The Best Places in the United States

Row after row of paint, paper, clay, brushes, and mediums you'd need a degree to name fill this sprawling art supply store near ASU's campus. It draws everyone from grad students panic-buying portfolio supplies to hobbyists who wander in for one sketchbook and leave with a cart. If something isn't on the shelf, the website usually has it. Either way, you'll leave with more than you came for and a vague sense that your creative era is finally beginning.

Blue Dragon Vapor is a vape shop chain with several Valley locations, and the main thing separating it from the average smoke shop is that you don't feel vaguely ashamed walking in. The spaces are bright, clean, and well-stocked, with glass cases of hardware, a solid wall of e-juice, and staff who actually know what they're selling. Phoenix New Times named it Best Vape Shop in 2023.

A single painted "BOOKS" on the building exterior is the only advertisement this Sunnyslope used bookstore needs. Inside, towering shelves hold something north of 200,000 titles spanning fiction, nonfiction, true crime, romance, sci-fi, and out-of-print finds that have no business being this affordable. The staff will track something down for you or simply leave you to get pleasantly lost for an afternoon. Either way, clear your schedule.

Forty-four pool tables is a lot of commitment to a cue, and Bull Shooters makes good on all of it. This spacious north Phoenix pool hall and sports bar runs 7 and 9-foot tables alongside poker, darts, karaoke, and 34 taps pouring everything from beer to cider. Staff take the felt seriously, so keep your pint on a coaster or expect a word about it. The kind of place where regulars have a favorite table and know exactly which one it is.

A two-story sportsbook inside a Major League Baseball stadium, which makes it the first of its kind in the MLB, for whatever that's worth to your sense of adventure. The space runs to a loungy patio, more screens than any reasonable person can track at once, and Guy Fieri's casual food operation keeping the calories coming. It's open on non-game days too, which is when the vibe drops to a manageable hum.

Cannonball Creek doesn't distribute cans, so if you want these hop-forward IPAs and crisp lagers, you're making the drive to Golden. It's a taproom with rotating food trucks and an easy outdoor vibe that pairs well with whatever trail or climb you just finished. The range stretches from pilsners to saisons to Belgian golden ale, which gives non-IPA people something to do. Westword named it Best Brewery in 2023.

A giant disco ball hangs over the record bins at this wine bar, coffee shop, and record store hybrid near Roosevelt Row, which tells you most of what you need to know. Come in the morning for espresso, stay through the afternoon with your laptop, then let someone else split a bottle with you by evening when the DJs take over. The barista and the bartender are the same person, which keeps the whole operation refreshingly unsnobbish.

Eight thousand square feet of new and used toys, organized into small nooks each run by a local collector devoted to a single franchise, is a genuinely unusual retail setup. This sprawling marketplace in north Phoenix covers G.I. Joe, Marvel, Hot Wheels, Transformers, Star Wars, Funko Pop!, and a dedicated anime section in the back with Gundam kits and Banpresto figures. Plan to lose an hour, possibly two, possibly your self-control around a wall of Hot Wheels.

The Japanese discount chain beloved on the West Coast landed its first Arizona outpost next to 99 Ranch Market, and Phoenix has been restocking its kitchens ever since. Nearly everything rings up under five dollars, which makes it easy to load a basket with bento supplies, Sanrio goods, craft materials, and seasonal decor without doing math in your head. The selection turns over constantly, so repeat visits feel like a different store.

The turquoise mountain mural running behind the bar sets the tone at this east Denver brewery taproom: a little outdoorsy, a little groovy, comfortable enough to settle in for several rounds. A dozen or so rotating taps cover the range, with porters and Munich dunkels among the regulars. Food trucks pull up outside when hunger strikes. The bar stools have backs, which sounds minor until you've spent an afternoon somewhere they don't.

Drusie & Darr is the Hermitage Hotel's dining room, a Jean-Georges Vongerichten production that took over from the old Capitol Grille without scaring the regulars off. The vaulted rathskeller ceiling is now painted in pinks and peaches, and the open kitchen has a wood-fired oven doing smoky things to pizzas and vegetables. Dinner here is a proper hotel-restaurant occasion, and the ladies' room is aggressively pink.

