The Best Things to Do in Downtown Phoenix

A coffee shop where the décor has opinions about where you sit. PHX Cat Cafe is a nonprofit cat lounge in downtown Phoenix where a rotating crew of adoptable cats nap in elevated perches, bat at toys, and occasionally judge you from across the room. The small admission fee buys you time among the felines, decent coffee, and access to events like cat yoga and drag bingo. Over a thousand cats have found homes through the place, which gives the whole thing a satisfying excuse.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Cat Cafe · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Way to Cuddle Cats · Best of Phoenix
3. AZ Central Best downtown Phoenix coffee shops for more than just coffee · The ultimate guide to the best Phoenix cafes

A 1982 Piaggio Apé truck imported from Italy parks in the garden and pulls espresso, which tells you most of what you need to know about Pueblo's priorities. This plant shop and coffee stop on Grand Avenue occupies a lush warehouse where indoor tropicals crowd every corner and a vintage gardening library invites you to stay longer than planned. The pottery, succulents, and houseplants are the main event, but the outdoor patio has a way of making an errand feel like an afternoon.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Plant Shop · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Plant Shop · Best of Phoenix
3. AZ Central Best Grand Avenue coffee shops for more than just coffee · The ultimate guide to the best Phoenix cafes

Fried chicken and Champagne share a menu at this retro-glam bowling lounge off Roosevelt Row, which tells you most of what you need to know about its vibe. A handful of lanes, a circular bar, pool tables, and DJs make it more of a night out that happens to involve bowling than the other way around. Sushi and nachos cover the snacking spread. Dress accordingly, because the decor is very much meant to be photographed.

1. Foodist Awards 2024 · Finalist · Outstanding Bar/Nightlife Experience
2. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Bougie Bowling · Best of Phoenix

Set a budget before you walk into this curated vintage clothing shop in the Roosevelt Arts District, because the racks run from 1920s eveningwear to a 1980s purple fringe jacket and your willpower will not survive unassisted. Prices aren't thrift-store prices, but the inventory is the kind that makes you want to become a slightly more interesting version of yourself. A clearance rack in the back starts at $5, for those who want the daydream on a discount.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Vintage Clothing · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Vintage Clothing · Best of Phoenix

An artist-run collective on Roosevelt Row, Eye Lounge has been the gravitational center of Phoenix's First Fridays artwalk for years, which is either a sign of quality or a sign that everyone else gave up. Contemporary exhibitions rotate through, the murals outside change with the shows inside, and the crowd on a First Friday runs heavy on the local artists whose work might be on the walls next month.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Place to Stop During the First Friday artwalk · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best First Friday Stop · Best of Phoenix

Koi drift under a 12-foot waterfall while the rest of Phoenix does whatever Phoenix does. This three-and-a-half-acre Japanese garden, formally called Ro Ho En, sits inside Margaret T. Hance Park and moves at a completely different speed than the city around it. Stone lanterns, quarried Arizona rocks along the shore, and a traditional teahouse pull the place toward genuine stillness. A quiet hour here requires almost no effort and costs almost nothing.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Oasis in the Desert · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Place for Meditation and Quiet · Best of Phoenix

Hand-painted signs about human rights share wall space with Spanish-language books on LGBTQ+ liberation at this bilingual bookstore on mural-covered Roosevelt Street. The shop has become a genuine community gathering spot, hosting BIPOC open mics and children's storytime alongside a cafe where you can nurse a coffee mid-browse. It stocks the kinds of titles Amazon's algorithm would never think to surface.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Spanish-Language Bookstore · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Bilingual Bookstore · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Library · Best of Phoenix

A retrofitted vending machine that dispenses original art for $5 a pull sits in the lobby of FOUND:RE Phoenix hotel downtown. The Art-o-mat project converts defunct machines into small-art dispensaries, stocking them with polymer clay earrings, tiny paintings, and whatever else artists send in. There are only two in the Valley, so the bar for feeling culturally enriched is refreshingly low this week.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Vending Machine · Best of Phoenix

A letterpress studio and stationery shop tucked into the Bragg's Pie Factory complex on Grand Avenue, where the walls are papered with local artists' prints and vintage concert posters. You can buy cards, notebooks, and coasters off the shelf, commission custom work, or roll up your sleeves in a printing workshop. A free print in the newspaper stand by the door has a way of making the decision for you.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Paper Goods · Best of Phoenix

The Roosevelt Row bodega that stocks coffee filters, Tito's, and Pokémon cards at 1 a.m., all under one roof. Milk and Honey Market is a neighborhood convenience shop open from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m., which covers most reasonable emergencies and a few unreasonable ones. Snacks, energy drinks, local craft beer, and classic smoke shop staples fill the shelves. Two locations sit less than half a mile apart, a level of redundancy downtown Phoenix apparently needed.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Bodega · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Stadium Venue · Best of Phoenix

A specialty food shop built into a single shipping container inside The Churchill, Neighbor Market stocks natural wine, artisan olive oil, craft chocolate, cocktail syrups, and small-batch seasonings with a curator's eye for the obscure. The selection somehow never feels like it fits the square footage, which is part of the charm. Go when you need a gift for someone who already owns every kitchen gadget and would rather have something they'd never find themselves.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Specialty Food Shop · Best of Phoenix

A streetcar museum tucked on Grand Ave that most Phoenicians walk past without a second glance. Inside, a collection of restored cars, old uniforms, and memorabilia traces the mule-drawn and electric lines that literally plotted the city's street grid. It's a small place, but spending an hour here reframes every wide boulevard you've ever complained about. The Phoenix New Times named it the museum you probably haven't visited, which is both accurate and a little embarrassing.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Museum You Probably Haven’t Visited · Best of Phoenix

