Darren Jones
Hi. I’m Darren Jones with the Tony Ray Baker Group. And today, we’re at Sonoran Delights. And I’m happy to introduce you to Fernanda, who is the owner here. Good morning. Thank you for having us. So I have a couple of questions. First of all, how did you end up here in Tucson and running the Sonoran Delight?
Fernanda Robles
Okay, well, originally myself and my family, we are from Obregon, Sonora Mejico and they immigrated here in the 1996. And they had an idea to put a Raspandos place and a bit of Sonoran food food. So, we came here to Tucson and they started the business ever since,
Darren Jones
That’s fantastic. So now, for those people who don’t know, can you tell me a little bit more about what are Respados?
Fernanda Robles
Raspados is a Mexican Style Shaved ice, I would put it. What differs a raspado from a regular snow cone is that it’s the shaved ice, but the syrups are made with fresh fruit, natural fruits. No, artificial flavors and they have pieces of fresh fruit in the stirrups also. So it’s not just ice and juice.
Darren Jones
That sounds delicious delicious. So what other items do you specialize in here? Obviously the Sonoran dog.
Fernanda Robles
Yes. Anything here at Sonoran Delights is Sonoran inspired. So you’ll find things here that you would normally in Sonora, like the street food, street tacos, burritos, we have tortas, Sonoran hot dogs, like you mentioned, those are very popular and all our raspados and fruit cocktails, like the pico de gallo with the fruit, chili, lime that you’d see the street vendors that you see in Mexico too. So we have a lot of variety to pick from, you can have your food and then have your desserts.
Darren Jones
That’s fantastic. And it’s like, I love good location because you’re kind of right at the intersection of Grande and Congress. But you have this nice patio out front and a wonderful place to eat at side. I remember the first time I came here, I was really stricken by how much I love these tables there. Also, the tops, the seats, everything is stainless steel. So like, you’re like way ahead of the curve when it came to germs and cleaning and everything, and it’s such a slick look, that is fantastic. Now, how long have you been here?
Fernanda Robles
Absolutely, it’s very nice out here in the patio, we’ve been on a lot of fresh air out there and you’re right near A mountain. So we have the views of A mountain and downtown. We are near Menlo Park and the Mercado District. So a lot of fun things to see around here.
Fernanda Robles
Here at this location. I say, we’ve been here for maybe 12 years. We originally started next door, you know, so that counts a little bit more over there. Another several years over there in total almost 20 years here in the neighborhood.
Darren Jones
That’s great. So, you’re a real icon kind of in the neighborhood. You’re pretty well established and your folks started here and now you’re running the Sonoran Delights, but it’s amazing because it’s like almost everything is just so fresh and I think that’s part of your success is that, you know, you’re not just opening a box and throwing it, you know, out and so many places, you know, they kind of like go with less labor, make it faster, make it easier, but everything here seems to be so fresh.
Fernanda Robles
Definitely, that’s always the motto. You know, we make our meats and the raspado syrups almost every other day. If every day, sometimes because we have so many customers and, you know, it runs out. So, everything is always fresh. We try to get the best quality and it’s all Handmade by our number one cook who’s been with us since day one almost 20 years. So the same flavor, same recipes for 20 years. And, you know, we always have that consistency and quality for our customers. Try to have that always.
Darren Jones
That’s fantastic. And so hopefully we’ve gotten everybody really hungry. So let’s tell everybody how to find you.
Fernanda Robles
Definitely, so we’re located here at 921 West Congress, it’s on Congress West of I-10, the freeway and near Grande. So you’ll see a mountain around here and Menlo Park is really nearby think it’s a little easy to find us here.
Darren Jones
You’re just on the north side, just past the Mercado on Congress Street. And so thank you so much for spending some time with us today. It was wonderful meeting you and getting to know you better. And so I again I’m Darren Jones with the Tony Ray Baker group and we’re here in Menlo Park. Come on down, Sonoran Delights.
