From Boots to Big Screens: Margo Susco on Hydra’s Legacy, Tucson’s Story and the Arizona International Film Festival

A Downtown Trailblazer
Margo Susco reflects on founding Hydra Leather & More in 1994 and how it became a cultural anchor at 6th & Congress for over two decades.

Mentorship Through Fashion
Hear how Hydra wasn’t just a boutique—it was a community hub that mentored local youth and fostered lifelong connections.

The Merchant Warrior Spirit
Margo shares vivid memories of 1990s Downtown Tucson and the group of small business owners who helped shape its revival long before the streetcar arrived.

Life After Retail
From boutique owner to community bridge-builder, Margo talks about her current role with the Tucson Police Department, leading volunteer programs and community outreach.

Spotlight on the 33rd Arizona International Film Festival
Learn about the upcoming festival (April 3–13), its 107 films from 21 countries, and Margo’s behind-the-scenes work to connect filmmakers with Tucson’s nonprofit and arts communities.

Opening Night Info
Don’t miss the free opening night celebration on April 3 at Hotel Congress, followed by a French film screening at The Screening Room.

A Tribute to Legacy
Margo reflects on receiving a heartfelt award from Fletcher McCusker and what it meant to be recognized for her years of service and dedication to downtown.

Remembering Donovan Durband
Mark your calendar for the April 10 dedication of the 6th Avenue underpass in honor of longtime downtown advocate and friend, Donovan Durband.

In a city built on grit, creativity, and community, few names echo through Downtown Tucson with the resonance of Margo Susco. Known to many as the powerhouse behind the iconic boutique Hydra Leather & More, Margo has long been a fixture in Tucson’s urban core—not just as a business owner, but as a cultural force.

In this heartfelt conversation, host Tom Heath reconnects with Margo to explore her journey from pioneering fashion retail in the heart of downtown to her latest role supporting one of Tucson’s most globally recognized events—the Arizona International Film Festival.

Episode 333 of Life Along the Streetcar is more than just a catch-up; it’s a celebration of legacy, a testament to resilience, and a call to action for community connection.

Margo’s Legacy: The Hydra Years

Founded in 1994, Hydra Leather & More wasn’t just a boutique—it was a movement. In an era when Downtown Tucson was still climbing out of economic decline, Margo planted her flag at the corner of 6th Avenue and Congress Street, offering edgy, fashion-forward apparel that turned heads and shifted perceptions.

With its roots in 90s pop culture and counter-style—think Madonna, latex, leather, and fearless expression—Hydra quickly became a destination. But its success wasn’t just measured in sales. Over its 23-year run, the shop became a safe space, a mentorship hub, and a cornerstone for creative minds. Margo mentored countless young people, many of whom returned years later with families of their own to thank her for her guidance.

Hydra also expanded beyond Tucson—briefly operating a second location in Rome, Italy, and another in Bisbee, thanks to Margo’s partnership with her brother Joe. Yet no matter where she went, her heart—and her impact—always led back to the streets of Tucson.

Closing Hydra on December 31, 2017, Margo ended a chapter on her own terms. In hindsight, the timing proved almost prophetic. As she reflects during the interview, the challenges of the pandemic might have been too much for the high-touch retail model Hydra thrived on. She left while the store was still vibrant, beloved, and deeply rooted in Tucson’s identity.

Community Leadership: Beyond the Shop Window

Margo didn’t just sell boots—she built bridges. Known for her passionate advocacy for small businesses and her deep involvement in Downtown’s growth, she worked closely with the Merchants Association and helped navigate local businesses through major changes, including the disruptive construction of the modern streetcar.

Even after stepping away from retail, Margo’s sense of service only deepened. She joined the Tucson Police Department, where she now leads volunteer programs and coordinates community outreach, continuing to do what she does best: connect people, translate voices, and build trust across sectors.

Her enduring ties to Tucson’s civic fabric are clear. She speaks with reverence for fellow pioneers like Ciel Peterson, Johnny Gibson, and Fletcher McCusker, and shares the deep emotional moment of receiving an award for 23 years of service—an unexpected and powerful reminder that the sweat equity she poured into the community was seen, appreciated, and celebrated.

