving to Hawaii, I did work on that, or even talking about it, like in this day and age, it's so ubiquitous to talk about the fact that, you know, no, no one is an island than we all go through peaks and valleys in our life. And, and I think there's more openness now. To, to state in what state you could be in. Yeah. Was being out in nature, hiking very helpful as part of the sort of recipe of trying to find some balance? Yes and no. And I, I talk about Hawaii and my story often because this is actually what led to Ursa. Okay. So in the early days of living in Hawaii, I was extremely grateful. I remember just going on these beautiful hikes. I mean, it truly is paradise for a reason. And just, I mean, I came from this tiny desert town, right? And so to be on these like really extraordinary, lush hikes, I mean, I would just catch myself smiling sometimes by myself. And, um, and so I think in the early days I was, I was at peace, you know, I found peace within myself, which I needed'cause I was a very angry person at that point. Uh, or just wound up. And so I had finally found peace, although, so the, I should have captured that moment and left, you know, but I learned to hate it. I learned to be bored or not learned. I became bored. You know, it was, living on the island is a different pace. And because I'm such like cabin fever, less about cabin fever, more about sort of, you know, I, I'm very career driven and to be in Hawaii, you have to have a certain lifestyle and people respect that lifestyle. I just didn't have respect for it. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, could care to elaborate a little bit on that. Yeah. We'd be in the kitchen and someone wouldn't show up for a day or two and like, why are you mad? Like, the surf was good today, you know, and stuff like that. Okay. And so I just, you know, I'd sort of had enough, um, although I found a lot of amazing things in Hawaii. I met my wife in Hawaii. Um, so Hawaii was a, a, a huge part of, I mean, it was a pivotal moment in my life. You, you were meant to be in Hawaii. I was supposed to be in Hawaii, yeah. And for two reasons. One, I met June there and two, and for those of us that, or not, not me, but who the listeners, June, your wife now? Yeah. Most, most incredible human being I've ever met. Um, just basically brought Ursa to life. Um, keeps, keeps it going, you know, has kept it going. Uh, believes in me, believes in the vision. And we met in Hawaii, but we actually grew up in the same part of the desert, which is bananas. Uh, are, are we talking about like Calexico we're talking about, she's from Yuma, which is on the Arizona side. And then I'm from Calexico. So, I mean, when we met I told her I was from the Imperial Valley and we were just like, wait, what? You know, we grew up 30 minutes from each other. Crazy. But we met in Hawaii very organically too. She, she came into our restaurant and, and. And it just, we kept running into each other and finally just like, let's get some coffee and, and yeah. Just really haven't left each other's sight since. Wow. That was eight years ago. So, um, and recent number two, you were supposed to be in Hawaii because on these hikes, I think a lot of people go to Hawaii and sort of have to pinch themself, like how beautiful this is. And for me, it was the first time that I realized that this lush, lush, green environment didn't excite me. It wasn't in my DNA and I. That's when I realized I'm from the desert, I need to be back. So you were craving, uh, a coming back home? I didn't even know it. I didn't even know it. Because when you were LA you weren't craving that. But then you are in a place that is diametrically opposed mm-hmm. Exactly. To where you grow up and it made you miss home. Yep. One time. Um. I think it was for my, and did June feel similarly? No. No. June. June would stay in Hawaii the rest of her life. Um, which is another reason why she's incredible is because she, she's left the island for me and, and she went to the Imperial Valley. No pressure, by the way. Oh my God. Like I just, yeah. Um, I owe her hard, but yeah. So when did you wind up then deciding the both of you're gonna move back to, so another chapter in the story is we're in Hawaii, things were coming to an end with art lifestyle there. And we talked about like, perhaps it's time for the next thing. We had the opportunity to go help open a restaurant in Austin, in Austin, Texas. And, um, and so we jumped on that. They took care of us, they brought us out there. Sorry, was June also back of the house? June's never worked in the industry? No. Oh, not once before. Ursa. Um, she works in sustainable energy. Okay. And, um, yeah. Had absolutely no experience in a restaurant. Only fine dining restaurant she came to, was the first one she met me in, and now I think she's, she married into is what she always says. Right? Yep. But yeah, so we had, we had the opportunity to go to Austin. We were there in Austin for a while, waiting for a restaurant to be built out so we could help with this project. But because it, during these build out phases, we had all this extra time. So, and we had also not been on the mainland for six years, so we had these opportunities to pack up the dogs and, and just sort