Meet Jo Franko and Sean Hayes

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jo Franko and Sean Hayes.

Jo and Sean, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Sean has been in the food and beverage industry since he was a teenager. I (Jo) am a pharmacist. From the time we met, 15 years ago, he has always wanted his own business. So we began saving money about ten years ago and three years ago we opened our first business, Tipsy Cactus TapRoom & Bottle Shop in Mesa. Our regular customers who support us everyday have built such a sense of community in our TapRoom that they all feel like family to us.

Our TapRoom doesn’t have a kitchen so we decided to partner with local food trucks to provide our customers with food every night of the week. That is how we met our Chef, Gabe Madrid.

Chef Gabe was 1 of the first food trucks to partner with us. We got his name from our sister-in-law who has known him since she was a child. So he was like family from day 1. Being that they are all from New Mexico, Chef Gabe provided his delicious New Mexican cuisine to our customers who instantly fell in love.

Over the three years that we have been open, Sean and Gabe got closer and began to discuss perhaps opening a full-service restaurant. That dream became a reality in August of this year when we opened Tucked Away Craft Kitchen & Bar.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Opening Tipsy Cactus TapRoom was a breeze compared to opening Tucked Away Craft Kitchen. Since I was the one who was creating, planning and managing the build-out, I had to learn all I could about building out a full restaurant including a kitchen. I found a wonderful contractor, Ken McGovern with Red Mountain Builders, who helped me through the whole process.

We initially were going to call our restaurant Share Craft Kitchen, however another establishment had the same name and sent us a letter asking if we wanted to negotiate with them to keep the name. So we decided to change our name. It was an easy change since our restaurant is literally “tucked away” in the corner of the strip mall so the name fit and stuck.

We had a few other bumps in the road during our journey to get Tucked Away officially open, but it finally happened.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
Tucked Away Craft Kitchen & Bar is a full-service restaurant and bar. We serve delicious food inspired by Asian, Spanish and of course New Mexican cuisine. But what we really specialize in is a sense of community. We do not have TVs here at Tucked Away. We want you to come to our restaurant and meet your neighbor while sampling some of our shareable plates. We want you to look at the plate next to you and ask “what is that”? We built a sense of community and family at Tipsy Cactus and we strive to do the same here at Tucked Away. We think our customer service and delicious food is what sets us apart from the others.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
The proudest moments for me, Jo, is watching Sean and Gabe run that restaurant. I gave them the tools and they have surpassed my wildest dreams. I can’t wait to see what they do together in the future.

Contact Info:

• Address: 3630 E Southern Avenue, Suite B-106
  Mesa, AZ 85206
• Website: www.tuckedawaycraftkitchen.com
• Phone: 480-550-5577
• Email: tuckedawaycraftkitchen@gmail.com
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/tuckedawaycraftkitchenandbar
• Other: www.tuckedawaycraftkitchen.com

Image Credit:
Gabe Williams

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