Arizona International Film Festival: From Boutique to Big Screens

Just when you think she’s stepped away, Downtown Tucson calls her back—this time through the arts.

Margo is now helping elevate the 33rd Arizona International Film Festival, which takes place April 3–13, 2025, with 107 films from 21 countries, all screened at venues like The Screening Room, Hotel Congress, and the Mercado Annex. Opening night kicks off at 6 PM, April 3rd at Hotel Congress, with a free public celebration followed by a French film premiere at 8 PM.

While her role is modest, her enthusiasm is immense. Margo is working to deepen the festival’s connection to Tucson’s nonprofit and arts communities, bringing in new audiences and helping filmmakers connect with local causes that reflect their film’s themes. This “cross-pollination” approach is signature Margo—she’s always looking for ways to make Tucson’s magic more visible.

Whether it’s promoting student outreach, coordinating film discussions, or just spreading the word, Margo continues to champion the people, places, and platforms that give Tucson its spark.

A Legacy That Lives On

In this episode, we hear more than just the story of a beloved store owner—we hear the soul of Downtown Tucson. Margo Susco’s impact runs deeper than fashion, film, or even the streetcar lines. It’s embedded in every corner of Sixth and Congress, in every small business that survived because someone believed in them, and in every community member she’s lifted up along the way.

From boots to big screens, her journey reminds us that legacies aren’t just left behind—they evolve, expand, and continue to inspire.

Arizona International Film Festival Info

Festival Dates: April 3–13, 2025

Opening Night: April 3, 6 PM at Hotel Congress

Tickets & Schedule: filmfestivalarizona.com

Eventbrite: Search “Arizona International Film Festival” for easy ticket access

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Tom Heath
Good morning. It’s a beautiful Sunday in the Old Pueblo. And you’re listening to Katy in Tucson. Thank you for spending a part of your brunch hour with us on your downtown Tucson community. Sponsored, all volunteer powered rock and roll radio station. This week we continue our celebration of Women’s History Month, and today we’re revisiting a conversation from 2021 with Ray Flores of Flores Concepts.

Tom Heath
The legacy of El Charro, Charro, Steak, Charro, Vida Cervezas, and the Monica are rooted in the vision of two remarkable female entrepreneurs who, for over 100 years, have shaped Tucson’s culinary and business scenes. Join us as we explore the journey of Monica Flynn and Carlota Flores and their journey and impact. Today is March 23rd, 2025. My name is Tom Heath and you’re listening to Life Along the Streetcar.

Tom Heath
Each and every Sunday, our focus is on social, cultural and economic impacts in Tucson’s urban core, and we shed light on hidden gems everyone should know about, from about to the University of Arizona and all stops in between. You get the inside track right here on 99.1 FM streaming on downtown radio.org. Also available on your iPhone or Android with our very own Downtown Radio Tucson app.

Tom Heath
And if you want to interact with us on the show, we recommend you do that through Facebook and Instagram. And if you want more information about our show, our book, or past episodes, or maybe just contact us, you can head over to Life Along the Street car.org. Of course, we invite you to listen to the podcast on many different platforms.

Tom Heath
If you missed the airing here on Downtown Radio. Well, we, sang the intro lyric to cover uncover hidden gems, and we’re not going to talk about any hidden gems today. We’re talking about one of the most prolific, Tucson families. In business and culinary scene, Monica Flynn. And then her, her niece, Carlotta Flores, who took over this empire of, El Dorado.

Tom Heath
And we have, quite a bit of different iterations of their business concepts throughout Tucson and even across the country and airports, and I think stadiums and maybe even hotels and casinos and such, they’re they’re everywhere. But it started in 1922 with a woman named Monica Flynn. And back in 2021, when they were opening the restaurant, called the Monica in her name in her honor.

Tom Heath
I got a chance to speak with Ray Flores about that restaurant and the legacy of, Tia Monica, as well as his mother, Carlotta Flores. So this is Ray Flores back from 2021. But first of all, can you just tell us a little bit about Flores concepts and kind of all the all the things you’ve got going on just briefly?

