Nana's Kitchen: 18 Years of Scratch Cooking in Marana
Inside Nana's Kitchen, Marana's family-run Sonoran restaurant since 2008: the scratch menu, the award-winning margaritas, its hours, and the costs it now faces.
Maria Hernandez cooks her mother's dishes without written recipes, and her sons run the dining room and an award-winning bar. The restaurant is still cooking, and its owner is candid about what rising costs are doing to it.
When Nana's Kitchen marked its 18th anniversary, someone raised a glass and said "here's to twenty." Owner Javier Teran answered that he did not know whether the restaurant would be open the following month. He told the Explorer that sales have slowed over the past year while his costs climbed, and that he has let four employees go and is running on a skeleton crew. Its website still lists hours and takes reservations, and its story is worth knowing before deciding where to eat in northwest Marana.
- 2008
- Year Nana's Kitchen opened in Marana
- 2023
- First Taste of Marana Standout Restaurant Award
- 4
- Employees let go as costs rose, per the owner
- Tue–Sat
- Days open, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., per its website
A Restaurant Planned in High School
Teran and his mother, Maria Hernandez, talked about opening a Sonoran restaurant when he was still in high school. The chance came after the industry he worked in collapsed. He asked her, "Are you ready?" Her answer, as Tucson Foodie reported it this spring: "Why not?" The restaurant opened in 2008 and took its name from what her grandchildren call her.
It has stayed a family operation. Javier's wife, Sandra, is a co-owner, his younger brother, Marco, built the bar program, and an aunt works there too. A mural at the entrance, painted by an artist who once washed dishes there, recreates a calendar from Hernandez's mother's house.
A Menu Cooked From Memory
Hernandez learned to cook by helping her mother, not from written recipes, so there was nothing to copy when the restaurant opened; she built the menu from memory. "I try to not forget the flavors when she used to cook for us," she told Tucson Foodie. Distributors have offered her shortcuts for years, and she has turned them down. "Everything is made from scratch here," Javier said, and the list backs him up: the ground meat, the chorizo and the chiles rellenos are prepared by hand, and the tortillas are homemade.
Two dishes carry the name of Elfrida, a small Cochise County town. The carne con chile uses chile powder sourced from Elfrida, and the fresh green corn tamales are made with corn from Elotes Elfrida in Tucson. The posted menu covers the Sonoran standards — a chimichanga under red sauce and cheese, enchiladas in white, green and red sauces, tortilla soup, fish tacos, and grilled flank steak with guacamole. There is also a five-color enchilada plate that is not on the menu: chipotle with chicken, mole, verde, red, and a white sauce made with sour cream. Flan and tres leches close out the meal.
The Bar Behind the Margarita Titles
Marco Teran's margaritas have won two awards at the World Margarita Championship held in Tucson. One winner, the Mango Tamarindo, comes with a spicy kick and a mango chamoy rim; another was built on prickly pear. The back bar runs to tequilas, mezcals and bourbons, including Single Barrel Paladar reposado and añejo bottles whose labels carry photos of Hernandez and her mother. During the pandemic, bottled cocktails and to-go orders helped keep the doors open.
The town has noticed. Nana's Kitchen was named Marana's best restaurant in 2022, and on August 17, 2023, at the Marana Chamber of Commerce annual meeting, Discover Marana gave it the first Taste of Marana Standout Restaurant Award, which recognizes food, service and community involvement. "They treat every customer like family," said the regular who helped nominate it.
Eighteen Years In, the Costs Caught Up
The figures Teran gave the Explorer in September are blunt. His meat prices have doubled over the last year. A five-gallon bucket of frying oil went from $16 to nearly $40. He has not raised menu prices. He reworked the happy hour menu and rolled out daily value meals, and "nobody took advantage of it," he said. A franchise, he noted, starts out with better credit card processing fees. "But we don't get any slack."
He is not alone. The same report noted that two other popular Tucson-area eateries, Kingfisher Bar and Grill and Baja Cafe, had spoken publicly about rising operating costs. Teran's request was simple: eat local. "We depend on the public," he said. In April he had put the restaurant's goal plainly: "To have our doors remain open."
Before You Go
Nana's Kitchen is at 8225 N. Courtney Page Way, Suite 129, in the Town of Marana. Its website lists hours of 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, with no Sunday or Monday service, and recommends reserving ahead. It also books private parties and caters birthdays, holidays, corporate events and weddings. Given what the owner said in September, call (520) 395-2508 before driving over to confirm the day's hours.
What a Scratch Kitchen Down the Road Means for Cortaro Ranch
The restaurant sits less than a mile, as the crow flies, from the center of Cortaro Ranch, a Town of Marana subdivision of roughly 350 detached homes laid out north of Cortaro Farms Road. Nearly all of it was built in one run between 1999 and 2004, in single- and two-story production plans on homesites averaging about a sixth of an acre. Membership in the Cortaro Ranch Community Association is mandatory, but it publishes no community-wide assessment, so dues and the recorded CC&Rs have to be confirmed parcel by parcel. Recreation is park-based: a neighborhood park with a basketball court and a playground, and no community pool. Interstate 10 at the Cortaro Road interchange is about a mile southwest.
A subdivision like this is a set of floor plans and a commute. What a listing rarely shows is everything within a short drive that is not a chain, and an 18-year-old kitchen grinding its own chorizo near Cortaro Farms Road is one of those things. The September report is the reminder that comes with it: an independent kitchen stays open only as long as people keep eating there. For what homes in Cortaro Ranch have sold for, how the subdivision is laid out and how it compares with the rest of Marana, see the Cortaro Ranch page.
Sources
Explorer (Tucson Local Media) — "Struggling restaurants call for public support" (Jack Miessner, September 30, 2026) — https://www.tucsonlocalmedia.com/explorernews/news/struggling-restaurants-call-for-public-support/article_635f28ec-f59c-42d2-8456-d418f68ab764.html — accessed October 28, 2026
Tucson Foodie — "Nana's Kitchen: Marana's Madre Brings Community Together with Food" (Clay Lyon, April 3, 2026) — https://tucsonfoodie.com/2026/04/03/nanas-kitchen-maranas-madre-brings-community-together-with-food/ — accessed October 28, 2026
Discover Marana — "Nana's Kitchen: The Award-Winning Family Restaurant in Marana" — https://www.discovermarana.org/blog/nanas-kitchen-origin-story/ — accessed October 28, 2026
Discover Marana — "Nana's Kitchen Wins First Taste of Marana Standout Restaurant Award" — https://www.discovermarana.org/media/press-releases/nanas-kitchen-wins-first-taste-of-marana-standout-restaurant-award/ — accessed October 28, 2026
Nana's Kitchen — Hours, menu, reservations and catering — https://mexicanfoodtucson.com/ — accessed October 28, 2026
Hours, menu and availability are set by the business and can change; confirm with the restaurant before visiting. Subdivision details are from this site's Cortaro Ranch page. This post is for informational purposes only and is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase real estate. Kyle Berglund and Tierra Antigua Realty fully support and comply with the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act.
Topics
- Local Business Spotlight
- Nana's Kitchen
- Marana
- Cortaro Ranch
- Northwest Tucson
- Sonoran Food
- Tucson Restaurants
- Eat Local