The Best Places in Phoenix

A small neighborhood Japanese grocery where the edit does the work: one or two quality options per ingredient instead of an aisle of noise. Pantry staples, fresh miso, mackerel, and myoga fill the shelves, and the snack aisle runs deeper than the usual suspects. A rack of Japanese DVDs in the corner handles dramas, anime, and language study for anyone planning a longer project at home.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Japanese Market · Best of Phoenix

The shop stocks tour merch from acts that recently played the Nile Theater down the street, so if you missed the show you can still walk out with the shirt. It's a small record store inside The Greenbelt building, selling vinyl, tapes, CDs, and apparel, with a tightly curated mix of rock, country, punk, indie, and hip-hop. The selection runs new and used, and the rotating band merch gives it a reason to check back in that most shops can't offer.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best New Record Store · Best of Phoenix

Sixteen courts, good lights, and lines you can actually see make Pecos Park the default answer when someone in the Phoenix area wants to play pickleball. It's a public park in Ahwatukee, so turnover happens fast even on packed weeknights. The rest of the family has no excuse to stay home, either, since there's a skate plaza, splash pads, a dog park, and courts for basketball, soccer, and volleyball waiting for them.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Public Pickleball Courts · Best of Phoenix

The Lone Tree at the trail's end looks genuinely out of place, a single pine against the bone-dry Superstition Wilderness like someone forgot to finish the landscape. This 5.4-mile out-and-back near Gold Canyon earns its reputation through steep incline and payoff in equal measure, with Weavers Needle, Battleship Mountain, and Canyon Lake all in view. Pack a lunch and hold out for the shade under that tree, or climb the boulders beside it for the full panorama.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Picnic Trail · Best of Phoenix

A 4.2-mile out-and-back near Superior with enough cliff scrambling to remind you that your body is mostly just bones. The payoff at the top is a mailbox stuffed with trinkets, letters, and reportedly condoms left by previous hikers, plus sweeping views of the Superstitions. Expect some butt-sliding on the descent, and bring real shoes. Arriving late rewards you with a west-facing sunset over the mountain terrain below.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Hike With Views · Best of Phoenix

A dog grooming salon where regulars apparently sprint to the front desk on arrival, which tells you something about the vibe. Puff & Fluff has been around forever and now runs eight Valley locations from this uptown Phoenix original. The menu covers everything from baths and nail trims to facials and massages, plus a service listed last on purpose. Monthly memberships exist for the truly devoted pet parent. Cats are also welcome, presumably on their own terms.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Place to Pamper Your Pooch · Best of Phoenix

Indoor putting venue where a laser dot shifts the tee-off position each round so the same 18 holes play differently every time. The smooth, well-graded course runs from forgiving to genuinely tricky, and pros are on hand to fix your stroke without making you feel like a hazard to society. The attached Bar19 does above-average bar food and decent pours, though the signage probably shouldn't need to say "don't overdo it before you putt."

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Place to Learn How to Putt · Best of Phoenix

Redcat Racing builds 1:10 scale radio-controlled lowriders, the kind that bounce, hop, and ride smooth on miniature spoked wheels, no parade permit required. Their Chevy Impala models are the calling card, and an '80s Monte Carlo that lifts and dances via joystick followed close behind. A mini truck with a flopping bed is coming next. Phoenix-area shops AZ Turn and Burn RC and Duncan's RC carry them if you want to see one in person before you commit.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best RC Lowrider Cars · Best of Phoenix

A fair-trade shop in Old Town Scottsdale where every tag carries a story about who made the thing and whether they were paid for it. Clothing, jewelry, home goods, and handbags sit alongside work from local independent artists, all priced without the boutique markup you'd expect. The model is less retail transaction, more ongoing relationship between maker and buyer, which sounds earnest until you see how well it works in practice.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Future of Fashion · Best of Phoenix

