The Best Places to Eat and Do in Phoenix

1. Phoenix Magazine Octopus · Top 100 Dishes of Arizona

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

Pinball machines and candlelight set the tone at this casual gay cocktail bar on 16th Street, where the vibe leans more neighborhood hangout than high-drama nightclub. Lounge seating, a patio, and daily drink specials keep regulars coming back through the week. The menu covers craft cocktails, bar snacks, and specialty shots, which is all you really need when the room is this relaxed.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Gay Bar · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in 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

Gold palm fronds hang over the bar like a permanent vacation has been declared, and the drinks menu at this Cuban cocktail bar treats rum the way a serious wine list treats Burgundy. The daiquiri and mojito get thoughtful treatment alongside wilder tropical builds. The same team runs Pigtails and Rough Rider, so the pedigree tracks. Pink tiles, cozy booths, and food to keep things grounded.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best New Bar · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in 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

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Piano Bar · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in 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 seven-foot plaster rooster presides over the bar, and a miniature Eiffel Tower tops the roof, and somehow neither feels out of place. Nutowne Saloon is an old-school gay bar in east Phoenix that has been around forever, surviving a fire that gutted the place and still coming back kitschier than before. Pool tables, a Merlin fortune-telling machine, and a patio covered for the crowds round out a room that grandma's attic would recognize immediately.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Gay Bar Decor · Best of Phoenix
2. AZ Central Best bars in metro Phoenix
3. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

Cash only, dark inside, and on any given night you might have to squeeze past a metal band unloading gear in the parking lot just to get through the door. Palo Verde is a Tempe dive bar where construction workers in hi-vis vests share the rail with ASU newcomers and neighborhood lifers. Drinks are cheap and poured strong, and the bartender has your order memorized before you've taken your jacket off.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Dive Bar · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in 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

The 12 tap handles are mounted in a repurposed fire truck behind the bar, which tells you everything you need to know about the vibe. Roosters is a country bar that's been an East Valley institution forever, with a red-and-black checkered dance floor, pool tables, live music most nights, open mics, and karaoke. A second stage and beer tubs sit out on the smoking patio. Strangers introduce you to their friends before the first round is done.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Bar for Country Music · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

A pirate-themed dive bar in Sunnyslope that opens at 6 a.m., which should tell you most of what you need to know. Drink specials are listed on the wall under "Grogs," free pool and shuffleboard tournaments fill the back, and biscuits and gravy come with your first drink if you show up early enough to need them. Burgers and corn dogs handle the rest. The merch, featuring a peg-legged mascot, is genuinely good.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Bar for Pregaming · 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

Shrek raves, all-trans oil wrestling, and Christmas burlesque in July: the weekly calendar at this LGBTQ bar on 7th Avenue reads like a dare. The dance floor splits the difference between intimate and actually dancing, surrounded by decor that suggests Dracula discovered neon. The back patio exists for the moment you want to learn someone's name. Karaoke, drag brunch, and gothed-out Wednesday nights fill in the gaps.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best ’80s Night · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in 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

A bar that closes at ten, and that's the whole point. The Joy Lush Club is a low-key neighborhood wine and beer bar with 16 taps, a serious wine list, live music, and food trucks rotating through. You can even take a bottle home on your way out. It draws the kind of crowd that wants a proper drink without the performance of a late night. Think comfortable chairs, zero pretension, and somewhere to be by morning.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Low-Key Bar · 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 hanging mobile about Phoenix's infamous trunk murderess sets the tone before you've even ordered a drink. Valley Bar is a basement dive, reached through an alley off Central Avenue that will make you question your life choices right up until you hit the stairs and descend into genuinely good energy. Cheap beers, cocktails named after Arizona politicians, skeeball, shuffleboard, and live DJs on weekends round out a room that has no interest in taking itself seriously.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Basement Bar · Best of Phoenix
2. AZ Central Best bars in metro Phoenix
3. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in 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