Most convenience stores have given up trying by midnight. El Paisano Market in Tempe stays open until 3 a.m. on weekdays and 4 on weekends, with a full Mexican restaurant inside running nearly the same hours. Hot Cheetos nachos and a rotating burrito of the month sit alongside chicken sandwiches and cheeseburgers, which covers the full spectrum of what people actually want at 2 a.m. There's also a respectable Faygo selection, if you know, you know.

Horror-themed arcade tucked next to Tempe's Yucca Tap Room, Electric Bat runs about 60 pinball machines alongside a curated spread of Japanese rhythm games, all played on house-branded tokens. The pins skew toward beloved classics, the decor skews toward gothic, and a monthly goth night called Play Dead keeps the regulars coming back even when they've cleared every machine. There's a tiki bar inside, which feels like the logical conclusion of all this.

A 2020 sci-fi comedy used this retro video game store as a plot point, which tells you something about the depth of its inventory. Fallout Games stocks hardware and titles across decades of gaming history, from Vectrex consoles up through modern systems, with collectibles, vintage Nintendo Power issues, and every cable you've been hunting down in a bin since 2009. The kind of shop where you go in for one thing and resurface an hour later with five.

Game Terminal is an arcade bar in Berry Hill with more than 200 games, nearly 100 of them pinball machines that cost a single token each, plus rows of others that cost nothing at all. You buy tokens at the door, order a drink, and lose track of time while a low-key birthday party unfolds two machines over. Trivia Tuesdays are on the calendar. Nashville Scene named it Best Arcade Bar in its 2023 Best of Nashville.

Golden Pony is a cocktail bar in East Nashville's Highland Yards, done up in midcentury modern with a bohemian streak and a queer-centric bent. The drinks are bespoke, the snacks are there to keep you upright, and the room is cozy enough for a first date or a long overdue catch-up with an old friend. Nashville Scene named it Best New Bar in 2023, and the bathroom mirrors keep getting mentioned, so budget a minute for them.

Chessmaster Sundays might be the best reason to show up on a weekend, but Grassrootz earns its place all week as a Black-owned bookstore and juice bar in Central Phoenix. The shelves run deep on hip-hop culture, Black history, and fiction, with comfortable chairs nearby for settling in. Children's storytimes, live music, and lectures keep the calendar full, making it less a shop than a neighborhood living room with good books and pineapple ginger lemonade.

Neon lights, a DJ booth, and rental skates that have seen things: Great Skate is a classic indoor roller rink doing what roller rinks do, and doing it on a packed schedule. Public sessions run most nights alongside kids' and adult lessons, themed skate events, and the occasional adults-only evening when the parents reclaim the floor. The food and drinks are rink-standard, which is exactly what the mood calls for.

Slice shop meets cocktail bar on a busy North Denver corner, loud enough that whatever conversation you're having will stay between you and the ceiling. Happy Camper runs casual and crowded, the kind of place where the noise does you a favor. The menu leans big, sloppy pizza and stiff drinks, and the room fills fast most nights, which suits the regulars just fine.

Harkins put a Sonoran hot dog on the menu and called it the future of moviegoing, which is either visionary or just very Arizona. This dine-in theater at Lake Pleasant Towne Center pairs plush recliners and personal tabletops with a full food and drinks menu you order by pushing a button, like a La-Z-Boy crossed with a TGI Friday's, in the best possible, uh, fine: it works. Phoenix New Times named it the best luxury movie theater in 2023.

A giant netted cloud, frozen mid-drift above a downtown park, is not something you stumble past without stopping. Janet Echelman's sculpture hangs over Civic Space Park in steel and polyester twine, lit from within at night so it glows somewhere between storm formation and slow-motion tornado. Daytime shows you the bones of the thing; after dark it earns the gawking. Free to walk under, open to the sky, and significantly harder to explain than to visit.

The self-proclaimed home of "the fastest egg in the West" is a classic American diner on Colfax that holds the line while Denver's old-school spots keep disappearing. Cinnamon roll French toast and a six-pound breakfast burrito smothered in green chile are the kinds of details that explain why regulars don't bother with the menu. The green chile is gluten-free, which the burrito's sheer scale makes feel almost responsible.

