Former UA Kicker Opens Restaurant

Wednesday, 17 February 2010 21:43

TUCSON - 27 years ago, Max Zendejas kicked arguably the most important field goal in The University of Arizona’s football history. The game-winning 48-yarder against powerhouse Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. put Arizona in the national spotlight and propelled them to four straight victories and a winning season.

Now, one of the most prominent Tucson sports figures of the 80s is opening a restaurant directly across the street from where most of his memories were made.

Zendejas #13, located at 1628 E. Sixth Street, is open business and features homemade Mexican food at an affordable price to go along with its great location.

“You can’t get a better location than this one,” said Zendejas. “This is incredible if you want to cater to UA and to the students and faculty here.”

The restaurant is almost directly across the street from the university's Arizona Stadium and  within walking distance from McKale Center .

“There are so many avenues and ways of catering during the ballgames, basketball games, women’s softball, soccer, football,” he said. “It’s an easy place to do a lot of catering.”

Arizona averaged 52,555 people per football game alone last season.  This is in addition to around 1,000 for baseball games and another 14,000 for basketball, giving Zendejas a wealth of fans to feed.

UA fans or not, though, Zendejas promises that the food in itself is going to be top-quality, homemade Mexican food, prepared right in the restaurant’s kitchen.

“We make everything here from scratch,” he said. “Most of the restaurants nowadays, they buy it.”

“Tucson had great Mexican food restaurants back then. Now, a lot of them are lacking that little bit of flavor and that’s what I’m trying to bring back here, is that home cooking.”

But it’s what is on the menu that Zendejas thinks will keep the customers coming back for more.

“We’re going to have chicken wings, chicken tenders, hamburgers, the Wildcat hamburger…we have names like that,” he said. “If a customer comes in here, and we think it’s not selling or somebody wants something, why not go back there and make it for them?”

One problem, though, is that Zendejas has yet to obtain a liquor license for the restaurant, but he doesn’t think that it will deter customers and students from coming in and enjoying authentic Mexican food.

“Our Mexican food is more from Guadalajara, Mexico,” said Zendejas. “The Mexican food that you get here in Sonora is Tex-Mex. It’s very different. We have chili negro burritos, we have mole, we have carnitas, shredded pork like in Hawaii and like how they marinate it.”

“That’s just good quality, you put a lot of effort into it.”

The Michoacán, Mexico native Zendejas hasn’t done much to advertise the restaurant but he figures its location and its name will market themselves.

“It’s word of mouth. I’m not planning on doing big-time advertising," he said. "Once they try it they’re going to come back.”

The restaurant even received national attention when, during Arizona’s nationally televised football game against Oregon in November, ABC’s play-by-play announcer Brent Musberger mentioned Zendejas and his career records at Arizona with the camera zooming in on his then restaurant to-be.

The holder of most of the kicking records at the University, Zendejas has always wanted to give back to the school.

“It’s taken me since 1986 when I left the university, I said that I would always come back and do something,” he said. “I waited this long to come back and it’s the right opportunity.

“It’s a good location, my nephew (Alex – UA’s current kicker) is here, I’ve done a lot of things with the University and I want to come back here and be a part of it now.”

Slideshow by Jeremy Hawkes

Written by Mateo Lorenzo Alvarez You are reading Former UA Kicker Opens Restaurant articles