A deli case crammed with dozens of sausages, hams, and forcemeats is the first thing that stops you cold at this Polish specialty market in Surprise. Shelves run deep with pickles, sauerkraut, jams, and imported Eastern European spirits, and a hot deli turns out rotating Polish plates packed to go. The range is wide enough that the name barely feels like a stretch.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Eastern European Market · Best of Phoenix

A Moroccan restaurant tucked inside a hybrid dining room, market, and clothing boutique, where the same woman cooks your tagine and then comes out front to seat you. Steaming lamb tagines and bastilla, the savory-sweet phyllo pie dusted with cinnamon and powdered sugar, are the reasons to linger. Patience is part of the deal, but the food rewards it. Phoenix New Times named it the valley's best North African restaurant in 2024.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best North African Restaurant · Best of Phoenix

The display case here looks like it belongs in a European charcuterie, packed with cuts trimmed as carefully as a jeweler sets stones. This is a full-service butcher shop sourcing beef, pork, and lamb from Arizona ranches, with house-made sausages, cured meats, and a freezer worth raiding. Fresh pasta, local eggs, and pantry staples round it out. The staff actually know their meat and will talk you through it, which remains a butcher shop's rarest offering.

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

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Breakfast Sandwich · Best of Phoenix

A black-and-white dining room tucked into the Scottsdale Waterfront strip mall, where the guacamole arrives studded with pomegranate seeds and warm steak cubes, which sounds like a gimmick until it doesn't. This modern Mexican restaurant runs from quesabirria tacos to charred octopus, and the cocktails come dressed with flower petals and charred cinnamon sticks, because subtlety is apparently optional. The flan, cracked with caramel shards, lands the ending.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Guacamole · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Guacamole · Best of Phoenix

A small chocolatier in Fountain Hills where the bonbons are the reason to make the drive. Louis and Denise Mirabella work in the bean-to-bar mode, making chocolate in-house, but the real draw is their bonbon range, which runs from classic cherry cordials and gianduja to passionfruit caramel and zinfandel ganache. The fillings hit with an intensity that makes each piece feel like it's been concentrated down to its purest form. Phoenix New Times named them best bonbons in 2024.

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

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Vietnamese Restaurant · Best of Phoenix

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

The smell of jerk chicken charring over fire hits you before you reach the door, which is all the orientation you need. Cool Vybz is a no-frills Jamaican spot on the north side of Phoenix, the dining room strictly functional, the cooking anything but. The chef came up on the island and keeps the menu short: curry goat, oxtails, brown stew snapper. Phoenix New Times named it the city's top Caribbean restaurant in 2024, and the jerk alone makes a reasonable argument for why.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Caribbean Restaurant · Best of Phoenix

A pasty bar doing roughly fifty fillings, from tikka masala to cheeseburger, in a cavernous downtown Phoenix space that somehow feels more Cornish pub than desert Southwest. The multi-story room stays dark despite the chandeliers, and the second-floor railing gives you a perch over the pool tables below. Draft Guinness is the obvious move. Phoenix New Times named it among the top 100 bars in the city.

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Late-Night Eats · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Mexican Coffee Shop · Best of Phoenix

Churros come in loops, bites, or sticks here, all fried to order, so you wait a minute and they arrive properly hot. Dulce is a dessert café in a Gilbert strip mall where the menu is essentially a build-your-own operation: pick a shape, choose a dip or glaze, add toppings if you like. The plain cinnamon sugar version makes the strongest case that the rest of the menu is just fun extras.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Churros · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Churros · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Breakfast Burrito · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Mexican Sushi · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Jewish Deli · Best of Phoenix

The food court inside this sprawling Korean supermarket runs from fried pork belly to bulgogi risotto to French-inspired desserts, which tells you something about the ambition of the place. H Mart is the kind of grocery store where you come in for kimchi and leave with Hello Kitty sake and a skincare regimen. The seafood section alone could occupy a long afternoon, and the ready-to-eat station in back earns its own trip.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Asian Grocery Store · Best of Phoenix

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

The injera here is nearly chocolate-dark, made from pure teff with a sharp fermented tang that most Ethiopian spots in town don't bother chasing. This laid-back restaurant on a stretch of McDowell more famous for traffic than food serves bold, uncompromising classics, and the staff makes you feel like a regular on the first visit. End with the traditional coffee service, which is not optional.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best East African Restaurant · Best of Phoenix

