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in the Casas Adobe Plaza at 7109 N. Oracle Road takes the place of Si Charro’s health-leaning Charro Vida restaurant, a passion project of matriarch Carlotta Flores. The restaurant was open for six years before it closed in late May.

The Flores family’s restaurants group includes three locations of , on East Congress Street and the fast-casual on North Campbell Avenue.

Si Charro President Ray Flores said Charro Steak North could be a new chapter in his family’s storied culinary history that started when Tia Monica Flin opened El Charro in 1922. Flores and his Charro Steak partner and Executive Chef Gary Hickey say the new restaurant could be a springboard to expand the brand into the Phoenix area.

“If this gets legs and if we could be sustainable here, it could be the kind of litmus test for Gilbert,� said Hickey, who said that the demographics and mix of residential, retail and restaurant development on Tucson’s northwest side is similar to that of Phoenix’s fast-growing East Valley city.

Flores said he hopes to open a third Charro Steak, possibly in Gilbert or Scottsdale, by the end of next year.

The idea of growing the brand outside of Tucson comes 9½ years after Flores and Hickey opened at 118 E. Broadway downtown. Flores said people told him in 2016 that a steakhouse was a bad move. Downtown businesses were still struggling to rebound from the 18-month-long Sun Links streetcar construction that virtually closed off downtown to pedestrian and vehicle traffic. Even after the streetcar launched in 2014, the public was slow to return to downtown, and some of the roads remained under various stages of construction as several large projects, including the AC Hotel Tucson Downtown at 151 E. Broadway, were being built.

But Flores said he was motivated after a cancer diagnosis set him on the path to a healthier diet, including grass-fed meat. He also was inspired after seeing an old newspaper ad for El Charro in Casa Grande, which Monica Flin’s sister opened, that boasted the same great Mexican food as Tucson “and steak.�

That, he reasoned, connected the culinary dots to Charro Steak.

After a modest start interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Charro Steak over the past few years has done really well, something Hickey attributes to the quality food and customer service and to changes in consumer behavior.

“That middle market has kind of faded out and people are looking for experiences now. They just want to be wowed,� Hickey explained last Thursday from Charro Steak North’s kitchen, where his crew, helmed by Executive Chef Roderick LeDesma and sous chef Jenn Dering, prepared appetizers for the restaurant’s media event. It was one of several friends and family soft opening nights to get the staff ready for the real thing Monday.

Servers popped in and out of the kitchen, picking up steaming bowls of decadently rich lobster queso fundido served with chicharron and corn tortilla chips, oysters on the half-shell done two ways and Charro Escargot, tender snails topped with El Charro Cafe’s signature roof-dried carne seca and fragrant garlic butter. Bartenders mixed up tequila, gin and whiskey-based cocktails copied from the downtown menu and a new drink, “Charro On the Storm,� a tequila-based cocktail that borrows its name from Pagac’s charros mural. Flores said that drink will be added to the downtown menu, as well.

Charro Steak North will serve the same menu as its downtown sister, including house butchered grass-fed beef (Tucson T-bone, filet, dry aged rib eye) grilled on mezquite fire, seafood entrees from lobster tamales to surf and turf enchiladas filled with lobster, shrimp and steak, grilled chicken and Duroc bone-in pork chop with a prickly pear glaze.

Flores said that bringing Charro Steak to northwest Tucson “is the best decision for our family right now.� And the timing also might be ideal to look beyond Tucson.

“We’ve built a strong brand. We’re laying the foundation for (growth),� he said.

“This is the next chapter of building on Charro’s and Monica’s legacy,� added Hickey. “We feel like we’ve done a really good job by being true to the brand and staying true to our mission.�

Charro Steak North will be open from 3 to 9 p.m. weekdays and from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays beginning Monday.