Bars & Nightlife >>

• Readers' Choices
  Best Bar Food Native New Yorker several Valley locations Best Bar For Conversation Merc Bar 2501 East Camelback 602-508-9449 Best Bar To Be Seen Six 7316 East Stetson, Scottsdale 480-703-3383 Best Bar To Watch The Game Goldie's Neighborhood Sports Cafe 10135 East Via Linda,... More >>
• Best Bar For Conversation
  Royal Palms Inn
  With its cushy, '40s-era floral-print-upholstered furniture arranged into intimate clusters, its warm amber lighting, and its generous cocktails, the Royal Palms bar is the most inviting place in town to go when your focus is on the person -- or people -- you came with. There's no dancing, and... More >>
• Best Sports Bar
  McDuffy's
  Don't dismiss McDuffy's just because it's popular and smack dab in the weekend chaos that is Mill Avenue (next to the Bash on Ash). Be wary only if you have a phobia involving multiple TV screens. (McDuffy's has 77 screens featuring every imaginable sports event on the planet.) The vibe is... More >>
• Best Pool Hall
  Pink E's Fun Food Spirits
  The bar is almost an afterthought at Pink E's; there's no question the place is all about billiards. In the middle of a shopping mall, with darkened windows and grunge music pounding inside, Pink E's draws a young bar crowd looking for that old-time pool hall atmosphere. More than 60... More >>
• Best Place To Wait A Long Time For A Table
  Bar Bianco
  If there's going to be a long, long wait for a table -- and Pizzeria Bianco still packs them in on any night of the week, so that's a given -- then the time might as well be spent in the comfortable confines of the little building next door known as Bar Bianco. Housed in an early 20th century... More >>
• Best Gay Bar
  Amsterdam
  Amsterdam is the gay equivalent of Scottsdale's trendiest hot spots, where some of the most beautiful and body-conscious people in the city hang out. This cozy, dimly lit room is light-years away from the seedy, back-alley bars that characterize much of the gay scene in Phoenix. Amsterdam is... More >>
• Best Punk Rock Bar
  Blue Ox
  Punk's not dead; it's alive and well at this friendly little dive that caters to the Mohawks-and-combats crowd, the local greaser kids and all leather-clad types in between. Something about the old Damned poster on the wall, the bartender wearing a dog collar and the Jaegermeister on tap makes... More >>
• Best Place To Play Scrabble
  The Thirsty Camel at the Phoenician
  The fairly nerdy game of Scrabble is riding a chic wave at the moment, but some of us have been playing all along -- at home, where no one but our closest friends and family could scoff and roll their eyes at our linguistic exhibitionism. But no more. We're outing ourselves, taking our boards to... More >>
• Best Hip-hop Night
  O'Mally's Sports, Spirits and Grill
  Gosh and Begorrah, isn't this where you'd expect to find great hip-hop? At a strip-mall hangout with an Irish name on the west side of town? O'Mally's has long juggled its two identities: sports bar by day, dance club by night, shifting musical genres depending on the day of the week. A year... More >>
• Best Place To Smoke A Cigar
  The Famous Door
  Dark and sultry like a Sinatra song, the Famous Door practically beckons you to pull up a barstool and blow smoke rings toward the bass player. Cigar smoking is almost expected in every dark corner of this swank supper club, with waiters ready to serve -- alongside a chilly martini -- almost any... More >>
• Best Twilight Drink
  Acacia - Four Seasons Resort
  If you can't afford to live up at Pinnacle Peak in some of the world's most spectacular desert settings, you can at least afford to rent the lifestyle for a few hours. It's easy, actually: Simply head up to Acacia, the Mobil Four-Star restaurant at Four Seasons Resort. Grab a table on the patio... More >>
• Best Bar Food
  Four Peaks Brewing Company
  No soggy mozzarella sticks or oily potato skins here. Four Peaks offers imaginative appetizers like Arizona chicken rolls (pastry-wrapped chicken, cheese and chiles) and spanakopita (phyllo dough stuffed with spinach, cheese, pine nuts and dill). The soups are homemade, and the salads come with... More >>
• Best Upscale Bar Food
  Roaring Fork
  The terrific food at Roaring Fork is no secret -- chef/owner Robert McGrath was named this year's Best Chef in the Southwest by the James Beard Foundation. But fewer folks know about his J-Bar, smack dab in the center of the restaurant and serving a killer, low-cost happy-hour menu Mondays... More >>
• Best Cocktail
  Merc Bar
  Enough with the overdone beverages featuring four kinds of rum, six kinds of juice and a sugar cane swizzle stick. And ditto for those so-called "martini" menus, on which every imaginable concoction is called a martini, even when licorice or chocolate is involved. And don't even get us started... More >>
• Best Place For Girls To Have Fun
  The Emerald Lounge
  Mermaids, manicures and specialty martinis usually don't mix with the aesthetic of a dimly lighted, seedy dive bar, but the Emerald Lounge pulls it off with panache every Monday night. That's when the Emerald, known for its nightly live music, strikes up the song of Lorelei and transforms itself... More >>