Bars & Nightlife >>

• Best Irish Pub
  The Dubliner Irish Pub and Restaurant
  3841 East Thunderbird
  602-867-0984
  Any place with Guinness on tap is already worth its weight in gold, but this place has more than great beers to recommend it. It has regulars, loud Irish ones, and more than enough traditional Irish and Scottish performers, including an occasional bagpipe player and a group of acoustic guitar... More >>
• Best Bar for Banter
  Newman's Lounge
  25 East Monroe
  602-257-9215
  Located directly below the Golden West, one of Phoenix's last remaining downtown flophouses, Newman's Lounge could never be confused with Cheers or any other homey sitcom bar. Bleating cell phones, thumping karaoke machines and blaring techno music are conspicuously absent at this throwback to a... More >>
• Best Cosmopolitan
  Tiramisu Ristorante
  10435 North Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale
  480-991-1080
  It's a good thing that libations master Serafino won't share his secret for making the perfect cosmopolitan. If he did, we'd soon be organizing happy hour for our fellow members at a 12-step program meeting. This is the most exciting cocktail we've had the joy of sipping. And we do mean sip --... More >>
• Best Happy Hour
  Faye's Green Room
  560 South College, Tempe
  480-968-9190
  Seems like some bars clang a bell, give it another shake and before you can say "Doc Otis Hard Lemonade," your happy hour is terminated. But at Faye's Green Room, happy hour lasts longer than most part-time employment. This establishment has a happy weekday-afternoon-early-evening sorta deal.... More >>
• Best Upscale Bar Food
  Michael's at the Citadel
  8700 East Pinnacle Peak Road, Scottsdale
  480-515-2575
  Chef Michael DeMaria has raised the bar on bar food. His sophisticated upstairs bar tops off this high-class restaurant. We're talking cushy sofas, overstuffed armchairs, a discreet but well-stocked bar and inspiring views of Scottsdale's spectacular sunsets. These are way-above-average bar... More >>
• Best Food in a Bar
  Long Wong's
  701 South Mill, Tempe
  480-966-3147
  For a beer joint chiefly associated with its day drinkers, live rock and chicken wings, Long Wong's on Mill offers a surprisingly extensive menu of bar fare. For vegetarian hell-raisers, there's a heady carte du jour of veggie clubs, subs, pitas and Garden Burgers that ring in at fewer than six... More >>
• Best Background Music
  BD's Mongolian BBQ
  501 South Mill, Tempe
  480-858-0807
  While it seems that Muzak has gone the way of the dodo with the advent of custom-tailored satellite radio, most eateries trying to provide a soundtrack to your visit are still guilty of offering up warmed-over MOR leftovers. In a land normally populated by Dan Fogelbergs, Anne Murrays and Billy... More >>
• Best Tequila Selection
  Via DeLosantos
  9120 North Central
  602-997-6239
  Tequila's not just for killing brain cells and sorrows anymore -- premium tequilas today are good enough for respectable sipping and have many of the nuances and personalities of fine wine. There are three grades -- fresh-from-the-still blanco, reposado aged in oak two months to a year, and... More >>
• Best Wine Selection
  Cowboy Ciao
  7133 East Stetson, Scottsdale
  480-946-3111
  There are other restaurants in town with longer wine lists. But they don't have what makes Cowboy Ciao so special to us -- wine flights. What a wonderful concept -- giving us three different wines, at three-ounce pours each, for one fixed price. It allows us to sample and savor fine new wines... More >>
• Best Place to Sing Off-Key
  Ernie's Inn
  10443 North Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale
  480-948-4422
  When Ernie's Inn opened three decades ago, the place was a darkly lighted, smoky rumpus room for serious drinkers looking to tie one on. A lot has changed since then. Today, Ernie's is a darkly lighted, smoky rumpus room for serious drinkers looking to tie one on and belt out a karaoke... More >>
• Best Open-Mike Night Hosts From Hell
  Matt Strangewayes and Page the Village Idiot
  Faye's Green Room
  560 South College, Tempe
  480-968-9190
  What's that, you say -- aren't all open mikes equally hellish? Sure, buddy, and all aspirin are alike. The difference is that this one knows it's from hell and has two hosts, Matt Strangewayes (formerly of Windigo) and Page the Village Idiot, on hand to gladly fan the flames. With his bizarre... More >>
• Best Gay Bar
  Amsterdam
  718 North Central
  602-258-6122
  Once one of Phoenix's better kept secrets (there's still no exterior signage), Amsterdam is not only the city's swankiest gay boîte, but one of its most elegant, to boot. Filled with marble, gilt statuary and a massive carved wooden bar over which pass some truly serious martinis, its... More >>
