A new analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data places the Tucson metropolitan area at the top of the nation when it comes to family-owned businesses. The OnDeck report found that 34% of enterprises in the Tucson metro are owned by families, a share that surpasses the national average of roughly 27% and makes Tucson the leading metropolitan area in the study. That concentration of family ownership is apparent in neighborhoods across the city, but perhaps nowhere is it more visible than downtown, where one of Tucson’s oldest continually operated family businesses remains an active part of the urban landscape.
Loading post…
Exterior view of El Charro’s storefront and patio seating, the 103-year-old family-owned Tucson restaurant highlighted in the report on family businesses.
El Charro traces its roots to 1922, when Monica Flin opened what began as a modest operation run out of her own home. Over the course of more than a century the restaurant has remained under family stewardship. The business that started in a single residence has expanded into multiple dining locations and related enterprises, but the defining characteristic has been continuity: ownership and management passed down through generations of the founding family. That continuity is cited by the family now running the operation as central to both the restaurant’s identity and its relationship with the community it serves.
Today the Flin family’s holdings under the El Charro name include three El Charro locations, two steakhouses and even a wedding venue. The enterprise employs a substantial number of people across its operations, and family members fill leadership roles. Candace Carrillo, who serves as the catering and special events director and is a member of the family that has kept El Charro in business for more than a century, described Tucson itself as fertile ground for family enterprise. "I think Tucson is a beautiful breeding ground," Carrillo said. "It's a pure place we always say, to encourage families to go out and leave their mark in the economic community."
Carrillo emphasized that the family-owned nature of El Charro brings obligations as well as advantages. She pointed to the scale of employment the group supports, saying, "Having been a family business for 103 years, we're able to provide jobs for over 500 families. That's a blessing to be able to say." The figure is presented by the family as a key measure of the business’s impact on the local economy — an employment footprint that extends beyond the immediate family and into the wider community. Carrillo framed that responsibility as an integral part of the restaurant’s mission rather than an incidental outcome of growth.
El Charro Café sign mounted on a brick wall with string lights and cactus in the foreground at the historic Tucson restaurant.
At the same time, those who manage and work in family-owned establishments say that expansion and size are not the only measures of success. Carrillo noted that the real point is the people who remain to build and sustain the business through time. "But Carrillo said the expansion isn't really the point. It's who stuck around to build it. That mindset shapes how the business operates, especially when times get tough," she said, recalling the story of the restaurant’s origin and the way successive generations have taken stewardship of the enterprise. "We learned to have tenacity," Carrillo added. "We're driven by Monica's story, and what she created and left us as a legacy. What my mother continued, and now what my brothers and I continue with our families." Those remarks reflect an emphasis on intergenerational continuity and resilience as defining features of the family-run model in Tucson.
Carrillo connected the restaurant’s endurance to a broader civic temperament she sees across the city’s family-owned shops and companies. She described a local spirit that supports entrepreneurship and perseverance, and that she believes helps explain the high concentration of family businesses here. "I think we should point to the fact that Tucson has a spirit of entrepreneurship, a spirit of perseverance," Carrillo said. "I think that is why. We have each other's back." For the family at El Charro, that communal ethos is both a practical support network and a cultural rationale for the decisions the business makes about hiring, expansion and community engagement.
Taken together, the OnDeck ranking and the story of El Charro illustrate different facets of the same phenomenon: a landscape in which family ownership is common, multigenerational stewardship persists, and a number of local companies identify employment and continuity as central to their role in Tucson. The OnDeck report quantified the prevalence of family ownership in the metropolitan area; the example of El Charro provides a qualitative picture of how that ownership is manifested in daily operations, community ties and long-term planning. The Flin family’s account of El Charro’s history and its current operations offers a close-up look at why family businesses remain a significant and visible part of Tucson’s economy and civic life.
The OnDeck report also found Idaho leads all states with 39.77% family-owned businesses, while New York has the lowest share at 20.05%. It highlights pay disparities too, with Massachusetts family-firm employees averaging the highest annual wages at $59,577. These national insights, drawn from 2022 Census data, add context to why Tucson's ecosystem stands out.
OnDeck’s analysis was published on February 3, 2026, and explicitly drew on the U.S. Census Bureau’s Annual Business Survey for the 2022 reporting period; the OnDeck write-up says it focused on three metrics (share of family-owned firms, share of employees at family firms, and average pay) and compared large metropolitan areas (those above one million population), with its data noted as current as of August 2025.
El Charro’s own website and local reporting emphasize that the original restaurant was opened in 1922 by Monica Flin and that the operation now bills itself as the nation’s oldest Mexican restaurant in continuous operation by the same family; today the business is run by Carlotta Flores and her extended Flores Concepts group, which operates several El Charro/Si Charro concepts, licensed airport outlets and the Stillwell House event venue the family acquired in 2000.
Profiles of the restaurant note additional context about the family’s leadership: Carlotta Flores was named to Forbes’ 50 Over 50 list in 2021, the enterprise has been reported as employing roughly 400 people (with public statements about rebuilding toward about 500 after COVID-era losses), and El Charro is widely credited in local and national coverage as an origin point for the chimichanga while continuing traditional practices such as producing its carne seca on-site.