The long-empty storefront that once housed Johnny Gibson’s Downtown Market has a new life. Gibson Food Hall & Market opened quietly last week at 11 S. Sixth Ave., filling roughly 6,000 square feet with a cluster of local food vendors and a small market area.
Slow start, steady lunchtime crowds
Owners Nick Wayne Eggman and John Hardin flipped the sign to "now open" on a Friday morning and watched a slow trickle of customers before a more pronounced lunchtime rush. By midday, dozens had arrived to sample dishes from the food hall’s vendors, a sign that the downtown dining scene is ready to embrace another option even without a big promotional push.
What’s inside the hall
The food hall combines several local concepts under one roof, including:
- Don Ribs BBQ by José Ramos — barbecue with a Sonoran twist, featuring sauces and rubs flavored with Mexican spices such as chiltepin, pineapple barbecue and habanero;
- Kaiju Burger — smashed Wagyu burgers by Rafael Del Cuesta and Destiney Medina, who had been serving at Brick Box Brewery until May 31;
- a central dining room and a small convenience market added after Rio Nuevo leased the corner storefront on East Congress and South Sixth.
Eggman said the owners expected to open earlier this year but the project finished about six months past their original target. Despite the delay and minimal social media fanfare, the hall registered a steady stream of customers over its first days.
Connections to downtown nightlife and events
Eggman and Hardin framed the food hall as complementary to their other downtown investments: the 12-year-old HighWire Tucson bar and nightclub at 30 S. Arizona Ave. and The Grand Tucson event center next door at 33 S. Sixth Ave. The new hall sits between those venues and the newly leased corner space, creating a small cluster of hospitality properties under the partners’ oversight.
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| Address | 11 S. Sixth Ave., downtown Tucson |
| Size | About 6,000 sq. ft. |
| Notable vendors | Don Ribs BBQ, Kaiju Burger |
"For not having announced our opening, we have been pretty busy," Eggman said as the new hall settled into its first week.
For downtown residents and visitors, the hall adds another daytime and evening dining option and reactivates a storefront that had been vacant for more than 18 months. The move also illustrates a pattern across Tucson: owners of nightlife and event spaces increasingly invest in adjacent food or retail projects to broaden their offerings and capture foot traffic.
As the food hall settles in, its success will hinge on sustaining lunch and evening crowds, coordinating with neighboring businesses, and finalizing the small market operations added to the project. For now, the hall’s quiet opening and immediate lunchtime interest suggest downtown Tucson diners are ready to try another local concept without waiting for a formal launch party.