of go on these road trips. June was working remotely at the time. And so, you know, sometimes we'd go up to, uh, new Orleans, we'd go up to, uh, Nashville. We'd take these little, like little weekend trips, but occasionally, because my, my mother still lives in the Imperial Valley, in the desert. We'd go take these trips. And so we'd go through New Mexico, we'd go through Arizona, and then we'd go through Joshua Tree. And, um, that ecosystem started to resonate with us more and more and more like, oh my God, this is incredibly stunning. We need to learn more about the desert. But we're, we're talking aesthetically speaking, aesthetically. Something, something about it is it's, you know, I think it calling you. Yeah. I mean it, I think the desert is beautiful in this very macab way, and I think that rigid darkness, um. Is in my DNA, you know. And so I was drawn towards the, you know, like I had mentioned earlier, earlier, the greens and, uh, those colors just, they don't click with me. And I, I, I soon realized that I, I'm more, I have a direct relationship with these tans and these golds and these browns, right? And so driving through the Southwest desert, I, I felt very proud to be from the Southwest desert and having a set of skills, right? Like culinary skills, um, and an art background. I made sense to marry it all. And so eventually we got, I remember this one trip in particular, I think it was actually June's birthday, we ended up spending at my mom's house in, in the desert. And we were talking about like, how cool would it open a restaurant, like a modern sort of progressive restaurant, uh, that highlighted native crops from the desert. And then the conversation next was like, well, what is a native crop to the desert? Right? You stole the award shadow by mouth. Yeah. I mean, at that point it was just as low tech as it could be. It was buying a Southwest forging guidebook and just reading and seeing the abundance of the desert and realize, I mean, I remember skimming through pages and being like, oh, that's a weed that I used to pick, or, or we used to have to pick this to put it into our stew. Or this is a, a succulent that we gave as gifts, or this grows all over my backyard. And so all these things that were sort of prized upon to these forging books were these, uh, you know, weeds in my hometown. And something as innocuous as, let's say purse lane, would that, I mean, purse lane, uh, lambs, quarter amaranth, right? All these different things were just like being championed in these books. And so we, we thought, but no one had really, I can't say I can extra extrapolated sort of desert flora per se, into a menu. I, I can't say with confidence. Nobody, you know, like. Especially getting to Tucson, I think that people have put in the work, and I'm very proud, I'm very proud to be a part of that community. Um, but we wanted to show it, I mean, we wanted to put up some serious guardrails, like what happens if it's only from the desert? And I'm talking about like, we don't use tomatoes, we don't use cucumbers, we don't use radishes because they're, they're not needed. Needed here. That's pretty intense parameters. Mm-hmm. And through the lens of, of having quote unquote a restaurant, that would be hypothetically speaking at some capacity, also seasonal, considering there are mm-hmm. Seasons in the desert. Yeah. But the reason to put the guardrails up was to frame a new conversation around what's possible in the desert. I think it was actually to do the opposite. I think it was to break the frame so that the world can see what the desert can do. I think that a lot of people. Look at the desert, like we'd said, like, uh, uh, you know, naturally we equate green to life. And because there's not a lot of it, it sort of gets overlooked. And so what we do is, um, you know, a lot of the farmers, they're, they're, they're growing for survival. And so we're growing the cucumbers, we're growing the tomatoes, we're growing the radishes and the icebergs because we need to survive in the desert. However, our mission is to put the native crops back into the cycle so that if we can show, um, if we can show what we can do with these heritage crops, perhaps farmers can grow them again, and we can get used to, um, providing, like feeding into our own culture. And, and we're obviously talking about crops, crops that are suited in a sustainable way to grow in the desert. Where ostensibly you think, you know, to be able to farm anything at any scale. You need water. But these are all things that grow here naturally. Monsoon crops. So how do you go, Aaron, from sort of meditating cogitating over what that would be like to, we're gonna rip the bandaid and jump in the pool all in. I remember talking to my mom about this concept and, you know, again, we don't come from money. And I told her like, I, I had this idea, you know, and, and she asked me how much I needed and I threw out a random number. And I think a lot of people would just be like, good luck with that. And, and her, her answer was just sort of like, we can't get the money, but. What you need. Wait, wait. And where are you opening up this dream place of yours? We don't know yet. We have absolutely no, I, you know, we, so the number you're