A century-old shopping center two miles from the Arizona State Capitol, the Gold Spot's golden brick courtyard has become an unofficial annex for state legislators, lobbyists, and the occasional curious constituent. Pita Jungle, a coffee shop, a salon, and a sandwich counter share the space with enough elected officials that eavesdropping feels almost civic. Consider it democracy, but with better focaccia.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Spot to Run into a Lawmaker · Best of Phoenix

A butcher shop that actually explains itself, which turns out to be the hard part. Underbelly carries grass-fed, locally sourced cuts in a clean, curated case that rewards the curious and doesn't punish the clueless, because whoever's behind the counter will walk you through the difference between a skirt steak and a bavette without making you feel bad about it. The rotating sandwich menu is a quiet bonus from a team that clearly has more to say.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Butcher Shop · Best of Phoenix

A volunteer-run distro shop stocking thousands of zines on every conceivable obsession, Wasted Ink is the kind of place where you go for one thing and leave an hour later having agreed to collaborate on someone else's publication. The shelves double as a small archive of zine history, and the staff can help you figure out how to start your own. Phoenix New Times named it the best place to buy a zine in 2025, which feels correct.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Place to Buy a Zine · Best of Phoenix

Bruce Springsteen swung by on his last Phoenix tour, which tells you roughly what kind of store Cave & Post Trading Co. is. It's a men's clothing shop in central Phoenix that leans into classic American workwear with a Western edge, carrying selvedge denim, pearl-snap shirts, and the sort of sunglasses that feel like they belong in a different decade. The owners are music people, so touring bands stop in regularly, though most regulars are just well-dressed guys who know what they like.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Men’s Clothing · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Men’s Clothing · Best of Phoenix

Chandeliers and exposed rafters inside a 1930s building that now hosts 1,800 people for live music on a good night. The Van Buren is a midsize concert venue in downtown Phoenix where general admission keeps things relatively democratic and the sightlines are genuinely hard to complain about. Live Nation books the calendar, which means a steady rotation of artists big enough to matter but not yet filling arenas.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Midsize Music Venue · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Midsize Music Venue · Best of Phoenix

A foam tube "noodle forest," a pretend grocery store where kids can shop and restock, a tricycle track with a car wash: this children's museum in a beautifully restored old downtown schoolhouse keeps small visitors busy enough that they forget to argue. The oak floors date to the original building, so parents get architecture while their kids get chaos. Plan a few hours; one level is never enough.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Place to Keep a Kid Entertained · Best of Phoenix

A former automotive garage on Grand Avenue that now holds whatever washed up in one retired fire captain's decades of hunting. The category is "industrial vintage," but that undersells the weird old dolls and model airplanes sharing space with vintage photos and art books. It keeps Thursday-through-Saturday hours, so the First and Third Friday artwalks on Grand are a natural excuse to stop in and see what's appeared since last time.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Store Full of Surprises · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Secret Spot at Footprint Center · Best of Phoenix

A century-old Baptist sanctuary that survived a fire, decades of abandonment, and a near demolition date has reopened in downtown Phoenix as an event and wedding venue. The vaulted shell of the place is the draw, and concert promoters are already circling to bring live music into the space. A restaurant is reportedly in the works too, making this one of those rare civic second acts worth watching unfold in real time.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Revitalization · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Record Store That’s Also a Bar · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Art by Night · Best of Phoenix

A nonprofit arts center running classes in ceramics, drawing, glass, jewelry, painting, and music across two Phoenix locations, this is the kind of place that assumes you want to actually learn something. Instructors cover theory alongside technique, and most courses run five or six weeks, so the commitment is real but not daunting. A good antidote to wandering a craft store hoping for inspiration to strike.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Art Classes · Best of Phoenix

A mile of Roosevelt Street running between Seventh Avenue and Seventh Street, this walkable arts corridor threads past galleries, historic bungalows, live music venues, and enough bars and restaurants to justify multiple laps. It reads differently depending on the night, but the through line is a Phoenix that feels genuinely patched together rather than planned. Best experienced in the cooler months, when the weather finally cooperates with the city's ambitions.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Place for a Night Stroll · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Jazz Club · Best of Phoenix

No signage in the lobby, no floor indicator in the elevator, just the sound of a crowd spilling out when the fifth-floor doors open. The Pub at Thunderbird is a full bar on a Thunderbird School of Global Management campus, open to the public on weekdays, with alumni spirits behind the bar, a rooftop with downtown Phoenix views, and Thursday nights where students and professors share a table like it's the most normal thing in the world.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Bar on a College Campus · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Local-Centric Venue · Best of Phoenix

A 190-foot-long mural running along Adams Street between First and Second, painted by local artist Kayla Newnam. Gila monsters, saguaros, and mountain ranges roll across the wall in bold desert colors under a painted sunset that takes up most of the sky. Newnam opened two community paint days during the process, so a fair number of Phoenicians had a hand in it. The Phoenix New Times named it Best Mural in 2023.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Mural · Best of Phoenix

Xico has been anchoring Latino and Indigenous arts in downtown Phoenix since the mid-seventies, and it shows in the best way. This nonprofit gallery and arts hub runs the full range: rotating exhibitions, artist talks, and classes that draw a crowd well beyond the First Friday tourists. Shows skew toward Latina and Indigenous voices, and the programming actually changes, so there's a reason to come back.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Latino Arts Hub · Best of Phoenix