Howdy Diner to Revive the Former Welcome Diner Space on East Broadway
A Sunshine Mile landmark that has sat dark since 2020 is getting a second life. Sally Kane, the owner of the Coronet Restaurant, is taking over the former Welcome Diner at 902 E. Broadway Boulevard and reopening it as Howdy Diner — an all-day diner serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner seven days a week, according to Arizona Daily Star reporting. Work is already underway; no opening date has been announced.
By Marisol Rodriguez, editor & host of TucsonBound
November 11, 2026 · Source: What Now, reporting Arizona Daily Star coverage (November 6, 2026)
What is planned
The 3,929-square-foot building, at the corner of Broadway and Euclid Avenue, will be renovated rather than rebuilt: the existing booths get refreshed, a back room that customers never saw opens to the dining room, and the plans add a bar, a walk-up counter, and an outdoor patio. Seating runs to about 130, with 36 parking spaces. The menu is classic diner, three meals a day — silver-dollar pancakes, pastrami sandwiches, burgers, and meatloaf are the named early items. Kane is a known quantity on this stretch of the city: her Coronet Restaurant is an established Tucson dining name, which is part of why the announcement drew attention — this is a local operator reviving a local building, not a chain backfilling a vacancy.
Why the building matters
The Welcome Diner space has been closed since 2020, and six empty years is a long time for one of the Sunshine Mile's most recognizable mid-century buildings. Broadway east of downtown is exactly the kind of corridor movers ask about — close to downtown and the university, lined with the vintage motels, signs, and storefronts that give central Tucson its character, and covered street by street in our central Tucson guide. Every reopened anchor on it is a small vote that the corridor's next decade looks like its best past decades. For the food scene specifically, a serious all-day diner fills a real gap in a city whose strengths run to Sonoran cooking and chef-driven rooms — the landscape we map in the best restaurants in Tucson.
What to watch
Two honest caveats: no opening date has been provided, and diner timelines slip — compare the River Road opening we covered in Joesler Kitchen on River Road, which also arrived without a firm date. When Howdy does open, expect the first weeks to be busy; a 130-seat room with a patio on Broadway will draw both the neighborhood and the nostalgia crowd.
My take: Tucson keeps its food reputation by exactly this kind of move — a proven local restaurateur, a beloved old building, and a menu with nothing to prove. When the date lands, we will update this story.