At Jaime’s Pizza Kitchen in downtown Tucson, every pie tells two stories: one of a scratch-made craft honed over decades, and another of a family legacy that owner Gabriel Moreno is determined to carry forward into a new generation.

Jaime’s has become a local favorite for Italian American food, most notably its pizza and salads. Its location down the block from the Rialto Theatre and across the street from the historic Hotel Congress has made it a prime spot for college students, concertgoers and visitors wishing to tour the downtown food scene.

Moreno and his family have been involved in restaurants his whole life. His grandfather and Jaime’s Pizza Kitchen’s namesake, Jaime “Jim” Moreno, opened Jaime’s Mexican Favorites in 1989, which later transitioned to Jaime’s Bar & Grill and Jet Market. The restaurant was located on Historic Fourth Avenue, operating throughout the 1990s until its closure in 2000.

Gabriel Moreno began working in the industry at a young age. His father and uncle both worked at Jaime’s Mexican Favorites, and he spent a lot of his childhood at the restaurant.

“My dad was (a morning) bartender, so I spent a lot of time, especially in the summers, over there. My tío was a chef,” Gabriel Moreno said. “I think that those are my earliest memories of being around in the kitchen, when I was 11, 12, washing dishes and that kind of stuff. And then one summer he opened Jaime’s Restaurant and that's where I swept floors and took people's orders and got a little more involved.”

When his grandfather’s restaurant closed, Gabriel Moreno knew his culinary journey was far from over.

“There was always a passion. I always admired my tío in the kitchen and I love to eat. So I did what every other Tucsonan did and I worked at Eegee’s for a little while,” he said. “When I was 18, I got myself into a pizza job. My grandfather had closed the market and rented it to a gentleman named Tony who opened Brooklyn Pizza.”

Gabriel Moreno spent much of his time working at Brooklyn Pizza while attending high school, an experience he called inspirational, saying pizza was a big part of the culture at the time.

“I remember just watching those guys throw dough,” he said. “There was always a love for pizza, you know, like (Teenage Mutant) Ninja Turtles and just the whole 1990s scene. Pizza was everywhere and it was awesome.”

He eventually realized that pizza was his dream.

“It kind of set a fire and it was something that I knew I wanted to do. I wasn’t sure if I could make a career out of it, but I stuck with it,” Gabriel Moreno said.

He briefly worked at Papa John’s before spending three years at Rockin’ Pizza, a now-closed pizzeria located on East Broadway Boulevard.

His “big break” came in 2010, when he was hired by Dominic Puglisi, owner of The Italian Peasant in Tubac.

The Italian Peasant is known for its homestyle Italian cooking. Gabriel Moreno was tasked with operating the pizzeria portion of the restaurant, which he said was his chance to make a name for himself in pizza.

“When I got to open the Italian Peasant, the pizzeria portion of that in Tubac, that's where I knew that that was going to be my career,” he said. “My hope was to link up with folks who were opening restaurants but needed someone to run them and then kind of find my way into ownership.”

His plan worked, and over the next decade he spent his time working at a variety of Italian restaurants around Southern Arizona. After leaving The Italian Peasant in 2014 following Puglisi’s death, Gabriel Moreno spent the next seven years working at Grimaldi’s and Pizza Luna until their respective closures.

Throughout his time in those kitchens, he learned a multitude of skills, from restaurant management to the food-making process itself. He says one of his biggest takeaways was learning what makes a successful restaurant.

“You can have great recipes, you can be a great chef, but if you don't have good social skills, and you're not a problem solver and you don't have leading tendencies in you, I would continue to grind at different restaurants until you found those qualities, because that's what's going to get you through the hard times,” Gabriel Moreno said.

He learned that being a good manager comes first when operating a restaurant.

“That's what's going to afford you the respect from your staff to where they know that they can trust you, and having your team's faith, that's what makes your restaurant,” he said.

With the help of his wife, children and a close friend from his days at The Italian Peasant who “all but demanded to come in and be part of the team,” they opened Jaime’s as a ghost kitchen in 2021 in a commercial facility that allowed Moreno to perfect his recipes.

In late 2023, Jaime’s Pizza Kitchen moved to its current location on Congress Street after the closure of Little Love Burger. Since then, it has become a popular spot for lunch and dinner, especially with its $10 lunch special.

Although Jaime Moreno isn’t involved with the day-to-day operations at Jaime’s Pizza Kitchen, he was delighted to hear that his grandson was reviving the name.

(Gabriel) “said, ‘Listen, I’m going to use the Jaime’s logo and I’m going to call it Jaime’s.’ I didn’t have any problems using it. I was kind of honored by it,” Jaime Moreno recalled. “Interestingly enough, that logo has a lot of people recognizing it.”

One thing Jaime Moreno admires is how well-run the restaurant is, which he attributes to his grandson’s experience.

“Gabriel has been doing pizza for 21 years. He's come a long way and he's a very sharp operator. He knows exactly what he's doing,” he said. “His wife is the one that runs the books and does the menus and all that kind of stuff, and he takes care of the kitchen, so they’re a great combo.”

Gabriel Moreno’s two sons also work at the restaurant, along with a cousin, making it a true family business.

