Guillermo's Double L a singular destination
By Inger Sandal
isandal@azstarnet.com
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 02.12.2009
You don't rush change when you buy a restaurant that has customers who have been loyal for 60 years, not to mention a few servers who have worked there for more than 40 years.
At least not if you are Tony Gonzalez, who bought Guillermo's Double L Restaurant last year from Bill Ford, whose father-in-law started the place in 1948 as a drive-in barbecue joint. It switched its allegiance to Mexican food four years later.
Gonzalez, 64, has been part of South Tucson's restaurant scene since he and his brother, Roberto, bought Crossroads in 1979.
Tony Gonzalez respects tradition, while seeing room for growth.
He's kept Guillermo's extensive menu as it is while adding dozens of Sonoran specialties with an emphasis on seafood. To do that, he brought in cooks he worked with at Crossroads to work alongside the existing kitchen talent.
For entertainment, he turned to Oscar Contreras, another Crossroads favorite who more recently built a devoted following in Green Valley.
His changes have pleased Red and Dee Brannigan, self-described snowbirds from Chicago who eat at the Double L every day while they're in town. Dee, a 1946 graduate of Tucson High School, introduced her husband to the place in 1972.
"I think it's a little better now," said Red .
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