Six Flags Hurricane Harbor is a full-scale waterpark on the northwest edge of Phoenix, and the Anaconda is its calling card, a multi-person raft slide that corkscrews and spins before depositing everyone into a pool in a satisfying heap. Younger kids have their own splash zones to tear through. When summer in the Valley runs past 110 degrees, "waterpark" stops being a leisure category and starts being a survival strategy.

Le Girls Cabaret sits on the Tempe-Phoenix border, pulling in a crowd from ASU, Sky Harbor, and the surrounding neighborhoods with equal democratic ease. It's a full-service strip club, heavy on neon and velvet, where the performers have a runway-model quality about them that the room seems well aware of. Phoenix New Times named it the city's top strip club in 2023, which tracks.

A small vintage shop on the Scottsdale-Tempe border stocked with psychedelic rompers, prairie dresses, and old Levi's that will make you quietly reconsider your entire wardrobe. Pieces are true vintage, some carefully restored, and the selection rotates enough that nothing feels like a costume bin. Prices are on the higher side for thrift but reasonable for the category, and the occasional fill-a-bag sale draws a line out the door.

A movie theater that runs 35mm repertory screenings alongside cult oddities like "Reefer Madness" is already a different animal from the multiplex down the road. Majestic mixes first-run releases with arthouse picks, grindhouse fare, and anime imports, plus weekly horror nights and movie parties with singalongs and themed food pairings. There's a full bar, which makes the celluloid oddities go down easier.

Colored concrete runs through the contest-style street course here, and the mini ramp sits in-ground where the desert sun can bake it properly. This is a full-featured public skate park in Queen Creek, newer enough that the surfaces still feel fast and smooth. It's a haul from central Phoenix, but skaters making the drive find an 11,000-square-foot layout that doesn't feel like an afterthought bolted onto a rec center.

A neighborhood grocery that renovated an old hardware store into something you'd actually drive across town for. Marczyk Fine Foods sits on East Colfax and stocks the kind of produce, cheese, and charcuterie that make you feel guilty about your regular supermarket. An attached wine shop handles the obvious next step. Friday nights in summer bring a Burger Night that regulars plan around, which says something about a grocery store.

Once a month in the Melrose District, vendors spread out midcentury color across an outdoor vintage market, fall through spring. Clothes, jewelry, vinyl, and house decor carry the neighborhood's funky retro energy, and a few snack booths keep you going through the browsing. Dogs are welcome, which matters more than you'd think when the find of the morning turns out to be nothing.

The clack of a Remington or an Olivetti fills this old-school typewriter shop, which has been around forever and looks every year of it. The shelves run from clunky pre-war workhorses to sleek midcentury portables, and the staff will sell you one, rent you one, or fix the one gathering dust in your closet. Ideal for anyone who's decided that a glowing screen is the problem and a ribbon-inked page is the solution.

A rotating light tunnel will make you grab for a wall you don't need. The Museum of Illusions is an interactive attraction where slanted rooms make one person look like a giant beside another, and every exhibit comes with a plain-language explanation of why your brain got fooled. It sits inside the Arizona Boardwalk complex and runs well on a hot afternoon when you want air conditioning with a side of mild existential confusion.

A neon sign shop that's been bending glass tubes for Phoenix since the early 80s, Naturalite Neon has lit up everything from Ferrari dealerships to dive bars without anyone knowing to credit them. That anonymity is sort of the point. Half the glowing signs you've admired on a slow summer drive through the city probably came from this warehouse in Avondale, doing quiet, luminous work in the background of Phoenix's whole visual identity.

A VR lounge in Mesa that leans hard into the basement-gaming aesthetic rather than the cold, sleek future that VR always threatens to become. You can race cars, hit the slopes, or survive a zombie cage, and an hour runs just over twenty-five dollars. The crowd spans hardcore gamers and curious first-timers, which is sort of the whole point. Phoenix New Times named it the best virtual reality lounge in the valley in 2023.