Ray Flores
Sure. So Flores concepts, is really a management entity, the management entity that handles the business affairs of the units or the enterprises that we do, whether it be restaurants or catering companies or manufacturing concession work.

Tom Heath
You know, and the brand, the brand, I think people are most familiar with is going to be El Charro. And we’ll talk a little bit about that in a moment. But but you’ve I mean, in the last decade, you’ve just grown into so many different directions with, with some of these other concepts.

Ray Flores
Part of that growth was, obviously there’s organic growth, as we know, in business, and then there’s there’s strategic growth. And then some of it was, you know, in in a way, we had to diversify the brands, because we learned a costly lesson when I came into the family business and, you know, after college that we didn’t own the federal trademark for El Charro, and we were getting approached by opportunities like in airports or other where they wanted our intellectual property and our story.

Ray Flores
But we couldn’t in good faith, license because we didn’t own the federal trademarks all term. Despite being the oldest El Charro in the country in the, you know, my mom is great, and our dear Monica, as we called her, was really kind of screwed around by a lot of people, you know, of her contemporary, which, you know, her lawyers, her advisors or whatever, maybe lack thereof.

Ray Flores
She didn’t get great counsel. She made mistakes, as a lot of small business people do, especially small business women at the time that was, you know, kind of an unheard of commodity to have a small business owned by a woman. I don’t think they were just treated with a lot of respect and regard. And, she wasn’t given good counsel.

Ray Flores
She never protect your property. And, of course, that wasn’t the big thing in the 2030s or 40s. Probably took took flight more in the 50s, 60s and 70s as trademarking became more of a, legitimate way to protect your property. But she didn’t get her brand protected. And in the 70s or late 60s, rather, Elvis made a movie called Charro, and Charro was his, like, first legitimate non singing, the only one he did singing when it was kind of blew up a lot of places.

Ray Flores
All of a sudden right around that time. And then there was a 70s movie icon, you know, the singer songwriter or whatever she was and the brand, all these old Charles opened up around the country. And in the mid 70s, a guy in Michigan actually trademarked it. But unfortunately for everybody, including himself, the brand already existed in too many, applications, and the path to trademark and protection was was really washed away.

Ray Flores
And the trademark office said, look, you know, there’s not a lot of value to the trademark because it’s used so many places and it predates so many things. It would be hard to protect. Well, that taught me a lot about trademarks. And ever since then, we’ve been working hard to protect our intellectual property, develop brands like Life Services.

Ray Flores
When I developed it, I own the Mark, a federal trademark for this kitchen federal trademark, Charles steak. But I’ll trademark si Charro federal trademark. And this may seem like, well, it doesn’t really matter if you’re not expanding, but you know, when when you get a company like an MGM that comes and knocks on your door and says, hey, we love what you do, we like to use your product or work with you, but you don’t have a clear path on your intellectual property.

Ray Flores
You can always obviously, you can close doors pretty quickly, and that happens to a lot of small businesses. You know, you look at what happened here with, chopped room or chopped when it was, when it first opened. And then they had to change the name to Choice Greens because they didn’t own a clear path on the federal trademark.

Ray Flores
So you can imagine that could have been suicide. They expanded all around the country or, you know, had more than a couple stores like they did at the time. So, something we learned. And so, yeah, very familiar. Del Charro. But Florida’s concepts, the management, that’s the kind of work it does. It it it organizes and legitimizes a lot of our creative efforts.

Tom Heath
And those creative efforts, like you said, they’re they’re spreading. They’re not just in a Tucson anymore. I mean, you’re in airports across the country. And did I hear you’re you’re in the MGM Grand in Vegas.

Ray Flores
So we were in the MGM for the last, eight plus years. We just closed our MGM brand concept. This past weekend. Not by our choice, necessarily. Often. This is usually what happens in, in licensing or other. So we had a licensing relationship with you for the MGM. With a great run. It was a lot of fun to be part of.

Ray Flores
But, you know, we were, we were back in an area in the MGM called The district, and the district is, right, butts up against the MGM Grand Arena. Well, when they built T-Mobile arena, all the big High Line events that were typical to MGM Grand Arena moved over to T-Mobile. So they they had some issues with volumes back there.