A national running chain that actually watches you run before selling you anything, Road Runner Sports does gait analysis in-store (or virtually) to match shoes to how your foot hits the ground. Street, track, or trail, the selection covers it all, along with the usual supporting cast of shorts, shirts, and visors. The kind of place where a casual weekend jogger and a marathon-obsessed type end up equally sorted.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Running Shop · Best of Phoenix

A cactus garden behind the batter's eye in center field is either deeply Arizonan or deeply on-brand for a stadium that splits duties between the Diamondbacks and Rockies each spring. Salt River Fields sits on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community with Camelback Mountain framing certain sightlines beautifully. Grab a lawn blanket in the outfield, then slip out to the backfields before first pitch to watch players actually train.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Place to Watch a Spring Training Game · Best of Phoenix

The floor here runs 26,000 square feet, which is enough room to build up real speed before you remember you haven't skated in twenty years. Skateland is a roller rink, old-school and unashamed about it, with arcade games, a snack bar, and a lighting rig that commits fully to the bit. Kids get character glow skates on Sundays; adults get their own nights on Thursdays and Fridays where no one's kid is cutting across your lane.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Roller Rink · Best of Phoenix

A few pedals in and Phoenix disappears entirely, swapped for quiet Sonoran desert and the kind of saguaro scenery that makes you forget the city grid exists. South Mountain's trails run the range from a gentle beginner slope to a genuinely spine-jangling technical stretch, so there's something for toddlers on balance bikes and retirees alike. Hikers and dog walkers share the path, so a handlebar bell earns its place in your kit.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Place to Mountain Bike · Best of Phoenix

Removing a glove with your teeth turns out to be a teachable skill, and Spellbound Burlesque is the troupe doing the teaching. They run nearly monthly shows around Phoenix, with local regulars sharing the bill alongside national headliners, and a standing residency every second Wednesday at Century Grand. The whole enterprise leans body-positive and inclusive, which in practice means the performances are less Vegas showroom and more genuinely weird and fun.

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

Stinkweeds has been a fixture on Camelback forever, the kind of independent record shop where the staff actually knows what's in the bins. The focus leans toward indie labels, which means a healthy selection of local acts and obscure up-and-comers alongside the expected classics and new reissues. Vinyl, CDs, and the occasional find you weren't looking for all coexist here, which is the whole point of going in person instead of just opening an app.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Record Store · Best of Phoenix

Every product on the shelf at this west Phoenix soap and body care shop comes with an ingredient list and an EWG toxicity rating, because the owner believes you should know what you're rubbing on your skin. The focus is vegan bath and wellness goods, from coconut-almond soap to raw sugar scrubs in rotating scents. You can order online, but showing up in person lets you actually smell what you're buying, which turns out to matter.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Bath and Body Goods · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Large Music Venue · Best of Phoenix

A wood-clad 600-seat auditorium anchors this performing and visual arts center on the edge of Tempe Town Lake, with a black box studio theater, a gallery that spills into the lobby, and an outdoor amphitheater for when Arizona evenings cooperate. The Tempe Symphony Orchestra, Childsplay, and several other resident companies call it home, so there's almost always something on. Public art installations are scattered throughout, in case you arrive early and need somewhere to look thoughtful.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Open Mic Night · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Guardians of Local History · Best of Phoenix

Chiptunes hum over a system where you can buy, sell, trade, or just linger with a controller at the in-store lounge. This retro and modern video game shop stocks titles, consoles, and accessories across every system ever made, plus repair supplies and reproduction cartridges for the obsessives. Coin-op rarities like "Demon Front" sit alongside weekly "Super Smash Bros." tournaments. The Phoenix New Times named it Best Video Game Store in 2024, and the regulars look like they already know why.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Video Game Store · Best of Phoenix

