Old Tucson Studios will be the backdrop for some upcoming episodes of the Food Network's popular show Chopped.

Lauren Mueller, director of public relations for the Food Network and the Cooking Channel, says the taping was for special stunt-themed episodes. She said the episodes are likely to air in late July.

That's all she had for the time being. She said more details will be available sometime in May.

The Onyx Room at 106 W. Drachman St. has closed and will be reopening elsewhere. From the restaurant's Facebook page:

Dear Facebook Family, yesterday was the last day of businesss for The Onyx Room, located at 106 W. Drachman. We do have future plans to relocate. We would like to thank everyone that has supported The Onyx Room over the past year. We hope you enjoyed your experience and we look forward to reestablishing our relationships when you visit The Onyx Room at its new location. We will take the next few months to reorganize and relocate. Stay tuned as we will post updates on the new location and the re-open date. Thanks again, and it has been our pleasure to serve you.

What a relief. Initially the word was that the place had closed for good, which would be a shame. Head cook John Bryant Jr. makes some mean soul food, and I wasn't sure how I felt about living in a world without his slow-cooked collard greens and incredible macaroni and cheese.

We'll be back with more when we find out where and when the restaurant will be reopening.

A new Villa Pizza location is opening at Park Place Mall. You can check out the menu here.

Meatball sandwiches. Standard salads. Slabs of pizza. Fountain soda. Ho-hum.

There's more on the restaurant here.

The new restaurant Agustin Brasserie opens today at Mercado San Agustin. More via a press release:

Agustin Brasserie features classic bistro food in a casually elegant space. The welcoming interior at Agustin includes a dining room with intimate tables and banquettes finished in warm wood tones; crisp white walls — and strikes the perfect balance between vintage and modern. The adjoining bar area has additional table and bar seating, and is highlighted by a gorgeous custom made marble bar. Outdoor dining includes courtyard patio seating as well as a roof top lounge with an up close view of A Mountain — and will quickly be discovered as one of the most special places to watch the spectacular Tucson sunsets.

Owner and Culinary Director, Glen Stosius is excited to see it all come together. Stosius has overseen the development of the menus (lunch, dinner and the afternoon menu) which include many classic Brasserie -inspired dishes, like: housemade Country Pate, Nicoise Salad, Duck Confit, and more. Agustin has wide appeal with many special items for seafood lovers — including Whole Grilled Fish, Sea Bass Carpaccio, Soup de Poisson, Soft Shell Crab BLT, a fresh daily selection of Raw Bar items and more. The menu also includes a variety of, meat and poultry and options including Pepper Crusted Black and Blue Burger, Roasted Chicken, Tenderloin and more. Many of the ingredients used in the dishes at Agustin are purchased at the weekly Mercado Farmers Market held in the courtyard — it doesn’t get more “local” than that!

The Luke's Chicago Sandwiches at 2645 E. Speedway Blvd. recently added salads to the menu to appeal to health-conscious students at the nearby University of Arizona. We received a note from one of the managers with an invitation to stop in and try one:

The best seller for the salads is our signature Italian Beef cooked and sliced fresh each day, we take hot roast beef in the auju sauce and pile it on a bed of romaine lettuce, with red onions, tomatoes, pepperoncinnis, and I suggest adding our Hot pepper mix.

That sounds so awesome that I am going to look right past the various capitalization and spelling errors and just say, thank you Luke's Chicago Sandwiches for making salad time a bit more awesome.

They have a pastrami salad, a ribeye salad and some standard versions as well.

At this point many of us have driven by the papered-up windows of the space at 50 E. Broadway Blvd. - where signs have proclaimed an opening in early 2012 since forever - and wondered what the hell is going on in there.

The agave prints on the paper in the windows have hinted, to my mind, that there would be tequila served there, or maybe Mexican food of some sort. I'm not the best at deciphering hints, though, so I had to fall back on good old snooping around to figure out what is going on.

So I combed through some various information sources and found the number of a guy who is doing some consulting for the beverage program for the place. He said it will offer sort of refined selection of Mexican street food and that he is handling the cocktails. I'm going to refrain from mentioning his name - he was supposed to call me back after speaking with one of the head honchos in the business, but never did - but he is one of the most-knowing folks around when it comes to Tucson cocktailing, so the drinks should be unbelievable.

No name for it yet, but we hear the people who own it are shooting for an August opening.

Being that the new Sawmill Run Restaurant on Mount Lemmon is located where the Mount Lemmon Cafe used to be, one glaring question must be answered: Will there be pie?

"I know a lot of people will want to know, so, yes, we will have pie," said Gabriel Greenberg, the managing partner of Sawmill Run Restaurant, referring to the infamous pies once served at Mount Lemmon Cafe. "We're not trying to be the pie shop, but we will have pie and we will make it ourselves."

There is much more than homemade pie to get excited about. The restaurant will also feature full breakfast, lunch and dinner service, and there will be a full bar. Where as the handful of restaurants up on the mountain tend to lock up around sunset, Sawmill Run will stay open a bit later, serving both tourists and the hundred or so people who live on the mountain full time.

While there will be all the usual suspects when it comes to American fare, Greenberg is shaking it up a bit with some new creations. He'll be serving a corned-beef hash sandwich topped with a fried egg for breakfast and a pesto-chicken sandwich topped with carmelized onions later in the day. There will be build-your-own burger and macaroni-and-cheese dishes and a variety of smoked meats as well.

Greenberg says the family of one of the partners in the restaurant once owned a sawmill on Mount Lemmon, and that they're taking special precautions to keep their ecological impact minimal. While they will offer a variety of meals designed for hikers, cyclists and others heading out into the forest, there will be a heavy emphasis on using biodegradable items.

"We're spending a little more on that because, and God forbid they leave their stuff out there, but if they do we want to make sure it's biodegradable," said Greenberg.

The restaurant should be open the first week in April.

A new restaurant called Big Juan's is opening two locations in Tucson. The first location opens Saturday, April 21, at 4532 E. Speedway Blvd. A press release says a second location is planned for 4470 N. First Ave.

The restaurants are being opened by a company owned by John Schwimmer, the guy behind the Filiberto's restaurants that started in Phoenix and spread into Tucson, California and New Mexico.

From the press release:

“Launching Big Juan’s in Tucson first was an obvious choice for me as my family has roots and history in Tucson,” said John Schwimmer, co-founder of Big Juan’s tacos y burros and CEO of Catalina Compadres. “Tucson is where I opened my first restaurant years ago, it’s where my son was born and went to college, and it’s a city that I truly enjoy. What we have created in Big Juan’s is a style of Mexican food and service that doesn’t currently exist in the Tucson marketplace. All of our recipes use fresh ingredients and are made from scratch continually throughout the day, just as if it was prepared in the customer’s own kitchen.”

Seriously, this is the best chocolate I've ever bitten into. It made my ears ring and the hair on my neck stand up. That is all.

Occasionally, I fantasize about throwing my lucrative career in blogging away and embarking on a culinary adventure, opening a low-key, but clever restaurant somewhere in town. I appreciate New York City's hipster king of chefs, David Chang, for his helpful advice discouraging me from going down that likely ill-advised road.