What keeps a Tucson business alive when the margins are thin, the summers are brutal, and survival is never guaranteed?

In this Season 3 finale of Two Lane Tucson, Elaine Bulawin reflects on the stories behind Arizona Hatters, Baja Cafe, Pivot Produce, The Loft Cinema, Kingfisher, and Maya Tea Company — six businesses that reveal something bigger about Tucson itself.

This episode explores the themes that connected the entire season: craftsmanship, resilience, independence, community, and the slow work of building something that lasts.

From restoring generations-old cowboy hats to rebuilding local food systems, from surviving the collapse of independent theaters to creating a manufacturing company with national reach from Tucson, these businesses show what cities lose when local institutions disappear — and what happens when people keep showing up anyway.

Two Lane Tucson is where we share the stories of the people building Tucson’s local businesses.

Most people in Tucson have probably had Maya Tea without realizing it.

What started as homemade chai and a four-foot table at a farmer’s market grew into a company serving more than 2,500 restaurants and coffee shops across the country — all built from Tucson.

In this episode, Elaine sits down with Manish Shah to talk about:

– starting Maya Tea in the 1990s while working at Dillard’s
– surviving years of uncertainty and expansion
– why he brought production in-house instead of outsourcing
– the trade show failure that changed the business
– what people misunderstand about manufacturing and food production
– why Tucson entrepreneurs are tougher than they think

This conversation is about persistence, independence, and building something real over decades — not overnight.

When chefs in Tucson wanted true farmers-market quality ingredients, the big distributors couldn’t deliver.

Erik Stanford saw the problem firsthand while working in restaurant kitchens. In 2015, he started Pivot Produce to connect local farms directly with restaurants across Southern Arizona. What began with just four farms and four restaurants has grown into a regional food hub supplying kitchens, schools, and households.

In this conversation, Erik explains how Pivot started, how the business survived when restaurants shut down during COVID, and why building a local food system is far more complicated than most people realize.

If you care about where your food comes from, or how local businesses actually get built, this conversation offers a behind-the-scenes look at Tucson’s food economy.

If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with someone who cares about Tucson businesses.

Two-Lane Tucson is where we share the stories of the people building Tucson’s local businesses.

The The Loft Cinema has been part of Tucson’s film culture for more than 50 years.

But it almost didn’t survive.

In this episode of Two-Lane Tucson, Elaine sits down with Jeff Yanc, program director at the Loft, to talk about how an independent theater stays alive when the movie industry keeps changing.

They talk about the early days of the Loft in the 1970s, the moment it nearly closed before becoming a nonprofit in 2002, and how the theater survived the pandemic by turning its parking lot into an outdoor cinema.

Jeff also explains how the Loft decides what films belong on its screens, why art-house theaters rely on community support, and how Tucson’s audience helped turn a small theater into a hub for film culture.

This conversation is about more than movies.
It’s about what it takes for a local institution to survive.

If you care about Tucson businesses and the people building them, this story is for you.

Two-Lane Tucson is where we share the stories of the people building Tucson’s local businesses.

Restaurants open and close in Tucson every year. Margins are thin. Costs change constantly. And even long-standing places sometimes disappear.

But Kingfisher has been part of Tucson’s dining scene since 1993.

In this episode of Two-Lane Tucson, Elaine sits down with Chef Jacki Kuder to talk about the history behind the restaurant, why seafood works in the desert, and what it really takes to keep a restaurant running for decades.

They discuss:

• the story behind the Kingfisher building and its history as a Tucson restaurant
• the dish that has stayed on the menu since day one
• how Tucson’s dining scene has changed over the years
• the rising costs and supply challenges restaurants face today
• why loyal customers continue coming back

Jacki also shares her advice for anyone thinking about starting a business in Tucson.

Baja Café opened in Tucson in 2014 and quickly became one of the city’s busiest breakfast spots.

In this episode, we talk about how the restaurant started, how the menu evolved, and what it takes to run a high-volume breakfast restaurant in Tucson.