throwing is like about equipment and furniture. It was like 500,000. Oh. It was just like, it was just a made up number just based on like, well, if I have half a meal, then I could do something, you know? Yeah. Comfortably. Comfortably. Right. And, um, now let's, let's tell the true story. Yeah. So I, you know, I, I tell my mom this and, and she basically just says, we can't get that money. Well, not can't, but like, let's talk, let's figure this out. And, um, what you need to do is go home and just write and just write and write and conceptualize until you, until you need to go to sleep. And eventually that'll culminate. And, um, and I did and that's what I did. As soon as I got home, I just started writing a business plan. I think before I got to the business plan, I wrote this overview on what Ursa is, right?'cause I needed to know. I needed to create an entity so it could tell me what it is. And so I just started writing this idea. I just started, you know, I remember on the drive back we were pulling fauna and we were gluing that to paper and that became our mood board, these very natural, organic colors and textures. And so Ursula just started taking life just based on arts and crafts and, and some ink. And um, it's interesting to hear that now and for those people listening that eventually will make their way to Congress in downtown Tucson, the Patina. Mm-hmm. And the palette of this restaurant is just that. Yeah. So you're driving back to Texas. We're driving back to Austin, Texas. And, um, we start writing things down and eventually, you know, June and I decide let's study the desert. Like let's really study this. And so we, we bought a couple forging Southwest guidebooks. Um. Yeah. Are there some seminal books that once you get Yeah. There, there's a few things out there. There's a, you know, there's like Forging Southwest Guide is like kind of the, the Mecca. Um, and then there's some other ones you can get at, you know, some local bookstores and stuff. Um, pretty easy to find. Um, some based on trails, some based on indigenous communities, some based on, um, just floor and fauna out here in the desert. And we bought a point and shoot camera and we just took off and we loaded up the dogs and we went driving around for a month through Imperial Valley, which is where we're from, Joshua Tree. Uh, different parts of New Mexico, different parts of Arizona. And um, and we just started cataloging things. Yeah, but what is the approach? Obviously the guide might give you some direction, but are you really just going off the grid and going off the grid and We had no direction going on an adventure scene. We just started driving. I mean, we pinned a, a couple places on the mat where we'd camp out and along the way we'd, I remember pulling off all the time off the road snapping photos and then skimming through the book to find them. And I'm pretty sure there's an app today for that. I hope there probably is, and there was at that time, but it just kind of felt right, you know, it kind of felt like it was ours. And yeah, we would just catalog these photos and, I mean, I still have those photos and, um, we started writing them down like, oh, these are edible, or these emulate this flavor. Like we can achieve a strawberry or perhaps a tomato flavor from this berry, or, or this leaf is high in fiber or it reacts well to this. And then I think just with, based on basic knowledge, or not basic, but like, um, uh. You know, previous technique I was able to apply like, well, instead of using this, we can substitute it with this native crop, which we still do. Um, so when do you go from conceptualizing to let's try cooking some of this stuff? See what happens. We did a popup. I had called my friend who lives in El Centro, which is part of the Imperial Valley, and he's a very good friend of mine. He's a very, um, he's done a lot for that community. His name's Ernie and he's done a lot for that community. He brought a lot of culture, a lot of art, just an incredible human being. And I called him and I said, Hey, I have this idea for a concept. And him and I used to do these beer dinner, these beer pairings 15 years ago with no concept, just food, right? And um, and I called him, I said, Hey, I have this idea for a restaurant. Do you know anybody in the Joshua Tree area, um, that could invest in us? And he said, well, send me your pitch deck and let see what's up. Okay. So I did, and at that point, yes, we did have a pitch deck. We had a mood board and we had put it together and it wasn't half a million dollars. I think we, maybe it was like, I'm sure it was like 50 K. Okay. Right? Like, like, yeah. It, it was something small. And um, and we sent it to him. He called me the very next day and he said, I can't really think of anyone. However, I own a pizza shop and I don't really have time for it anymore, but I want it to stay in the family. I don't wanna lose it. So why don't you and June move back to the Imperial Valley and do it here? Huh. And you know, keep in mind, I had now been gone for 20 years Exactly. And I didn't really want to go back. Like, I just, I had a lot of demons in that town and, and I felt, I felt sort of. It's hard to bring your wife to, you know, Los Angeles, Hawaii, and