Every Wednesday night at The Hot Chick, a drag queen named Barbra Seville calls bingo numbers with enough side commentary to make ten rounds feel short. It's a weekly event, not a bar night, so come ready: prizes range from gift cards to air fryers to things that would embarrass your mother. Half-off wine bottles and $8 High Noon seltzers run all night, happy hour starts at three, and a DJ keeps things going after the last card is called.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Drag Bingo · Best of Phoenix

A gift shop where the disco-dancing armadillo T-shirts share floor space with monsoon-scented candles and handmade cactus earrings. The Merchantile is a large, multi-vendor retail space organized by local maker, so each booth is essentially its own small shop. If you need something genuinely Arizonan to bring home, this is a better bet than the airport.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Shop for Arizona Merch · Best of Phoenix

The intimacy works in your favor here: a mid-sized regional theater company tucked into a relatively small downtown house, where you're close enough to catch every flicker of doubt on an actor's face. The repertoire swings from classic musicals to newer dramatic work, and the room's acoustics make the whole thing land harder than a bigger stage would allow. A reliable anchor of Phoenix's performing arts scene.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Small Playhouse · Best of Phoenix

A science boutique in Mesa where you can buy an actual fossilized dinosaur bone, which is either a totally normal purchase or proof that adulthood has its privileges. Tyrannostorus stocks stuffed animals, books, and specimens alongside goods for ancient Egypt, space, and shark enthusiasts, so the dino-obsessed child you once were will feel right at home, and so will everyone else who still has a favorite prehistoric creature.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Store for Your Inner Dino Nerd · Best of Phoenix

Up to eight players can fight off zombie hordes or battle robots in deep space without leaving Scottsdale, which sounds like a gimmick until you're actually sweating. Velocity VR is a group entertainment venue with multiplayer virtual reality at its center, plus go-karts, axe-throwing, and food and drinks for when someone needs a breather. It scratches the same social itch as laser tag used to, just with considerably better graphics and more steps logged.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Future of Local Gaming · Best of Phoenix

A Chicago-style speakeasy in suburban Glendale that survived a close call when its founders stepped away, saved by a general manager who bought the place outright and kept the plush seating and famously good acoustics intact. Local blues and R&B acts play the stage most nights, and a recently upgraded patio now lets you take your drink outside. Phoenix's blues scene is thin, so this one carries some weight.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Blues Bar · Best of Phoenix

A map shop that also keeps an enormous warehouse out back, which means the answer to almost any cartographic request is yes. Wide World Maps & MORE! carries road maps alongside wall maps, globes, and geography-themed decor, the kind of place where you walk in for one thing and leave planning a trip you hadn't considered. Old maps, new maps, maps of everywhere. GPS gets you there faster, but it never made anyone dream.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Place to Find Your Way · Best of Phoenix

Music-themed rooms with Bluetooth speakers and smart TVs set the tone at this renovated mid-century motor hotel on Grand Avenue, brought back to life as part of Best Western's BW Signature Collection. A shallow lounging pool, foosball, an outdoor bar, and a rotating lineup of DJs, live bands, and karaoke keep things lively well past check-in. Chilte handles dining on-site, and downtown Phoenix is close enough to walk the energy off.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Trendy Staycation Spot · Best of Phoenix

A small marketplace tucked inside a nondescript office building, Afri-Soul carries clothing, jewelry, accessories, beauty products, and handmade art sourced from across the African continent. The inventory turns up things you won't find in a conventional gift shop, paper bead bracelets, handwoven baskets, hand-painted belts, and bright cotton pieces that follow you home in your memory before they follow you home in a bag.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best African Shop · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Creative Compound · Best of Phoenix

Yoga here is more of a pretext than a practice: the real draw is a herd of baby goats wandering across your mat while you attempt downward dog. Arizona Goat Yoga runs low-impact classes on a farm outside Gilbert, many with themes like '80s or Halloween where guests and animals dress accordingly. Alpacas occasionally join in, and some sessions add cow cuddling for good measure. The staff keep the animals calm, which is more than can be said for the humans.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Place to Greet Some Goats · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Free Art Museum · Best of Phoenix