“He’s done real well. He wanted me to help him out in the beginning, but I didn't want to interfere with it, because it's his business. But I don't mind going in there, and people talk to me when I go in there, because people want to know who the original guy is. A lot of people thought I had already kicked the bucket,” Jaime Moreno said. “I'm very happy with him. I'm very proud of what he's doing, and I tell him that all the time. He's a pretty sharp kid.”

Gabriel Moreno said that building on his grandfather’s legacy helps connect the restaurant to Tucson’s past.

“I believe that continuing my grandfather's brand was going to remind lifelong Tucsonans like myself of a place that they used to go when they were in college, of a place that they used to go when they were younger,” he said. “There's a few people that I've worked with in the industry that say, ‘I was a bar fly at Jaime's.’”

The menu touches on that sense of nostalgia with items like the “Papa’s Pizza,” topped with his grandfather's favorite ingredients.

“Tucson, as competitive as it can be, is a very community-focused town,” Gabriel Moreno said. “To have a family business that's continuing the legacy of my grandfather, that my children work in, that his grandchildren work in — people like the story.”

A big part of Jaime’s success is also the behind-the-scenes process, which Gabriel Moreno says starts with every ingredient.

“We're a scratch kitchen, which means everything is made from the rawest form of its ingredients that we can get our hands on and that our talent allows,” he explained.

Most of Jaime’s ingredients are unprocessed — something Moreno and his staff take great pride in — including the restaurant’s signature Neapolitan-like pizza dough, which Gabriel Moreno believes helps them stand out in Tucson’s competitive pizza scene. Neapolitan pizzas are known for their thin, soft crust and puffy, leopard-spotted edge and are typically cooked in a wood-burning oven at temperatures around 800 degrees.

“It's having a really good product. Of course you’ve got to have a really good product, but we put our heart and soul into it,” he said. “We crafted a dough that behaves like a Neapolitan in its honeycombing and its leopard spotting and the way that it cooks in a steel oven that's really only giving me 650 to 680 degrees.”

Jaime’s baking process puts him in a “unique pocket in pizza,” Gabriel Moreno said, noting that not many other restaurants in Tucson offer what Jaime’s offers.

“We're not wood-fired, we're not coal-fired, we're not conveyor. We are a steel oven, but it's not a (typical) 24-hour turnaround ferment,” he said. “It's a New York-style pie when you look at it and in the bite, but it's Neapolitan when it comes to the chew and when it comes to the structure and the fermentation.”

Jaime’s also offers homemade dressings for its salads and accounts for the high-quality ingredients by maintaining a simple ingredient list.

“Making sure you're separating yourself from everyone else with your own personal touch. It’s why we make sausage and why we make meatballs, we hand-pull cheese, all of our sauces are scratch,” Gabriel Moreno said.

Having a scratch kitchen means Gabriel Moreno’s workdays start early, as he preps ingredients for several hours before Jaime’s 11 a.m. opening in anticipation of a busy day ahead.

“Being a scratch kitchen, that'll make or break us,” he said. “Something I do first thing in the morning is just ask where we were, see how we did the night before. Our dough is a three-day fermentation process, so we have to be able to tell the future a little bit when it comes to that, and that's why the prep list is so important.”

As the owner, Gabriel Moreno is tasked with both the logistics and culinary operations of the restaurant. In addition to ingredient prep, he’s responsible for ordering, setting up the dining area and maintaining the kitchen’s high standards.

Running a restaurant is not an easy task, but he says he enjoys every part of it.

“I find myself doing a lot more operating in the back than dealing with customers up front, but that's what I enjoy doing,” he said. “By 10:40 a.m., we're getting the first slices of pie in the oven to make sure that we're ready for the lunch crowd, and by 11 a.m., lights up, signs on, and the customers kind of dictate what the rest of the day looks like.”

And while the weekday lunch rush can be unpredictable, it’s all part of the business.

“It's a little bit of a race,” Gabriel Moreno said. “There's always going to be a little adrenaline involved and not in a bad way, but in an exciting way. Like a triathlon. A little land, air and sea.”

Jaime Moreno believes Jaime’s Pizza Kitchen is here to stay.

(Gabriel) “wants to franchise out a little bit, but they're always going to own the name and the pizza place and they'll never get rid of that. I think when he first moved into downtown, to be honest with you, he was only looking to be there for his five-year contract, but things have changed extensively for him and I don't see him ever leaving downtown,” Jaime Moreno said. “I would think as well, when he leaves and his wife leaves, one of the kids is going to continue to run the restaurant. It's going to stay in the family for quite a while.”

Gabriel Moreno just hopes he can continue serving Tucsonans for years to come.

“At the end of the day, I started when I was 18. I'm 38 now. I recognize the only path into ownership is to go out there and open something and do something,” he said. “Twenty years later in 2025, we're sitting here at Jaime's Pizza Kitchen downtown. Being genuine and letting your people know that we’re as thrilled, if not more thrilled, to be serving them as they are to be here — it’s a part of Jaime’s.”

Elias Bonilla is a journalism and political science major at the University of Arizona and Tucson Spotlight intern. Contact him at ebonilla1500@gmail.com.

Tucson Spotlight is a community-based newsroom that provides paid opportunities for students and rising journalists in Southern Arizona. Please consider supporting our work with a tax-deductible donation.