then Yeah, Texas and then, but I mean, God, there's so many amazing people in that town though. You know, like there's so many incredible creative kind people in the Imperial Valley. It's a tough town, right? We're all in it together. And so you make the best of it and you create communities and families and so much creativity and art came out of the Imperial Valley perhaps.'cause there was not a lot to do there, you know, but just, I mean, talk about a community, you know? So you went back, so we talked about it, we talked to June and I'm sure we have two different versions of this story. Um, but we ended up going back to the Imperial Valley and we took over my friend's old pizza shop and we turned it into Ursa with, we raised$6,000. You know, like it was nothing. It was okay. It was, but there was a hood in the kitchen, there was a grease trapper. You had the basics. We, yeah, there was no, there was no ceiling at one point, actually. Oh, okay. So we, you know, yeah, we had, we had a couple stainless steel things and we just did the best we could. We, what year was this, Aaron? I think we officially took it over, um, let's see. We, we moved back December, 2023. We took over the lease January 20, 24. Oh, wow. And we opened June or July, I can't remember, I think July of 24. 24. That's like yesterday. Yeah, Aaron. And it really was, it really was yesterday. So, so now let's, let's now talk about the menu proper, because we, we sort of skirted around the Southwest foraging guide and, and the, uh, sort of the storyboard of what this restaurant is going to be. Um, I, on purpose did not try to do a lot of research about the menu. I know you and I have spoken in the past about. The approach and the philosophy to what you're doing here. So let's, let's talk about the menu and, and the, and the reaction to a menu like that in Imperial Valley. Very positive. Okay. It was received way, way better than anticipated. Um, you know, it's a small town in a, in, in a town like Imperial Valley, we all grew up eating sort of the same thing. And no one really cooks better than at home. You know, it's, it's one of those towns, and that's also very true in a town like that too. Like, these are cultural, like they're, they're dishes, they're that we just all ate. You go to your friend's house, they hand you a Machaca burrito, Hey, take this to your mom. You know? And so here we are making this food that maybe could have been considered esoteric, but in, I think in reality we were cooking based on our upbringing. So we used the flavors that we still used growing up. And I think because of there was that bloodline running through it all, the community truly was receptive to it. It resonated with them, so. So give us a couple of dishes that you started doing where you were using flavors that were Len of the place, but through your lens. Yeah. You know, I think in the early stages it was stor still figuring out what Ursa was like. And again, like, which by the way, what is Ursa? I think Ursa is in its truth. Meaning does he have a meaning? The name? The name, yeah, yeah, yeah. The name is, it's named after the Constellation. It's a constellation named Ursa. And on this sort of walkabout that my wife and I did when we were conceptualizing Ursa, we're both just sort of obsessed with outer space. And we threw our scope in the sky one night and it came down to the conver, you know, we were conceptualizing this whole, like, this Ursa, this restaurant, like. How would the, how would the servers dress? Um, what kind of silverware are we gonna use? I mean, we were just thinking of all of this while we were driving for a month, you know? And so at one point it came down to like, what, what are we gonna name it? What's a cool name? And that same night, I remember we were toasting marshmallows, and I think we were in Joshua Tree at this point. And we threw our scope in the sky, and the first constellation we saw was Ursa. And it was just an omen, right? Like, it was such a beautiful name. It was so elegant. It was clean, it rolled off the tongue. And it really, I mean, it, it happened on that trip and then we found out it was sort of a north star for a lot of the indigenous communities. So, um, it, yeah, I mean, it just felt right. Sorry, I, I si we sidebar on the name back to the dishes that you started making in, in central, in, um, Imperial Valley. Yeah. In El Centro. So, um. You know, one of the dishes that we were known for was we had to do like our version of Machaca. You know, machaca is just like, it rains supreme where I grew up, and I mean, literally there, there's, every kitchen has it, you know, so, so let's unpack Machaca a little bit for those people that might not know what it is. Machaca is a Sonoran dish. It's basically just dried beef, dried meat, uh, usually like stewed, you know, braised all day and dried out and pr a lot of times there's bell peppers and, um, onions kind of folded back in. That's like the hydration of the dish. Yep. And it's, you know, you crack some eggs into it, you throw some beans into it, you wrap it into a burrito. I mean, it's just, it's, it's everything. It's the filler, you know? Um, and, and what did you do with that dish? We did something similar. I mean, we took