The large metal tubs with fold-down side flaps are the key detail here: getting a reluctant dog into a bath is half the battle, and someone thought it through. Bark If You're Dirty is a self-serve dog wash and pet shop where you pick your level of clean, from a quick rinse to a full conditioned shampoo, then follow a staff member to the back and handle the scrubbing yourself. Brushes, flexible shower heads, towels, and brave-dog hair dryers are all supplied.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Dog Wash · Best of Phoenix

Bellair Golf Park is a driving range that stays open until 10 p.m., which tells you most of what you need to know about the vibe. TopTracer technology tracks every shot for those who like data, while everyone else just enjoys hitting things outside of the summer heat. It lands somewhere between serious practice facility and a genuinely good time, without the bill that comes with the fancier simulators around town. The west side's answer to a night out that doesn't require a dress code.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Place to Trace Your Balls · Best of Phoenix

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.

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

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Vape Shop · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Used Bookstore · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Pool Hall · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Sportsbook · 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

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

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Toy Store · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Retail Import · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Late-Night Convenience Store · Best of Phoenix

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.

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

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Video Game Store · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Bookstore That’s More Than a Bookstore · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Roller Skating · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Luxury Movie Theater · 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

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.

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

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.

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

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Way to Learn About Desert Critters · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Vintage Clothing · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Place to See a Classic Movie · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Skate Park · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Outdoor Vintage Market · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Typewriter Shop · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Place to Have Your Mind Boggled · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Neon Signs · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Virtual Reality Lounge · 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

An outdoor outlet mall on the Gila River Indian Community, Phoenix Premium Outlets trades indoor air conditioning for open-air discount hunting across a solid spread of name brands. Coach, Kate Spade, Nike, Adidas, and a Saks OFF Fifth anchor the handbag and sneaker heavy lineup, with factory stores for Banana Republic, Gap, and Columbia filling out the rest. It won't be confused with Scottsdale Fashion Square, but the prices will remind you that's fine.

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

Ten acres, four greenhouses, imported pottery, and occasionally a yoga class held among the succulents. Plant Stand of Arizona is a nursery that runs a little wild with its square footage, stocking everything from hardy desert plants to indoor exotics to the kind of statement specimen that needs its own corner of the room. It draws beginners hunting for something to not kill and collectors who already know what they want and just need fifty of them.

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

Mini-golf gets the nightlife treatment at this high-energy entertainment venue inside Scottsdale Quarter. Ball-tracking sensors handle the scoring so you can focus on navigating four illuminated nine-hole courses, each with inventive obstacles loosely themed around gems. Bars on both floors and DJ sets on weekends keep things moving, and yes, you can carry a cocktail through the whole round, though the pinball-style holes may test that commitment.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Mini Golf · Best of Phoenix

Seven lakes filled with reclaimed water sit inside a 110-acre desert preserve in Gilbert, and that unlikely combination pulls in birds you'd never expect this far from a coast: egrets, avocets, herons, stilts, and peregrine falcons passing through on migration. Doves and quail show up too, but they're almost beside the point. Veteran birders patrol the paths with telescope lenses, and they tend to be generous with tips if you're just starting out.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Place to Take Up Birding · 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 Name Change · Best of Phoenix

A historic park in Glendale where peacocks graze under fruit trees while doves call from tall palms overhead. The grounds are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the old ranch buildings make a handsome backdrop for a walk through the gardens. There are playgrounds and sports fields on the other side if you need a reason to bring kids. The peacocks, though, do most of the convincing on their own.

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

Wild horses standing in the shallows while the skyline sits just out of frame is the image that makes the Salt River stretch near Phoenix worth knowing about. Drop one car at Phon D Sutton, put in at Water Users, and you have a mellow half-day float with a few Class I bumps at the Pinball section. Bighorn sheep, otters, and the famously unbothered feral horses tend to do most of the entertaining. You'll need a Tonto Pass for the parking lots.

