First up, beer, wine and cocktails are on the way for the café at 415 N. Fourth Ave. Owner Sabine Blaese said today that there will definitely be German beer — “I’m from Germany, and I think it’s the best beer,” she with a hint of a giggle — maybe a Portugese pilsner and Guinness, although nothing is final yet.

There will also be a brief, yet ample, wine list, champagne, champagne cocktails, Bloody Marys and several specialty cocktails. Blaese is also crafting a new late-night menu to go with the libations.

Café Passe is also getting a remodel, and will be closing for a week beginning Monday, June 6. They’re expanding the counter and tidying up a few other things, said Blaese.

By the way, have you seen what they’ve done with the courtyard at the little café? New lighting and a bit of reorganization have made it one of the loveliest spots on the Avenue.

And don't even get me started on their onion-and-blue-cheese scones. I wish my whole life tasted like those.

More over here.

Yes, the all-you-can eat pizza place at 914 E. Speedway Blvd. serves beer and wine now, but that’s not the best news. The really good news is that it’s always happy hour—from 10 a.m. to 2 a.m.—which translates into $1.25 bottles of domestic beer and killer deals on wine all the time.

I don’t know about you, but all-you-can-eat pizza and cut-rate beer are the things happy days are made of. I hear the place’s boneless-hot-wing pizza is out of sight, too.

Sky Bar - the solar-powered, astronomy-themed club at 536 N. Fourth Ave. - is hosting a spelling bee just for foodies on Tuesday, May 10. All words will be food-related, and Sky Bar’s serves super-fine cocktails that will guarantee you’ll be in super-spelling mode.

Organizers say if contestants spell the word wrong they can stay in the competition if they know the definition. Sounds like a blast. There’s more information over here.

Brushfire BBQ, the little barbecue restaurant at 2745 N. Campbell Ave. that took the Best of Tucson® award for Best Barbecue the last two years, is opening a second location.

Owner Ben Rine said today that he’s taken over an old Blockbuster Video store near the corner of 22nd Street and Kolb Road, and that work is already underway to convert it into Brushfire 2.

“We’re pretty excited. We’re going to have stuff we don’t have here, like parking,” quipped Rine today. “Business is good. We opened up in 2007, and it’s climbed ever since. It’s been a lot of hard work, but it’s paid off.”

The new location will seat about 100 people and will have a full bar. The current location seats 19 and doesn’t serve alcohol. Rine said he submitted applications for liquor licenses for both locations, though, so libations are in the works at both spots.

The new location will also feature a private dining room that seats about 110 people, said Rine.

As for employees, the new location will employ from 50 to 75 people, said Rine. He expects it to open sometime this
fall.

(Thanks for the tip, Brooke!)

Something Sweet Dessert Lounge was packed with people having final desserts during its last weekend in business when the owners quieted the crowd to make an announcement.

“You should have heard this place when we stood up and said, ‘We are the former owners of Something Sweet, and we are here to tell you that this place is going to stay open!” said Beckey Hammon, who owned and operated the dessert lounge with Robin Barbara until this weekend.

The two had planned to shut Something Sweet down early Sunday morning, after announcing the closure last week on the dessert lounge’s Facebook page. But an unnamed person bought the business, hired the former owners as managers and kept all eight employees on the payroll as well.

So instead of locking the doors, they're expanding the menu. Hammon said there's talk of adding sandwiches and a few other items to the menu, but nothing had been finalized.

Hammon said she was touched by the more than 600 people who came out say their goodbyes to Something Sweet, and that she was a bit worn out from one very emotional weekend.

“There are angels out there, and they came in and saved this business,” said Hammon.

At least that's what the discussion over on the dessert lounge's Facebook page is all about. From a post on their wall at 11 p.m., Friday:

Its true!! New owner, still good stuff. We ran out of a lot tonight but we will be baking tomorrow.

And from another post a day later reassuring fans of the dessert lounge at 5319 E. Speedway Blvd. that the news was real.

Yes we will remain open.

And the Old Pueblo's dessert-loving community breathed a collective sigh of relief.

It wasn’t long ago that Tucson’s mobile-food culture was little more than Sonoran hot dogs and taco stands, but that is changing.

A new generation of food trucks is emerging, selling everything from tender barbecue sandwiches to Hawaiian shaved ice. I even saw a truck selling Chinese food out in Sells on the Tohono O’odham reservation a few weeks back, alongside trucks selling burritos and fry-bread tacos.

