Flagstaff city leaders can take visitors to South San Francisco Street, a point of pride in revitalization and historic preservation.įor the three restaurants Henderson crafted bar and restaurant tables that could adjust to uneven surfaces and hold up to raucous diners. The Heinonen’s venture has inspired more activity on the street. University students flock to the street and bring their parents. Between the Annex and the Tourist Home, the garden is used for al fresco dining and special events. When the three dining establishments opened this year they offered South San Francisco Street a casual breakfast, lunch, and market venue in the Tourist Home, a fine dining restaurant in the Tinderbox Kitchen, and a bar and light fare in the Annex.
The kitchen equipment is new, the walls and ceiling are original. They then carried through on the Annex and Tinderbox Kitchen. Using the Secretary’s Standards for Historic Preservation as a mantra, the cousins made every effort to bring the Tourist Home back to life in a new century. Wooden roof beams needing replacement were replaced with identical inserts. They replaced wood siding, milled to the same dimension of the original. Much of the wood was rotted when the Heinonen’s arrived. The Tourist Home is a wood and stone structure of a vernacular western style. Before they planned menus and opened for business they considered themselves as stewards of the historic buildings.
Tinderbox kitchen flagstaff az full#
Scott is the experienced and inspired chef and Kevin gave up a legal career, with a stint in Washington, D.C., to devote his full resources to the restaurants and revitalization of the street. The Tourist Home remained a derelict shell until cousins Scott and Kevin Heinonen came to South San Francisco Street.
As a business district South San Francisco Street was not the pride of the city. Neighboring college students rarely frequented the area, at least not those who told their parents about their activities. The bars and businesses in the area were definitely on the wrong side of the tracks from the respectable residents and businesses of Flagstaff. At that time South San Francisco Street was not a place to live, under any circumstances. Preservation of the Tourist Home preserves remembrance of a past way of life.įorty years ago the Tourist Home closed its doors. They were, however, part of the story of the founding and growth of Flagstaff as a commercial center, the largest in northern Arizona. The people who lived on South San Francisco Street in the last century do not include notable names. Behind the restaurants and adjoining garden are stucco and stone storage/stable buildings. They date to the time that the dining room was a laundry. Tin ceilings from the last century remain in the Tinderbox. North of the Tourist Home on San Francisco Street are the Tinderbox Kitchen and the Annex. Inside the Tinderbox, original tin ceiling For fifty years the small rooms of the Tourist Home provided shelter to those of limited means. Immigrant Basque sheepherders from the area of northern Spain and southern France were welcome to board at the tourist home, when they would not have had a welcome elsewhere in the cattle ranching community. In 1926 a Basque sheepherder, Jesus Garcia, built the Tourist Home, run by his mother Isabelle. South San Francisco Street held warehouses and modest, but respectable, housing. The first major national highway system in the United States put Route 66 parallel to the railroad tracks as they went through downtown Flagstaff. In the 1920s South San Francisco street, which runs from the Santé Fe Railroad tracks south to what is now Northern Arizona University, was a vibrant business district. The result is three adjoining restaurants: Tourist Home, the Annex, and the Tinderbox Kitchen. In Flagstaff, Arizona entrepreneur restaurateurs teamed with a local artist to bring South San Francisco Street back to life. A single historic structure preserved with integrity can revitalize a business district, benefiting the entire community.
0 kommentar(er)
