The Best Places to Drink and Do in Gilbert

A red light on a side street marks the entrance, and from there you're following the speakeasy script to the letter: website password, narrow hallway, bookcase door. What's behind it is a dark cocktail bar with leather seating, Victorian details, and locked cabinets of private-label spirits. The drinks lean technical, with bacon fat-washed bourbon and toasted tortilla bitters among the building blocks. The kind of place that makes suburbanites feel delightfully conspiratorial.

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

There's a lake here, which for most dogs is reason enough to lose their minds entirely. Cosmo Dog Park in Gilbert is a sprawling off-leash park with a swim-ready lake, a separate fenced area for smaller or shyer dogs, an agility course for overachievers, shaded ramadas, and water stations throughout. It's a full afternoon, not just a quick lap around a fenced lot, and Phoenix New Times named it the best dog park in the city.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Dog Park · Best of Phoenix

Billiards-themed portraits of legendary players guard the bathroom doors at this East Valley pool hall and bar, which recently got a full revamp. League nights fill the tables, but plenty of people come just for the extensive craft beer list or the generously poured drinks from behind the full bar. The food holds up too, which is more than you can say for most places where the pool is the main event.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Pool Hall · Best of Phoenix

A plant shop where you might walk in for a small succulent and leave negotiating a 4-foot cactus into your car. The team sources everything from Arizona growers, so nothing here has that slow-death-in-a-big-box-store look. They'll pot your pick on the spot and hand you an actual care plan. The space reads more like a desert gallery than a garden center, which makes the impulse adoption feel almost reasonable.

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

The outdoor bar lives inside a repurposed shipping container, which tells you something about this brewpub's sensibility. Arizona Wilderness pours a rotating slate of seasonal ales alongside house classics, and the kitchen keeps pace with oversized burgers, an Arizonan hot fried chicken sandwich, and duck fat fries that have developed their own following. The vegan options are less afterthought than actual draw. Bench seating, a beer garden, and desert weather do the rest.

1. Foodist Awards 2024 · Winner: Vegan Bahn Mi · Best Vegan Delight
2. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist: Refuge IPA · Favorite Local Craft Beer
3. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Birthday Beer Deal · Best of Phoenix

1. AZ Central Best bars in metro 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

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