A University of Arizona professor won a naming contest in 1971 because the bar's manager looked like Grizzly Adams - whose TV co-star was a bear named Gentle Ben. Gentle Ben's Brewing Company, at 865 East University Boulevard in Tucson's Main Gate Square, has been the Wildcats' bar for more than half a century and gave the city its first craft brewery. The original Gentle Ben's operated from 1971 in a converted house at 841 North Tyndall Avenue - a spot now absorbed into a hotel lobby. Dennis and Tauna Arnold bought the business and installed Tucson's first brewhouse in 1991, making it the oldest craft brewing operation in Arizona; the flagship Tucson Blonde was born here. After a 20-month rebuild, the operation reopened in its current 14,000-square-foot, two-storey home on University Boulevard in the mid-1990s, twice the size of the old house, with room for about 500 people, a big rooftop-style patio and a 12-foot carved wooden bear at the door. Brewing outgrew the building too: in 2005 production moved to a 22,000-square-foot sister facility that became Barrio Brewing Company, which still brews the dozen local taps Ben's pours today. The room is Wildcat country distilled - steps from the university's Main Gate, packed on game days, its walls having hosted generations of students plus alumni from Rob Gronkowski to Kourtney Kardashian. The kitchen runs American and Southwest fare, weekend brunch, and the bar handles banquets and offsite catering; parking in the Tyndall garage is validated on weekday evenings. Ownership of the brewing operation passed to its employees in 2020, making Barrio Arizona's first fully employee-owned brewery - a fitting arc for a bar that began as a campus hangout and quietly started an entire state's craft-beer industry. The brewing arc tells Arizona's craft story in miniature: from a three-beer brewhouse in 1991, production reached about 2,500 kegs a year by the late 1990s, pushing the Arnolds to add bottling and eventually the dedicated 16th Street facility whose output as Barrio Brewing now flows across the state. Through it all the University Boulevard flagship has stayed what it always was - the first and last stop of a Tucson game day, three minutes' walk from the stadium gates.

Type: Bar / Pub

Address: 865 East University Boulevard, Tucson, AZ, United States, 85719

Website: https://gentlebens.com

Capacity: 500

Opening Date: 01/01/1971

Serves Food

Outdoor Area

Accessible