It’s hard to say what’s fueling this mobile food trend. Some say it’s the trickle down from the exposure food trucks have seen in the popular culture, while others say years of thin economic times make starting a food truck a better option for those who cook for a living.

Whatever it is, it means more good roadside food for those willing to look for it.

Julie Ray wants to make the search for food trucks a little easier. She recently started the Tucson Food Trucks Facebook page — the first Internet hub of food truck knowledge outside of the Food Truck Diaries that we know of — and is currently looking at other ways to offer people the tools needed to access more local food trucks, or even start their own.

“In L.A., food trucks have become part of the culture,” said Ray, who just returned from a trip to Los Angeles. “I’d like to see some interesting takes on food trucks from a Tucson angle, a new hybrid with more of the Tucson flavor.”

(Ray also sent this link about a sold-out event focusing on L.A. food trucks, humbly submitted here for your perusal.)

Ray was one of the people at a recent meeting at Dinnerware Artspace where the conversation was all about food trucks. What came out of the meeting is that there is definitely a hunger for more mobile food in Tucson—and that there are also some serious stumbling blocks for those wanting to get into the business.

“One of the barriers to getting people going is that we need a commissary kitchen, which is a requirement: A food truck has to operate out of one,” said Ray. The search is currently on for a centralized commissary that could act as a hub for food trucks, but nothing solid has emerged.

But that isn’t stopping food truck entrepreneurs. Whispers of a new food truck called Street Delights have been circulating for months, and some details recently started emerging via Twitter. Other chefs are also talking about taking their skills on the road, although I’ve been sworn to secrecy on all accounts.

There has also been buzz about holding a food-truck festival or organizing “mobile food courts,” where patrons could count on finding their favorite food trucks on designated days of the week.

It’s an exciting time to enjoy roadside food, and we’ll be sure to keep you posted as our mobile-food culture continues to grow.

The Java Edge on the corner of Valencia and Nexus roads in Rita Ranch is no more, another casualty of tough economic times.

From an e-mail announcing the closure:

This week we reluctantly had to consolidate two of our locations together in order to make better use of our resources. Our Rita Ranch location at Nexus and Valencia has merged with our Bear Canyon location. Thank you all for the good times we shared at Rita, we greatly appreciate the support we had from the community and invite you all to come to Bear Canyon and visit with your favorite baristas. All gift certificates, coupons you received from Rita Ranch are of course redeemable at any of our other locations.

The Bear Canyon location recently added a bar component, and they hold quite a few events and tastings there. There’s a little bit more about that here.

I was eating fried lamb testicles at a dinner party a few weeks back when a tall man at the end of the table raised a bottle overhead and roared: "AHHHH! Bacanora! It tastes like the deserts of Meh-he-co!" The bottle then made its way around the table, eliciting both grimaces and nods of approval.

I had to drive back to my hermitage out of town, so I did not partake. But it’s been nagging me since: What is this bacanora, and why do men drop forkfuls of lamb testicles to sing its praises?

The answer came today when I read up on Hotel Congress’ third-annual AgaveFest, which takes place from 6 to 9 p.m., Thursday, May 5. It will include tastes of more than 40 different tequilas, mezcals and sotols and a cocktail competition, among all sorts of other revelry.

And bacanora will also be available for tasting. It is apparently an "agave-derived liquor made in Sonora that was illegal to distill until 1992," according to the Hotel Congress website. Sounds pretty interesting, and well worth checking out this Cinco de Mayo.

Tickets to the event are $25, and that includes tastes of 12 different liquors. There’s more information over here.

Just wondering, because that’s what the guy at Birria Los Cuates (643 W. Ajo Way) charged me yesterday. I didn’t want to be a cheapskate and complain if that’s a fair price, so I thought I’d ask first.

My other question is: What in the hell is going on at Birria Los Cuates? When I walked in, the entire staff was sitting in the booths in the front room, and nobody would get up to take my order or let me sit down. It was so weird. Eventually, the oldest guy got up and served me a bowl of birria and a plate of tortillas. He then took his seat again, leaving me to fend for myself in the loneliest, mustiest dining room ever.

And what is all of that mail doing on the counter next to the cash register? Like, stacks and stacks of it all over the place. It looks like somebody is living there. That would be awesome to live in a Mexican restaurant, but it probably gets old fast.

So ... if the people who own Birria Los Cuates read this, the next time I come in, could the four of you at least split two booths, and let me have one? That way, I can watch soap operas with you while all of us ignore the customers.

Thank you.