Zulas

“[John] Wayne was also known in Arizona as an unrepentant speeder,” Arizona Highways reported in the 1960s. “He shrugged off a number of tickets. Sometimes he would drive his partners to Nogales just to have a slice of hot apple pie à la mode at Zulas Cafe, his hangout at 982 N. Grand Avenue.” A present-day patron, retired highway patrolman Charlie Knapp, confirms that celebrity sighting. “My first meal here, I was 15,” he says. “Once, in 1974, John Wayne came in with his posse and ordered two apple pies, one to eat here and one to go.”

Later, in 1984, talented local chef George Papachoris and his wife, Aurelia (known as “Tita”), bought Zulas and built a sterling reputation via their Ambos Nogales-inspired menu, featuring both American hamburgers and Sonoran-style Mexican favorites.

Fast forward to 2021: George had died, COVID-19 had struck, and Tita was ready to retire. The front page of the local newspaper announced that the family was closing Zulas after 37 years. Offers came in, but Tita held a very specific vision for Zulas’ future — one that maintained both the institution and its gold-standard menu.

So, when Bruce Bracker was announced as the buyer 10 months later, some eyebrows went up. A county supervisor and scion of a longtime Nogales merchant family, Bracker had been running the family’s upscale downtown department store for 30 years. But he’d also had a lesser-known career in the 1980s — as a French chef, with apprenticeships in Tucson and work at two of California’s finest restaurants.

Among Bracker’s additions were a Cobb salad featuring Point Reyes blue cheese, avocado and thick-cut bacon; it’s dressed with an herbed vinaigrette Bracker once enjoyed at the now-closed Presidio Grill in Tucson. The salad joined the famous Tita’s Burger (melted Swiss and bacon), the traditional Zula Burger and other standards on the American side of the menu. And the hot apple pie may be even more impressive than it was when Wayne strode in. Also, Bracker has added several more pie choices to the two previously offered.

Now retired, Tita dines at Zulas once a week, content in the knowledge that her culinary legacy lives on.