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

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

The fuzzy handcuffs are practically the greeting cards section here. Smokin' Lingerie is an adult shop where the inventory goes well past anything you'd find at Target, stocking a deep run of BDSM gear, kink equipment, and smoking supplies for good measure. The Phoenix New Times named it the best place to buy BDSM gear in the Valley, which tracks given the sheer ambition of the catalog. Come with a clear sense of what you're after, or at least a tolerance for surprises.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Place to Buy BDSM Gear · Best of Phoenix

Every night in Mesa, a neon woman dives forever into a pool that isn't there, which is either poetic or just very Phoenix. The Starlite Motel's "Diving Lady" sign is a midcentury relic that got knocked out by a storm and came back after a community-funded restoration effort that cost six figures. She glows in the way old neon does, warm and slightly buzzing, the kind of thing worth slowing the car down for.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Neon Sign · Best of Phoenix

The Arizona Cardinals call it home, but State Farm Stadium earns its keep on the concert calendar. The retractable-roof arena seats 64,000, which means when a stadium tour rolls into the Phoenix metro, the spectacle scales accordingly. The Rolling Stones, Metallica, and U2 have each played it twice, and Taylor Swift launched the Eras tour here. Big room, big sound, big crowds dressed accordingly.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Stadium Venue · Best of Phoenix

A showroom full of classic cars and trucks where you can walk the floor without anyone pressuring you to buy. Streetside Classics is a national dealer specializing in vintage American iron, and the Mesa location keeps a deep inventory, the kind where a '53 Buick and a '72 Bronco might be neighbors. Even if dropping five figures on a Road Runner isn't the plan, an afternoon here passes easily, half browsing, half quietly doing the math.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Vintage Cars · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Vintage Home Market · Best of Phoenix

Frank Lloyd Wright built Taliesin West as his own desert home and studio, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site is about as far as you can get from a velvet-rope museum. Docent-led walking tours cover the office, a private home theater, and a collection of Asian art, with the McDowell Mountains as the backdrop. Evening tours run too, if the afternoon heat is uninviting. Workshops and rotating exhibitions go deeper into Wright's philosophy for the genuinely curious.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Architectural Gem · Best of Phoenix

Film still on the shelves is the first clue that this isn't a big-box camera department pretending to care. Tempe Camera is an old-school camera shop and repair house where the staff are all photographers, happy to talk you through a lens decision without making you feel like a tourist. Downstairs handles repairs, sensor cleanings, and gear rentals. They also run workshops if you're still figuring out what half the buttons do.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Camera Store · Best of Phoenix

The Duce is part-bar, part-gym, part-vintage trailer diner, part-dance hall, which sounds like a fever dream but somehow holds together. You can swing dance, throw a punch in the boxing area, browse vintage goods, and still find time for a pot pie and an old-school cocktail, all under one roof. Ping-pong and shuffleboard are there if you need to justify the drinks as cardio. Phoenix has plenty of bars, but few with this particular range of excuses to stay.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Salsa Night · 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 dachshund-shaped iron toilet paper holder is the kind of thing that ends up in somebody's bathroom forever, and it came from a strip mall next to a Kohl's in Ahwatukee. Vintageous is a vintage furniture and decor shop with a well-curated rotation of midcentury modern pieces, old denim, and oddball gifts, all spread across a roomy, easy-to-navigate floor rather than the usual tchotchke labyrinth.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Vintage Home Goods · 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

A half-day on the Salt River for the price of a decent lunch is the pitch at WildHorse Paddleboards, a Mesa outfit that rents boards by the half or full day. The owner's enthusiasm for Arizona's waterways is the kind that turns a transaction into an orientation, so first-timers leave knowing more than which end to stand on. A solid way to spend a Sunday without committing to garage storage.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Paddleboard Rentals · 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