it to a, uh, to a, to a level that we wanted to, you know, we wanted to put it onto a pedestal, and so we did it with, we made the decision to only use. Okay. And the reason for that was we wanted to keep it as pre-colonial as possible, and we wanted Ursa to be the bridge between diners to nature, to natural, natural nature. The pre-colonial point. Why was that important? I think at its core, Ursa is a time and a place. Mm. And I'm not, I'm not sold on the idea of abundance, but these vintage crops are so, I, they're, they're almost, they're romantic to me, and I wanted to celebrate that, you know? And I think for me, it's still, it's learning my history too, because I'm half Mexican. I'm a quarter Dominican and a quarter polish, right? So my father's Mexican. My mom, yeah, my mom is half Dominican, uh, half polish. And so when it come, you know, you're cooking, you're cooking, you're cooking, and then you start to cook. Like, what is my first restaurant gonna look like? Uhhuh, right? Like, what is it gonna look like? Um, is there a version of Mangu on the menu? There's not. No, there's not. Sorry, I'm digressing. But you know, like, and I grew up in this, I grew up in a Hispanic community. Um, and so naturally that technique and those flavors want to come out, right? They want to come out naturally and, but I'm not fully Mexican and I'm not fully this. And so not that I have a lack of identity, but I'm very much like, what's my story? Right? What's my story? And so discovering the desert through this lens made me realize like, I don't really have to be anything. I'm from the desert. That's who I am. So, so the, the choice, you know, the, the choice to use these ingredients to sort of exclude the tomatoes and the lettuces and stuff like that are the desert's rough. You know, it's a, it's a tough climate and, and we didn't want to, you know, we didn't want to tiptoe around that. We wanted to play into that. And sometimes the desert is, you know, there's agents that, there's agents that, um, that form in these produces that are, are these crops that are bitter or fibrous? And, and, and we wanted to play into that. You know, I don't, I don't, I truly think that. Food doesn't have to be delicious. Like we don't have to make people happy. I think sometimes food just needs to be food. Mm. And people need to view it as that's what that crop does. That's just what it does. And we don't need to manipulate it too much. Sometimes it is bitter, sometimes it is fibrous and sometimes you need to spit it out. And so we wanted to, we wanted to show that we wanted to show where we're from in a time and a place that's a pretty courageous lean in to really hyper focusing on what can be possible in the desert. Mm-hmm. So let's go back to the Machaca. What's the Machaca like at rza? So we did, so we did a, like a braised bore bore shoulder. And, uh, you know, with similar spices, uh, and we just, you know, braised it down. We made like a sauce out of the original one we did, like, you know, here in the desert we had Teri beans. We did like a black Teri bean puree. And keep in mind this, we wanted this dish to come out very playful. So it comes out and we do, we do a version of it on this current menu as well. We sort of brought it back, changed a lot of it. Um, but we wanted it to be fun because you always end on a steak, right? Like you go to a fine dining restaurant, you end on a steak, you know what you're gonna get. Uh, it's like telling the ending of a movie. And so we, we want to end on something fun. So we come out with all these different dishes and sort of like, sort of izakaya, sort of all these little boons and you just build your own dish, you know, out of, uh, boar bore shoulder machaca. How do you approach, and this is gonna sound like a sort of a dumb restaurateur question, when someone wants to have something that is salad esque. Refreshing per se. Mm-hmm. Before the, the main event. Sure. You know, as we call it, how do you approach sort of like the, the appetizer, the refreshing portion or, or the vegetable forward stuff? There's a few different ways I can answer this one. Um, we do have those, right? I mean, we could start with something as basic as cactus, as nopales. I mean, they're so bright and acidic and just refreshing. They got a incredible snap to it. And so we do use those in a pure form. Um, so like a Nepal salad, uh, raw or braced a little bit. We use noal many, many, many ways. Okay. And when we first opened Ursa, we didn't want to use Nopa very much because growing up in the desert we ate a lot of it. And so us being so excited about, uh, our new concept, we're like, nah, we're good on cactus. Like, we're good. We figured that one out already. And I remember talking to this forger and she said to me basically like, no, you don't know anything. Like, go back to the basics and relearn how important this crop is. So we did, and so we, I mean, there's cactus in forms on our menu that, I mean, we turn'em into raisins, we've candied them. We've made, uh, granitas and ice creams and beverages, and we're trying to figure out the pH levels and like, you know, how to eliminate the slime or how right now we're currently figuring out how to use that slime as a gelling agent. Mm. And