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

A Sonoran seafood chainlet wedged into the strip-mall sprawl near Westgate, Los Arbolitos de Cajeme handles ceviche tostadas, fishbowl cocktails, and stone molcajetes with more care than the surroundings would suggest. The grilled octopus arrives sizzling with a smoky morita chile sauce that makes a convincing case for the detour. Go before a game when you want real mariscos and the other options are the usual suspects.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Place to Eat Before a Glendale Event · Best of Phoenix

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

A low-ABV cocktail bar tucked inside an actual house in downtown Chandler, where the default is a sherry or vermouth base rather than something that'll flatten you by nine. The menu runs from a gentle negroni to a spritzy Cappelletti situation to a vermouth margarita with heat, and coffee rounds things out if you'd rather not drink at all. The nooks and the porch invite lingering, which seems to be the whole point.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Non-Alcoholic Drink Options · Best of Phoenix

Arancini the size of baseballs are the opening argument at this Italian restaurant tucked into a southwest Valley strip mall. The room runs small and lively, with couples and regulars filling tables over Neapolitan-style pies, both red and white. The pizza list skews local-neighborhood-Italian in the best way, and the Phoenix New Times named it Best Pizza in 2024. Worth the drive from central Phoenix if you're tired of pretending the closer options are just as good.

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

The ice cream sandwich here comes on a fresh-sliced doughnut, which is either genius or a personal liability depending on your self-control. This small-batch ice cream shop keeps a core menu of eight flavors, rotates in new ones weekly, and does fruit sorbets for the dairy-free crowd. The original location sits in a tiny historic building on Grand Avenue, which gives it more character than a strip mall scoop shop ever could.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Ice Cream · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Oaxacan Food · Best of Phoenix

Order-at-the-counter fish and chips in a strip mall, priced mostly in the teens, with your choice of fish battered and fried to order. The clam chowder is the thick, goopy kind you feel slightly embarrassed to enjoy, and the fried shrimp are plump enough to make you forget you're in Glendale. Tartar sauce is creamy, cocktail sauce has actual kick. Phoenix New Times named it Best Fast Food in 2024, which is either a surprise or exactly right depending on how you feel about Long John Silver's.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Fast Food · Best of Phoenix

Pears, gorgonzola, dried cranberries, and toasted hazelnuts in a house cider vinaigrette is the move that explains the name at this family-owned East Valley bistro. Ten composed entree salads anchor the menu, with enough add-on proteins (salmon, shrimp, falafel, mock chik'n) to handle any table's dietary politics. Quinoa bowls, tacos, pasta, and a full bar round things out for groups that can't agree on anything except where to go.

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

A living wall and copper accents soften what is otherwise a properly dark cocktail bar doing its best not to be found. Pigtails is a speakeasy that skips the password theatrics and the reservation-or-else attitude, which puts it ahead of most places bothering with the genre. The drinks riff on classics, a rotating mystery punch keeps things loose, and the raw bar snacks suggest someone thought past the ice bucket.

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

A converted cottage on McDowell Road that smells faintly of old rugs and good intentions, Sauvage is a natural wine bar and bottle shop where the list leans toward obscure regions and the staff will talk you through all of it. Charcuterie and tinned fish are always on hand, and local chefs occasionally pop up to cook. Esquire named it one of the best bars in America, which the room, unhurried and candlelit, seems entirely unbothered by.

1. Esquire The Best Bars in America
2. Eater The Best Bars in Phoenix
3. AZ Central Best bars in metro Phoenix

Pint glasses hang from the ceiling and dollar bills plaster the columns at this Irish pub tucked into the back of a downtown Phoenix hotel. The menu runs shepherd's pie, fish and chips, and beef stew, with Guinness on draft doing most of the heavy lifting. A jug of apple pie shots on the bar suggests the night can go a few different directions. Phoenix New Times named it one of the top 100 bars in the city in 2025.

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Irish Pub · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Al Pastor · Best of Phoenix