We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kimberly (Kim) Scanlan. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kimberly (Kim) below.

Kimberly (Kim), thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?

One of our early guests who has since passed, Don, would come to the restaurant daily and listen. It was a few months after we’d opened and we already did not know if we were going to make it. We had little money to start, but we worked really hard and were going after our dream. Don had retired from a university in CA where he had been in marketing. He also really enjoyed our little restaurant and talking to and listening to Gerard and other staff. He listened to our ideas and offered some ideas and truly mainly he was just there…he would give us compliments and always had a smile on his face. He was so kind to all of our team.
Anyway, one day there was a pretty good size spread in the AZ Daily Star written by Cathalina Burch about Baja Cafe! We could not believe it! We had no money to spend on advertising. I was still working my previous job full time and helping at the restaurant when I could. Gerard was there from before sun up to after sun down. And Don believed in us.
Turns out he is the one who reached out to Ms. Burch and because of Don and her willingness to check us out, it was our first real chance at getting our name out.
Just knowing someone believed in us and took his time to be with us almost daily and then reach out to the paper…meant the world.

Kimberly (Kim), love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a former social worker, for over 20 years, who fell in love with an amazing and talented man who has been working in the restaurant industry since he was a teenager. I was getting beyond burnt out in my field…not with the amazing people and families with whom I worked, but with way too much bureaucracy at every turn. Gerard had been working pretty much every day for very long hours for other people his whole career. We both needed a change. We did not have much money whatsoever. I took out a loan and used my savings. We met with a broker who after he got done laughing w/ our limited finances said he believed in our concept and advocated with the then landlord to get us into the little space at our Broadway location. We chose breakfast and brunch to hopefully bring new dishes with flavors from our area into the community and a welcoming friendly environment for our guests to start their day. He told me we could work early and be done earlier…that has not happened!
The first few months it was pretty rough. Why the staff we had then stayed with us I don’t know as they sure were not making much money, but they loved our food and ideas and that we wanted to offer food from scratch and wanted our guests to truly enjoy their experience.
We even tried dinner for awhile which was quite a bit more work but we were doing everything to keep our doors open and were not giving up.
As people came in for dinner, while some really enjoyed the dishes, many just asked for our breakfasts. We wanted to do something different and this experience led to many of the benedict dishes we have created over the years. We offer many items for breakfast and brunch folks most likely will not find anywhere else. We cook almost everything from scratch including our sauces. We drive to Hatch NM to get our chiles from a local farmer there. We process our meats in house so they are flavorful and tender.
And the pancakes…these are not made out of a box!

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I am thankful for Tucson Foodie. I think there may be a different person there now, but Adam was the one who started this amazing resource and support for local businesses and he saved me in this department, I had no idea what Yelp was or any of the other review platforms. I did not know what hashtags meant in terms of Instagram. I mean I was clueless. Just had not been exposed. But he helped me get all of those things going including our Face Book page, Twitter, Instagram. He and some of his amazing team took some photographs for us for the pages that were much more professional than the ones I was taking (I mean I didn’t really know so many people were out there photographing their meals everywhere!)

I believe that Tucson Foodie does still offer different packages for restaurants wanting to advertise. They also spread the word to our community and beyond about new restaurants getting started. Many people follow them so that in turn helps spread the word.

When I think of those who really helped us at a time I just wasn’t sure…Adam was an amazing support. Such a great resource for those in the business and those wanting to support local businesses.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Well I think we all had to pivot in March of 2020 when the whole city and state was told to shut down due to COVID.

I will never forget, as I am sure most of us won’t, feelings from those early days.

I had heard some things that were happening, but was always so busy working,..and I thought it would not happen here.

I heard the news actually from our then GM. I walked in all smiles and he was not smiling and asked if I had heard? I had not. In shock, I went to the grocery store. I felt like I was in some horribly real horror movie…the shelves all bare. Already. I called Gerard and asked what was going on. There was no meat. I didn’t understand. And I am still trying to recover from the toilet paper shortage and all of the hoarders during that time. Unreal.

That next morning…I drove to the restaurant as usual over on Campbell. Not one car. Anywhere. That lot is always full…in the plaza. Complete shock. Then the tears. Then the fear. Then I got really angry and knew we were not losing our businesses.

It is hard to describe the hard work it takes to start a restaurant (probably any business) from scratch with no money. The work is tireless and something breaks daily so teaching yourself to fix things…we just had worked so hard. And at that point in our lives I did not want to start over again.

So we did all we could to help our staff. We kept those on we could. We gave out food and got paperwork filled out for them as soon as we could for the money coming from the government so they could survive. We offered basic products at cost to those working at the local hospitals who always supported our business and now were putting themselves at risk to take care of the community….and to offer items they could not get because of those hoarding everything. These nurses were working all of the time and could not get to the store often to get flour, beans, pasta, etc.

We then came up with the idea to sell some of our products in parts so families could purchase that and take home and make with their family. We put our dry pancake ingredients together then our glaze, and the wet portion (eggs, milk, etc). We remained open for take out. We added a new feature on our website through our point of sale system so guests could order take out.

And we made it. Our guests were so supportive. In the midst of their own lives and lives of their families trying to navigate all of the craziness going on…so many made it a point to come in multiple times a week, even to buy a gift card, to help support us. We are blessed to have had their support during such a difficult time for us all.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bajacafetucson.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/bajacafetucson#
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/bajacafetucson2
• Twitter: twitter.com/BajaCafeTucson
• Yelp: www.yelp.com/biz/baja-cafe-tucson

Image Credits
Jackie Tran