so, so for us, it was like this thing that's ubiquitous in the desert, it's like we're only using a portion of it and we're not even using it in multiple ways. So it's stuff like that, you know. Um, but to answer your original question is yes, we do have refreshing, you know, we, we do want to break the palette and, and sort of, uh, but also to alleviate some of those questions. We don't, we don't give guest menus at all. Like, we don't give them a choice. They come in. We get their dietary restrictions and then we tailor a menu for them. So SSA is mainly tasting menu, or it's tasting only. Yeah. Only. Mm-hmm. Okay. And, uh, are there different options pertaining to the scale of the tasting menu? So we do a prefix, which is about a five course. Okay. And then we do a tasting, like the chef's tasting menu, which is like 10 to 12. Okay. When it's all said and done. Um, and there's, there are different menus. Alright. I, I think I jumped ahead to a little bit because I did want to touch on what happened in Imperial Valley and El Centro when you open up this place. Mm-hmm. And now you're on Congress in downtown Tucson. Yeah. We, we, we skipped that chapter. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, it all happened so fast. I mean, the first Ursa was open for 10 months. Okay. And we just had like, such a cool staff and this family, but it's. It's hard. You open a small town and it's hard. Mm-hmm. You know, it's very, very difficult. And although we had a ton of support, you could feed the town six times over and still be broke, you know? And, and it, it was, I mean, it was, you know, it was, I mean, you own a restaurant, like imagine that in, in this tiny, tiny town. Right. And so you were putting pencil to paper and figuring out very quickly that the sustainability factor of this business in that specific place may not be the ideal place situation. No. Yeah, that's right. Um, and it happened fast, right? Like, I, I, I wouldn't even say I put pen to paper, it was just like, it was a, it was, we, we struggled constantly, right? Hmm. And, but on the flip side, you'd get sometimes just one guest in there a night and they would just tell you it was the greatest meal of their life. Right? And so you're like, I can't give up on this. And those get you through another four days, Uhhuh. And I mean, they truly, truly do.'cause you're like, I don't know, I'm gonna pay the bills, but that person loves it. You know? I know there's a, there, there. Yeah. Yeah. And, and you really, really do like, have to sink your teeth into those moments. It's also really scary and really humbling when, when basically you're putting what you believe in on the line, you're doubling down on this vision. Yeah. And I think it goes without saying, and, and I mean this from my heart, that, um, it, it shakes your ground. The underpinnings of, of your stability and, and your goal when, when you are in a place that is not necessarily working out right away, but to have the wherewithal to not let that be the thing that steers you away Yeah. From continuing. But how do we reassess and how do we look at this differently? Which obviously led you to. Tucson somehow. Yeah. So, so getting to Tucson was, so, let me backtrack a little. We, Imperial Valley was never an option for us when we were living in Austin. Like, it just didn't really come to our mind. It wasn't, it, it was never on the table. So we were always looking at Tucson Ernie's fault. Yeah. Ernie, Ernie. Ernie, I think he knows it too. Uh, but again, like for the record, I'm, I'm so proud of what we did in the Imperial Valley, and I'm, and I'm so grateful for the community, you know, and I really do hope that people remember Ursa for a very long time. I mean, that's my home and it always will be. Mm-hmm. I'm very proud to be from one of the hottest places in the world, you know? And um, so we were always looking at Tucson. We were looking at different parts of New Mexico, and we were looking at Joshua Tree because. For one, it had to be in the desert. And two, we needed this juxtaposition of desert culture with some, a bit of urban or life. Right. We needed guests. A population. A population. Yeah. And so when we were doing the Ursa and the Imperial Valley, uh, we were getting brought out to Tucson a couple times for events or for collabs. And so we were just kind of coming out here to represent Ursa, and we just fell in love with the community. I mean, people love the desert here, and people are very proud to be a part of the, I mean, some of the ingredients we're using are, they're, there're street signs here that are named after them, and there's schools named after them. And so the ingredients that we're using aren't so foreign here. And people were very proud, proud to be from, from this terroir. And so it just, I don't know. I mean, and also like, yeah, it just, it was, there was a culture that a, a subculture. It wasn't just about the restaurant. There's also a subculture where we could live in, right? Like we needed our, my, my wife's a dancer. She needs that community. There was trails to hike on. And so it was a little bit of everything. Um. This small big town. Right. They always say, so that really resonated with us as well. And we, and we