Ray Flores
It was a really big restaurant. And there was, you know, there was regime leadership changes and whatnot. And along the way, of course, then came Covid and they really kind of refine their, you know, Vegas is constantly reinventing itself. I think they’re probably going to do something different. That but we came up with a specifically for that and again, own the trademark.

Ray Flores
So we will have the trademark back and we may bring back that show in Vegas in a different arena somewhere in that market.

Tom Heath
Well, in here locally, I think some of the brands that might surprise people if they’re not paying attention, like Charro Vita, that is a completely, different concept and not completely different, but it’s got it. It’s got a different, sort of narration with, with, plant based, largely plant based menu, and Barrio Charro, a collaboration with Barrio Bread, which is just phenomenal.

Tom Heath
And, I it just really shows the depth and breadth of, of, of all of the concepts that you’ve got going just in Tucson.

Ray Flores
Yes. No, you look at our friend, you know, Sam Box, and Sam and I go way back and, you know, Fox Restaurant Group, you know, if people don’t realize it. But there was a Fox restaurant and it’s still on Broadway, and I was at one of his dad’s a regional restaurant. So, you know, sometimes you play a family there, and we didn’t really want to put us on restaurant people.

Ray Flores
Now, this is Charro more than anything. So when we started going out the restaurant, one of the things that I was Charro to almost anything and, you know, we my mom was known for making great, Italian food amongst our networks in France. And we went to it for a lot of catering, and we would do turkey dinners for our friends.

Ray Flores
And we to point out we had 130 dinners for peace giving. Because we got great chefs and great we have a real appreciation for food. The brand is Charro. And when we put Si Charro like, yes, you know, see me? Yes, yes, Charo can do anything that we put our, our minds to in our heart to. And we that came about I had, I had, battled cancer and I wanted to do a little bit of a healthier restaurant and work on plant based eating as a, as a focus, but also create something where protein eaters can still eat the clean protein with it.

Ray Flores
Barrio Charro, because we blended the culture of Don Guevara, seen as, you know, an iconic barrio bakery with our charro recipes. You know, Charro, that really was something that was born from an opportunity next to counter stake, where there was a restaurant called the Del Rey in, in, California. We knew that when we were kids, it was this amazing seafood restaurant where I first had lobster and oysters Rockefeller, and in a way where I really learned how to eat.

Ray Flores
When I was a kid, my uncle would take us there. He was a he owned horse racing horses. And, this is where all those guys would go to eat. And we brought back this kind of classic style of eating mixed in with all churro. You know what, you ask? Our go with kind of set go on it.

Ray Flores
We do lobster but you know, stuffed with the tamales. And we wanted to add our charro ness to this Del Rey legendary restaurant that we knew of. And, you know, that’s what we try that we try to put a little bit of Tucson, a little bit of everything we do, and it’s it if it’s it makes the charro cut, it has a name.

Ray Flores
And in the case of the Monica, it’s going to be different because it’s not going to be a lot of Mexican food. But again, it has a heritage lineage to it, stuff that we grew up eating. That has never been a menu, but it’s always delicious and ready. Now, I think for prime time.

Tom Heath
That’s Ray Flores. We interviewed him back in 2021 as they were opening up the restaurant called the Monica in honor of Monica Flynn, the founder of the El Charro dynasty. I had a chance to speak with him and talk about not only, Monica’s impact, but what happened when, Carlota took over. His mother, Carlota Flores took over in 1972.

Tom Heath
And, you know, being Women’s History Month, we’re going back to some of our archives to talk about those influential women in Tucson history. Is this transcends food? You can’t, you know, obviously, the the the Flores name, Monica Fernando Charro, those are ubiquitous in Tucson as far as Mexican food and and other fare. But they’re also very savvy when it comes to business.

Tom Heath
They’ve been involved with, our community for decades. So it really is a story that transcends food and really places the, the importance of, these two dynamic women and their, their place in Tucson history. We’re back to finish up that interview in just a moment. But first, I want to remind you that you’re listening to Life Along the Streetcar, Downtown Radio 99.1 FM and streaming on downtown radio.org.