We also get into the pressure behind the scenes: long hours, tight margins, and the realities of building a restaurant people line up for.

Two-Lane Tucson shares the stories behind the businesses that shape the city.

Step inside one of Tucson’s most unusual businesses.

Arizona Hatters has been shaping, repairing, and restoring hats since 1935. In a small shop filled wall-to-wall with felt and straw, hats aren’t just sold; they’re rebuilt.

A hat can be taken apart, cleaned, reshaped, and put back together again. Sometimes the work brings a hat back after sixty or seventy years.

In this conversation, owner Max Larkin explains how the shop survived while most hat stores disappeared, what actually goes into restoring a hat, and why people still travel from across the country, and even from Mexico, to walk through the door.

We also talk about the woman who quietly kept the business alive for decades, the moment the shop nearly closed, and why a place like Arizona Hatters matters to Tucson.

Because sometimes a hat isn’t just a hat.

Sometimes it carries a family story.

Listen to the full conversation with Max Larkin of Arizona Hatters on this episode of Two-Lane Tucson, where we share the stories of the people building Tucson’s local businesses.

After six conversations with Tucson businesses and nonprofits this season, a few themes kept appearing.

How do you carry forward a company with decades of history?
How do organizations grow without losing their culture?
What role do businesses play in shaping the community around them?

This Season Two reflection revisits the ideas that surfaced across these conversations, with short clips from each interview.

Featured organizations this season:
B.B. Hill Landscaping
Truly Nolen
Beyond Bread
Tucson Botanical Gardens
Pop Cycle
Ben’s Bells

Full episode here: https://www.desertskieslocalseo.com/episode-7-season-2-tucson-business-stories-reflection.html

In this Season Two finale of Two Lane Tucson, host Elaine Bulawin reflects on six conversations with Tucson business owners and nonprofit leaders who are helping shape the local community.

This season featured stories from B.B. Hill Landscaping, Truly Nolen, Beyond Bread, Tucson Botanical Gardens, Pop Cycle, and Ben’s Bells. Each organization represents a different part of Tucson’s local economy, from family-owned businesses and restaurants to nonprofits focused on education, conservation, and kindness.

Through these conversations, several themes emerge about what it takes to build and sustain a local business in Tucson — leadership, community relationships, resilience, and long-term commitment to the people who live here.

This reflection episode looks back at the lessons shared by these business owners and nonprofit leaders and highlights the role local organizations play in shaping Tucson’s culture, economy, and community.

Two Lane Tucson is a podcast that shares the stories of Tucson businesses, nonprofit organizations, and the people behind them.

Guests featured this season:B.B. Hill Landscaping • Truly Nolen • Beyond Bread • Tucson Botanical Gardens • Pop Cycle • Ben’s Bells

If you’ve spent time in Tucson, you’ve probably seen one of the green “Be Kind” bells hanging somewhere in the community. What many people don’t know is the story behind them.

Ben’s Bells began more than two decades ago after the unexpected loss of a young boy named Ben. In the year that followed, his family and friends gathered in a backyard clay studio to create ceramic bells in his memory. On the one-year anniversary of his passing, they placed 400 bells throughout Tucson as a thank you to the strangers whose small acts of kindness helped carry them through their grief.

What happened next surprised everyone.

Today, more than 90,000 Ben’s Bells have been placed throughout Tucson and beyond, each one meant to be discovered and kept as a reminder to practice kindness.

In this episode of Two-Lane Tucson, Elaine Bulawin sits down with Autumn Rentmeester and Katie Kevershan from Ben’s Bells to talk about:

• how the first bells were created
• how Tucson embraced the movement
• how thousands of volunteers help craft the bells today
• why kindness became the foundation of their education programs
• and why the message of kindness continues to resonate across the community

This conversation explores how a deeply personal story grew into one of Tucson’s most recognizable community movements.

Full episode here: https://www.desertskieslocalseo.com/episode-6-season-2-autumn-rentmeester-katie-kevershan.html