needed that. So, so Tucson was checking off a bunch of boxes for you guys? A ton of boxes. Yeah, A ton of boxes. And, um, and did the, when did you arrive in Tucson before you actually had a place to start working on in terms of like TIS and stuff like that? Oh yeah. So when did you guys actually make the move? So we made the move, um, we closed, okay, let me think. What month are we in? November? October. October of 2025. Yeah. October. I feel like, yeah. This is just, sorry, it's like this Ursa that or so, yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, so, so we closed Ursa. I mean, it was the, the point wasn't to close Ursa, right? Like we wanted to be in the Imperial Valley and, and do something important for our community. It's just we couldn't pay the bills, you know, it was tough. And so we could ssa um, it was a very sad, sad moment. And we just sort of had to leave, you know, just for, for a lot of reasons, you know, a lot of it, not, shame's not the right word, but just sort of like, it's time to go. You know, you gotta, you, you have to feed, nurture and nourish this dream you have. I, we had to, I mean, it was an itch, you know, not in the right place. Yeah, yeah. And to see it through fully to flesh it out. Yeah. At first it felt like defeat and then it, we quickly realized like, you know, we, we sort of, um, you know, just woke up one day and said like, we, we believe in this. We can't let it die. And yeah, we never chose like, let's close to transfer. It was like, this isn't working and, but we need to keep this vision alive. So we got here in July, one second, I August to September 30, so like five months ago. Uh, yeah, not even. No, no. We've been here three months. Okay. Yeah, we've been here three months. Can't do math right now. Mm-hmm. Yeah. We've been here, we've been here three months. But this restaurant is open. How did that happen in three months, Aaron? We flipped it in three months. We flipped it in three months, which is like crazy. And how did you land on this, by the way? When you guys get a chance to come here? It's an amazing space. Thank you. Yeah. How did this whole thing happen? Super, super weird story. Chef Yanos, uh, you're familiar with the legend? Um, we had tried, this is like a whole, we need to do a whole nother podcast on how we got this restaurant, but basically we reached out to Yanos and didn't hear back from him. Um, for no reason other than to say like, we respect what you've done in the desert. We're another desert restaurant and we just wanted to build the connection with him. Right? Didn't hear back. However, uh, side story we got put into an article by Jen Murphy with, uh, this woman Aaron, who's doing something very important with. Desert crops as well. And so we were both linked up in this, in this magazine. And so the, the writer said, I gotta put you two together and put you two in touch. You guys are on, you have similar, uh, north Stars. And so we, we sort of became pen pals and we'd exchanged information on what we've learned about these native ingredients. And it became Pimp House in the last three months or before you Last year. Okay. Right. Last year we'd sort of just touch base on, Hey, here's what this does at this temperature, or like, here's what I'm growing, or here's what we can do with Double's claw. And, and she was into it in interested in the sort of biology aspect of it or the horticulture side of the things. And I, and we were cooking with it. Right. So there's, I mean, they, they definitely sync up, but, but we, that. Friendship was culminated from our love for the desert, right? And so eventually she said, Hey, listen, me, my husband and my son are gonna be driving through the Imperial Valley to go to San Diego. We're gonna stop in at Ursa. I said, great. Can't wait to have you. So she comes in, they love it. Turns out her husband Ben, is the son of Yanos and told his dad like, you gotta check this restaurant now. Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So I get this cold, like just cold call from Yanos one day I'm like, hello? He's like, Hey, I'm looking for Aaron. And for those of you who don't know Chef Yanos, I mean, this guy loves life, right? Like he's just so stoked to be alive. And, um, I mean, June and I call him Uncle Anos, okay? He's always checking on us. So why is he calling you? He's like, Hey, my son came to eat at your restaurant, told me I gotta check you guys out. Like, come out to Tucson. How can I help you? And he's just, just been so pivotal in this move. And so we're like, okay. Like, yeah, we, it's, it's tough out here and we don't know what to do. And, and we came out to visit him once. He took us to an agave roast and then we went to a studio down the street and he just said, how can I help? You know? Um, that's amazing. Yeah, it really is. He put us in contact with a few other people. Um, simultaneously we went to go, we were talking to a realtor who put us in touch with Patricia, who showed us a restaurant down the street. And that's how we met her. And she just said, um, tell me about your concept. And, and I did. And I just asked her like, can I have your information, like your contact, like she's just seemed like she cared about what we were doing and