James Portis
This podcast is sponsored by Tom Heath and the team. Another home loans. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, continue listening or head over to life on the Street Goal.com for current events and information on what to do while visiting Tucson. Tom Heath and MLS number 182420 Nova and MLS number 3087, the UK number 0902429. Equal Housing Opportunity.

Tom Heath
All right, well welcome back. If you’re just joining us, we’re continuing our celebration of Women’s History Month. And I’m going back in the archives to pull up an interview we did back in 2021 with Ray Flores as they were opening the restaurant de Monica. And we are celebrating the legacy and impact of the founder, Monica Flynn, as well as the, the current, leadership with of Carlota Flores, two female entrepreneurs who have led the El Charro dynasty for over 100 years.

Tom Heath
So we’re gonna jump back into that interview with, Ray Flores from 2021. Well, let’s let’s talk about the Monica, because that’s the newest, creation that’s going into the, the city park building downtown. And that got, some nice press the other day in the paper. But can you tell us a little bit about that concept?

Tom Heath
Because you’re going to have, sort of a more rotating menu and there, aren’t you? Or more.

Ray Flores
Correct.

Tom Heath
It’ll be a a little bit more variety. Well, I don’t.

Ray Flores
Know how long you and you’ve been dating for a while, but there was a point back in the day where, for instance, Rincon Market and I grew up with Rincon Market when it was really great. And, I remember eating, you know, you can go there and you can have. It’s great, accessible there was available to grab and it’s right there that you can order off of the grill menu.

Ray Flores
That was really great. They were making all fresh all these ingredients. And over the years, you know, weighing in food costs and challenges to labor, things make it harder for some of those concepts to have stuck around. And, you know, people’s dining to, you know, they know their likes and their nuances change. You know, there was a day, 30 years ago, 40 years ago where where cafeterias and buffets were, were amazing.

Ray Flores
And and those are gone. But, you know, I still think there’s room for, a faster meal. Was really quality ingredients that you don’t have to always order and find from a server or, you know, do you have to also build your own bowl or sandwich, like, as if you’re a chef? All of a sudden, I think there’s an opportunity to put chefs designed, really high quality ingredients, foods in front of people in a faster format with a lower price point, in a downtown setting like that, because we like we got, you know what?

Ray Flores
15,000 people worked downtown on a given day, in that area, if not more. And where do they go for, you know, a really good roasted chicken and mashed potato, but without having to sit down, take that time when everyone’s in a hurry or they want to eat at their dad’s when they want to move, take it. Take for takeout.

Ray Flores
We wanted to deliver something like that. Along with, of course, some really great prepared grill recipes and other things. So the idea to bring Monica Homestyle Cooking to that format was where it started. And then we started thinking, well, it’s really nice to pay homage to Tucson’s new ways and culinary legacy, which is, as you know, as much as we’re doing for the Wildcats, we’re definitely known for our food, if not even more so now.

Ray Flores
So to bring other chefs involved was the concept where like, oh, God, you know, it’d be really great to bring back, you know, some recipes that are long, long forgotten. Maybe something from Donna Norden from Toffee Terracotta, maybe something from Kansas or maybe something from Darrell from Lotus Garden that was closed, or, you know, people that had the pandemic either paid it off or something else cause them to not, you know, maybe have a legacy plan, like with my mom’s, with West, with with having us, us be able to take over.

Ray Flores
So that’s kind of what the Monica’s going to represent. And, and, you know, I think that flexibility of change, we’ve got all these great chefs already on our team. We have some amazing chefs on our team right now that can knock out, you know, too much quality food. That’s why I’m probably getting way too much, but, just really cool stuff.

Ray Flores
I just had a dessert tasting with. We just hired a guy named Chef Miguel, who was formerly at Close, and the guy’s just a rock star. You know, he’s really an up and comer. We hired him, and then we hired Chef Danny, who was, you know, he opened the J.W. here in La Paloma. He’s got this huge foodservice background and understands, a lot of supply chain, which is another challenge in today’s restaurant business environment.

Ray Flores
We got we got a killer chef in there. And, you know, he’s backed up by guys who already on our team, like Jerry or gals like my chef Alba, who I have, and Chef Miriam and of course, Carlota. You know, the the the granddaddy of them all to just drive quality and innovation in the kitchen. But no matter what, the Monica really great homestyle cooking available all the time at a reasonable price point.

