A Small Family Affair

Our 
Story

In the beginning...while dining at a local Tucson restaurant, we discussed the idea of opening a microbrewery. With our backgrounds in engineering, food and beverage manufacturing—and Africa as our home until 2019—we wanted the concept to reflect our roots. When we discussed using the word “Zebra” in some way, our 8-year-old daughter, Chloe (who seemed to not be listening) suddenly declared:

“It must be a Unicorn Zebra!”

And so, the name was born.

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After navigating zoning challenges, we discovered a beautiful historic downtown building in need of a business operator to take on the empty space. But instead of a brewery, we rather envisioned a cocktail bar with a speakeasy-style event space—a little slice of Cape Town in Tucson. A few months later, we took on the hotel room redesign and operation  as well.

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Nearly everything inside was handpicked and installed or procured by us. Sandy creates the murals and does the design of the space, Lourens carefully curates the boutique liquor selection and begrudgingly installs everything Sandy envisions, and little Chloe styles the mannequins dressed in cocktail napkins and other found objects... you'll see what we mean when you visit the bar. Every detail has a backstory, and we hope you enjoy this one-of-a-kind experience.