Sisters Restaurant & Bar: Sacred Nights in Midtown

"When we walked in, we said, 'Oh, Lord. This is beautiful,'" Slutes remembered about the chapel. "We realized we wanted to keep it all the same. There's something about walking into this sacred, communal space that translates so well to live music."

The Full Experience of a Night

That through-line shaped how they built out the property. Instead of an isolated venue where crowds scatter after the encore, they wanted a neighborhood gathering place where locals could spend an entire evening.

"We always knew from both of our experiences that having a restaurant is not only a cool something we'd like to do," Slutes added, "but also it really is a nice package you put together for the full experience of a night."

Executive chef Christian “Chris” Bidegain sees that neighborhood connection in action every day.

The restaurant takes its name directly from the women who tended the grounds for decades, translating their open-door spirit into contemporary community life. Gathering around a table to break bread and share a meal carries that welcoming tradition into the neighborhood.

The Chef

Slutes took notice of his dedication while watching him work.

"We kept watching him, and we go, 'Jesus, he's so freaking good,'" Slutes said. "I asked him to put together a menu for a private event, and it was dialed in perfectly. I said, 'We have our guy.'"

"At its core, you're serving people," he said. “You're providing an experience for people, you're nourishing people, and I think that's like a really kind of sacred relationship between the kitchen and the guests. You never really know why someone is coming into your restaurant, but you serve them as best you can every single time."

"Every day after school, I would walk the quarter-mile from the bus stop to go meet my mom at work," Bidegain remembered. "I'd sit at the bar, and it was just a hub for the community there. That's what I want this place to continue to become."

Fifteen years later, after working his way through Tucson kitchens like La Cocina, he still carries that same enthusiasm and determination, and at Sisters, he’s always searching for ways to improve.

"That idea is really what made me fall in love with cooking," Bidegain said. "It's this tangible thing you can work on every single day and get better at."

Perfecting the Slice

A customer who recently moved from New York stopped at the counter to tell Bidegain it was the closest cheese slice to what he used to get in Brooklyn. "That was the greatest compliment we could get here," Bidegain said.

Shaken, Stirred, and Soft-Serve

My personal favorite, the Second Thought, is an ‘espresso’ martini built on rich cold brew from neighboring Yellow Brick Coffee with a frothy, cinnamon-dusted head.

"Charlie came back from New Orleans with the idea for a soft-serve margarita, and something just took off," Slutes said. "We went from a normal restaurant to an extraordinarily busy restaurant overnight. It snowballed for us!"

The piña colada soft-serve mixes rum, cane sugar, Coco López, and pineapple juice, topped with toasted shaved coconut and a bright red maraschino cherry.

"We went back and forth on whether we wanted to use a really nice Luxardo cherry," Bidegain admitted. "We were like, no, we need the clear, nuclear red." As a fan of classic maraschino cherries, I agree with the choice.

Writing on the Wall

On one of the walls inside, names written in black marker have started to multiply, left by neighbors, showgoers, and regulars claiming a small stake in the room.

"I want in ten years for the wall to be covered in people's signatures," Bidegain said, looking across the dining room. "People coming back to find where they signed the wall, and knowing this was a home for both neighborhoods and the rest of Tucson."