Ray Flores
That’s what we wanted. I want to deliver something downtown that wasn’t pushy, but felt like you were eating somewhere really nice.

Tom Heath
Yeah. And let’s let’s talk. I really want to delve into the namesake of that, because I think Monica Flint is a name in Tucson that has had so much her. Her legacy is so impactful, and yet a lot of folks don’t fully understand, her connection to to Tucson and to to El Charro. I know you guys talk about it quite a bit, but I think it’s also a reflection of what you said being a female entrepreneur in the 20s.

Tom Heath
Yeah, it was tough. But can you tell us about your Tia Monica?

Ray Flores
Well, if there was a, you know, there’s this new word out there, you know, the same, you know, they used, you know, the boss babe or, you know, boss woman or all, you know, won’t use the other word, but they say boss blank. And, you know, I think she was one of the, pioneers of that movement.

Ray Flores
You know, my mom’s been able to recently work alongside Chef Maria from Boca a little bit. And I think, you know, Maria has said it. Well, you know, like, a lot does. Opened the doors for people like Maria to come into. Well, Monica opened doors for a lot of people to come into and really also showed what when those doors opened, what you have to worry about.

Ray Flores
And I think where Monica was a pioneer in what she did opening a restaurant, I think unfortunately, her was also a pioneer of what do we want to prevent and what not to let happen again. And urban renewal was one of them where, you know, city planners and aggressive business people that were somewhat unethical did things to her that shouldn’t be done anymore, should never be done again.

Ray Flores
And, you know, they they took her building from her and pay her below market rates for what it was worth. And, you know, when she got hit with capital gains, no one had calculated what that would mean. She was penniless. After all these years of having this restaurant, she couldn’t afford to move it. When they kicked her out and they promised her things and things that she didn’t get properly documented.

Ray Flores
And, you know, like we talked about her trademarking woes with her name, but, you know, immediately after them claiming eminent domain and, and and condemning her building that they were supposed to be paid for a big development mill off Ascena, which has now been knocked down and rightfully replaced by an apartment name. This land, you know, they they said they were going to.

Ray Flores
Hey, we’re you’re out. You know, we’re we’re not going to put a restaurant in here. Here’s your money. Go away. It’s gonna be another type of doorman where you’re going to take. Well, then they come back and they actually didn’t knock the building down. They actually rented it to a friend of one of the developers who had a Greek restaurant in there.

Ray Flores
And then they, because he was failing, they marketed the Greek restaurant as blah, blah, blah, whatever it was at the old building. So then she had to sue, and how cold it was. And a legendary old attorney in town had to go and demand the city. And these developers stop using Del Toro name to identify that building.

Ray Flores
After all that, they like was like insult to injury, to call the building the ability to market their their friends Greek restaurant. And you know, I mean, those kind of stories will always motivate someone like me because I’ve always said, like, now you got to deal with me, and I’m not the kind of person that you’re going to get one over on on that because I’ve done my homework and I, I enlist the better counsels of, you know, that we have available to us in this market because, you know, business can be very dog eat dog, as we know.

Ray Flores
And I think, unfortunately, Monica’s tale of what happened to her wasn’t just that she came, you know, this young woman who came here with her father and opened up this restaurant while she was out going to Cathedral and doing all this stuff in his career. But it was also how her cow, her how her legacy almost ended abruptly.

Ray Flores
And then, you know, the second phase, which is there’s two of these two women, right? Monica and Carlotta, both each equally. We don’t have had a 50 year run because my mom’s now approaching her 50th year and running this business. Who would have thunk it, right, that the math worked out that way? But what’s interesting is when my mom came in, my mom actually was in California.

Ray Flores
Monica had actually been moved to California by the family to go into hospice. And because my mom was the younger one in the family of the other older women that were involved, she was to move here. She was to come here rather to help settle the affairs and close the business down. It was fledgling. They couldn’t figure out what to do with it.