we had a lot of respect for what she's done with herself and. And so we, uh, exchanged information and stayed in touch with her. And, and, uh, one day she said, uh, I might have some ideas. You should come out to Tucson simultaneously. Chef Yanos put me in touch with this guy with Fletcher from, um, from vo, and he said basically like, I had this restaurant space. I think today is your day. I mean, it was just like a, everything was lining up. It was so serendipitous. So we came back out to meet with Fletcher to see the space simultaneously. We didn't realize Patricia owned the space that we were gonna see. However, she also wanted to talk to us about some ideas, and it all just sort of sank up this one, this one weekend. Amazing. So when did you open Aaron? So we opened two weeks ago. Okay. We opened, yeah, I think we've completed like eight services now. All right. And what's it like? It's incredible. How's it been? It's, I mean, it's been incredible a. We have an open kitchen now, which we didn't have in the past. So I, I get to, I get to look up from time to time and just see the, the snapshots of this magic, you know, and, and I just, I'm so proud to see my staff in action, to see everyone just hitting their marks to see the music hitting, right, the lighting's hitting right. And this sort of pace, right? There's this, there's this beat, this beat that we provide. And although it may not sync up with everyone, it's our beat. You know, we, we didn't touch base on the beverage program. Yes, Aaron? Um, how are you guys approaching beverages? Same methods. So we didn't have a full liquor license at the old Ursa. It was just beer and wine. Now we do have a full bar, and we take wa I mean, it's just walk-ins at the bar. Um, we have eight seats at the bar. It's walk-ins only. Um. And then there are, uh, like a small bite menu, so you don't have to come in and do the whole tasting menu at the bar. We have some incredible, beautiful cocktails. And what's special about our bar is, um, we, we also use native crops from the desert. So it is, is this self-sustaining ecosystem here at Ursa where a lot of the byproducts from our fermentation feeds into the bar. And it's, there's this dialogue. We're all talking to each other and creating this, this moment. Do you still have a pretty robust non-alcoholic selection beverage? We do, yes. A lot of the things we make here in, well, everything we make here in the restaurant, um, we have, you know, sodas, we have kombuchas that we make out of El pastor. We do like, wait, wait, kombucha that you make outta what we do. Like a el pastor, uh, kombucha. We do like a barrel fruit, kombucha. We do pim, which is. Like a riff on a Japanese beverage called Zaki, but we use a native grain to the desert called Pima Club. Um, we have, and then we also have a tea ceremony where all of our tea programs are actually made from native crops here. Instead of like green teas. We use like Amarin and Lambs Quarter and ve laga to do like, and we oxidize those and roast those. And so we created a tea program that is also indigenous to the Southwest Desert Local Tea with Alga. Er what, what, what else did you Oh yeah, we, I mean we changed it all the time. Like, you know, we've, we've done, we've done yucca, we've done, uh, personally, we've done, uh, various forms of cactus. We've done, um, amarth lambs quarter, and now I'm gonna sound really naive. Uh, do they taste like a black tea or like a Sure. Yeah. Um, I don't know, m matcha, which has toasted rice. Like how do, so like the GaN matcha, for instance, we do have a GaN matcha on the menu. We call it GaN Matcha. However, it's made from amreth and instead of toasted rice, we use toasted amerin seeds. Huh. So it does sort of have those rice qualities. Um, we do like a version of ho chicha, which is roasted, but we use, um, better laga for that one. So we basically just oxidize it, dry it out, and then we roast it for a day and a half. Amazing. Mm-hmm. If, if I'm in an elevator and you were a guest to your own restaurant and I'm in Tucson visiting for a week, and you want to tell me about this place you went to called Ursa. What can we tell the folks listening that Ursa, what, what is it like? I would say Ursa is a tasty menu restaurant that highlights heritage and monsoon crops of the Southwest desert. That's amazing. Uh, for people listening, can you tell them when you open, uh, open, when you're, where you're located, and how people can get ahold of you? Absolutely. Yeah. We're located, uh, 1 1 0 East Congress in downtown Tucson. Our hours are, uh, Wednesday through Sunday. We're closed Mondays and Tuesdays we're five to 10. Okay. Uh, dinner only reservations required. Reservations recommended If there are seats and you're happy to walk by, like just walk in and if we have something available, we will absolutely take you. Um, however, if we are booked, we do have seats at the bar where you can come in, watch your. Watch our bartender just create incredible cocktails based these crops that we, we've talked about. Um, and then we also have small bites at the bar as well, so. All right. Amazing. Well, Tucson, thanks you and I can't wait to come in and try the food. Thanks. I really appreciate your time, Aaron. Thank you.