• Best Bar in Which to Be Seen
  Sanctuary
  7340 East Shoeman Lane, Scottsdale
  480-970-5000
  If your clubwear passes inspection, you will feel positively famous walking into Scottsdale's premier nightspot. Here, where the women look like reporters from Entertainment Tonight and the men look like they're drinking creatine cocktails, you will find 14,000 square feet of self-conscious... More >>
• Best Lesbian Bar
  Ain't Nobody's Bizness
  3031 East Indian School
  602-224-9977
  Pool tables, beer bottles and mullets. Individually, not much. But toss them together in a storefront cocktail lounge and you've got sapphic synergy that just won't quit. Taking its name from a Billie Holiday lyric, Ain't Nobody's Bizness has been the Valley's premier women's bar since long... More >>
• Best Gay Latino Club
  Paco Paco Club Premiere
  3045 North 16th Street
  602-263-8424
  Say, isn't that Enrique Iglesias? No, but if you manage to squeeze through the crowded, man-packed dance floor for a closer look, he'll probably be flattered to know that you thought so. Looking for the gay Mexican cowboy of your dreams? No? Well, Paco Paco dance club is probably the best place... More >>
• Best Bartender
  Ridgely Fitzsimmons
  Nita's Hideaway
  1816 East Rio Salado Parkway, Tempe
  480-966-7715
  What makes a superlative bartender? Good conversation? Nah, anything that delays putting a drink in your gullet is about as welcome as a speed bump. But in dealing with teeming masses of demanding patrons and egotistical musicians, it does help to have a seasoned grasp of the English language... More >>
• Best Cigar Bar
  The Club at the Ritz-Carlton
  2401 East Camelback
  602-468-0700
  As someone (and no, it wasn't President Clinton) once remarked, "A woman is just a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke." What he meant is anyone's guess, but it's a cinch that had he lived in Phoenix, he'd have been a regular at the Ritz-Carlton's cigar lounge. Appropriately called The Club,... More >>
• Best Sports Bar
  Roscoes on Seventh
  4531 North Seventh Street
  602-285-0833
  If you like sports, but are turned off by macho beer guzzlers talking about chicks, Roscoes dishes up a welcome curve ball. Billed as an "alternative lifestyle sports bar," Roscoes is that perfect postmodern cultural hybrid: a sports bar where macho beer guzzlers talk about guys. Roscoes has... More >>
• Best Jukebox
  Emerald Lounge
  1514 North Seventh Avenue
  602-256-9705
  Call us purists, but a CD jukebox is about as sterile as the jewel case the CDs come in. Who wants the same sound you can get in your car stereo or home entertainment center when you're in a bar? No, you want a layer of grime and filth on your music to go with the beer and cigarette... More >>
• Best Bar for Off-Track Betting and Video Golfing
  Horse & Hound Off Broadway
  1320 East Broadway, Tempe
  480-967-7977
  Worried that someone from your Gamblers Anonymous group might catch you at Greyhound Park? Then Horse & Hound is the bar for you -- the OTB parlor regularly features simulcasts of some of the biggest races around. The H&H is also the place for enthusiasts of the wildly popular Golden Tee golf... More >>
• Best Boho Bar
  Emerald Lounge
  1514 North Seventh Avenue
  602-256-9705
  Inside the cozy Emerald Lounge you'll find no oversize TVs belching out jock-o fare, no smug bartenders, and no barmaids whose hopped-up attitudes are in direct proportion to their surgically augmented breasts. Hell, the Emerald doesn't even employ a barmaid. What the lounge does offer is... More >>
• Best Noir Ambiance at a Topless Bar
  Bailey's Platinum Club West
  3522 Grand Avenue
  602-242-8147
  Sure, Bailey's is sated with archetypal showboaters in French maid outfits and Britney-ready schoolgirl garb who slither and spin to rock riffage like AC/DC and Buckcherry. But the scene is hardly reminiscent of the classic strip bar milieu portrayed accurately in the Crüe video for its... More >>
• Best Martini
  Harris' Restaurant
  3101 East Camelback
  602-508-8888
  "The Martini is to middle- and upper-class American society," says martini maven Barnaby Conrad III, "what peyote is to the Yaqui Indians: a sacred rite that affirms tribal identity, encourages fanciful thought and -- let's be honest here -- delivers a whoppingly nice high." We'll drink to... More >>
• Best Strawberry Daiquiri
  Tempe Improv Comedy Theater
  930 East University
  (at Cornerstone mall), Tempe
  480-921-9877
  Yeah, yeah -- we know what you're thinking. Rum, lime juice, a spoonful of sugar (powdered, of course) and strawberries -- a daiquiri is a daiquiri is a daiquiri. So what's so special about the Improv version? Rim shot -- the consistency! The Improv has mastered the perfectly blended daiquiri... More >>