Ray Flores
It was in between the two locations. My mom came here with. My dad left me at home with my brother. We were just, you know, one and two years old, respectively, for a week. And they were going to shut the business down. She came in, she walked in the building. She’s like, I can’t do it, I can’t, I can’t.

Ray Flores
And this I grew up in this thing. I think we can make this thing work. And she decided to go back to the family and negotiate terms where she paid off the family, although she was one third of me, in territories, she decided she’s going to buy from the other two. And then she moved back to you with my brother and I very young.

Ray Flores
My sister hadn’t been born, and she took over a bankrupt business in, you know, in real shambles. Right. And turned it into a del was known for today.

Tom Heath
Well.

Ray Flores
It really is two women that just I don’t know, the kind of co-owners they have that they exist in too many people. I mean, it’s, I can remember many times where, you know, my mom’s line of credit was full and she on everything on her visa or Mastercard or, you know, took a second out on their home to call.

Ray Flores
You know, Tucson was a different market. You know, the last, you know, 50 years up until maybe five, ten years ago. I mean, our summers were so brutal here. Nobody could make it during the summers. And every restaurant had to go. And, you know, they used to call credit card their summer. Everybody that’s secure that those, those those walls could remember where you couldn’t do any business in the summer.

Ray Flores
You’re left. There was no business here. And now that’s, you know, it’s gotten better as we’ve gotten more density and, and people stick around more.

Tom Heath
So it was a it’s a great testament to the, I think the legacy of those in Tucson, you know, the started 50 years from 1922 with Monica Flynn, picked up by your mom, Carlota Flores, and brought us to the next 50 years. And I can only imagine what you and your family are going to do over the next 50 years with this concept.

Tom Heath
Right?

Ray Flores
So it’s, it’s huge shoes to fill. I don’t know if I can fill them like those two women. And, I definitely need a lot more support than they really got. But, we have a there’s a fire in us. It belongs in Tucson. We belong in Tucson. I remember when I came into the restaurant, I was going to take over or start working on the takeover plan, and I talked to somebody.

Ray Flores
They’re like, oh, look, your company of Phoenix, you’ll never work there. And I just refused to do it. I was like, no, I’m going to stay here. That’s what Monica and Carlotta did, and I’m going to stay here. We’re going to build it from here. So, appreciate people like you who do the same service I want you guys to.

Ray Flores
Because all this stuff takes time. People think people do this to get rich. You guys do this kind of stuff because you want to tell the story, because that’s what makes it special. And that’s what people come to move here and why they want to do business with us.

Tom Heath
Well, I’m looking forward to the 100th year anniversary at El Charro, and, all the festivities are going to surround that. Right. I appreciate your time. And, and I can’t wait to get into, the Monica and I continue supporting, these wonderful restaurants you and your team have developed around Tucson. So thank you, thank you, thank you for your time.

Ray Flores
Thank you.

Tom Heath
My friend Ray Flores, from an interview we did back in 2021 as the Monica was opening, talking about the legacy of Monica Flynn and Carlota Flores, who for over 100 years now have been driving the, that El Charro brand and the Flores concepts. Well, kind of a good interview covered two of our fabulous, female founder, foundational members of our community.

Tom Heath
So we are going to be wrapping up the show now, and I just want to remind you that if there’s things you want us to to cover out there, please hit us up on Instagram or Facebook, or you can contact us through email it, contact, life along the streetcar.org and you can find a contact button on our website as well.

Tom Heath
Let’s see here. What are we gonna do, coming up next week? Well, we’ve got a few things coming out. We’ve got the Arizona Film Festival, the International Film Festival, a Heritage festival, century room, all kinds of stuff coming up. But, again, if there’s something you want us to know, hit us up. James Portis is our production specialist.

Tom Heath
Amanda Maltose is our production assistant. My name is Tom Heath. I am your host and producer. As always. Our opening music is courtesy of Ryan Hood. They let us play Dillinger Days, and they have since we launched the show back in 2017. So we’re very thankful to them. Today we’re going to leave you with Music by Box, The Oxford, and it’s a 2018 single, and it’s called 1922 because that’s what Monica Flynn kicked all this off 1922.

Tom Heath
Hope you have a great week and tune in next Sunday for more life along the streetcar.