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You won’t find any of the namesake Borderlands Brewing Co. beers on tap, but that’s been the case for months now.

Instead, you’ll find at Borderlands Sam Hughes, 2500 E. Sixth St., is a rotating selection of regional and national craft beers; there are plans soon to add Tucson area brands.

A long-time kitchen employee recently pitched a menu overhaul that capitalizes on everyday favorites — tacos, burgers and hot dogs — that the bar/restaurant’s new owner and operating manager, Jose Delgado, grew up eating.

“We don’t need another fancy place. We already have pretty good restaurants in front of us and I love going to those places,� said Delgado, who grew up in Nogales, Arizona, and graduated from the University of Arizona with a business degree. “We need to be ourselves.�

Delgado, a minority investor in the business for the past several years, took over Borderlands Sam Hughes in late August after the landlord of its sister location on East River Road locked the business out for failing to pay rent.

It was the second time that a business affiliated with Borderlands Brewing had been locked out by its landlord. The brewery’s flagship at 119 E. Toole Ave., operated by CEO Es Teran, was shuttered in June after the business failed to pay that month’s rent. The landlord has said that Borderlands had been late on its rent each month for nearly a year before failing to pay anything in June.

Teran owned the Sam Hughes and North taprooms, operating with the Borderlands name under a licensing agreement that required him to buy Borderlands beer. Borderlands, however, stopped brewing beer in fall 2024. The brewery had contracted brewing for a few months, but has not had any beer brewed since early this year.

Delgado, who left Tucson and spent 20 years away in Phoenix and Texas before coming home eight years ago, said he and partners Rogelio Quintero and Adrian Perez stepped in to run the business “because of the things that were going on with the other locations.�

“It was clear that we needed to do something different in Sam Hughes,� said Delgado, whose full-time job is CEO for a large Midwest property management startup. “We didn’t want to have the same fate that the other two locations had.�

Teran could not be reached for comment and did not return a call seeking comment.

When Delgado took over the business in late August, the Sam Hughes restaurant looked as if it had been abandoned. He and the staff spent several weeks deep-cleaning the kitchen and painting. They created a more homey environment in the trio of small hangout rooms, which have TVs and couches; the far room has a long dining room-style table.

The makeover was the first step; the biggest hurdle Delgado faced was how to reestablish the restaurant in the business community and repair relationships with vendors.

“It is the vendors that have said, ‘Okay, you’re not those guys. You’re not the Borderlands’,� Delgado said, noting that vendors and the landlord have so far been happy to work with him. “They want to see us succeed. They want to see us do well.�

One of Delgado’s biggest goals is to transform Borderlands Sam Hughes into a neighborhood joint where residents can come and have a beer and bite to eat and bring their dogs and kids, something he and his wife did with their two kids when they lived for years in Austin, Texas.

“That was the vision a while ago, and we hope we’re not too late to be able to rescue that and make it a home for the neighborhood,� he said.

Borderlands Brewing has been dormant since last summer, when the company faced an avalanche of downfalls, starting with losing the original location where founders Michael Mallozzi and Myles Stone started brewing beer commercially in 2011.

In June, the state filed a lien against the brewery for failure to pay more than $250,000 in sales tax.

Borderlands board member Drew Palmer last week confirmed the company is no longer in business, although it has not officially dissolved.

Delgado said he has been in talks with other local businesses about collaborations.

“There’s a couple of businesses that want to partner up and do things with us,� he said.