In Phoenix for about ten years, I keep thinking I should do a review site. Phoenix is mostly a wasteland of endlessly repeating chain stores, but after long, hard, careful searching, a few gems have emerged. I'm cranky, and my annoyance at the sucky drives me to find the good, and this is the result of my effort. http://placestoseeinarizona.com/ is another excellent list (hey, I've done almost all of those things!) that focuses more on adventure and living life in AZ to the fullest. In no particular order:
Doctor: Your Neighborhood Doctor, Dr. Garcia, 6345 E. Bell Rd. Walk-in. I hate the whole "doctor's office" deal. Waiting an hour for a minute of someone's time who doesn't listen and then abruptly vanishes without warning is pointless and humiliating. I really can't explain the Your Neighborhood Doctor other than to say that they just don't do that, pointedly so. It's like the story where you walk into the executive office to have a confrontation with the CEO, find yourself confronted with an intelligent, sympathetic, thoughtful person, who turns out to be the janitor -- except in this case, he isn't the janitor.
Optometrist: Horowitz Vision Center. East of the Fiesta Mall in Mesa in the same complex as a chain optometrist. Got that small town business feel. Again, she loves her work enough that she broke out of the existing system so she could do it right.
Pubs with Good Beer: Popago Brewing: Laid back, local, 20 good beers on tap, great selection in the (large) cooler including Belgian styles, a local specialty. Four Peaks, north or south location: Good atmosphere, pretty good microbrew beer. The Hopknot is probably the most exceptional of the lineup. Bandersnatch was on the top of this list except the Tempe goons ran them off in their quest to McDonands-ize downtown Tempe. Fuckers. The Roosevelt: Seriously dig their Rogue fetish. Casey Moore's, just for it's college alternative vibe.
Food: Indian, just SE of University and Rural (aka Scottsdale). Also, the Copper Kettle. Aladan's for lunch, SE corner of 92th and Via Linda. Four Peaks has fantastic bar food too, bordering on gourmet but staying in the pub genre. Que Bueno in Fountain Hills has the best salsa and damn fine margaritas. Sakura Inn in FH is cute and the sushi chef sweet and genuine, but the new owner is extremely obnoxious and pushy. Sushi Ko on 92nd and Shea rocks for authentic and is better than the overpriced "experience" places. Nello's, two locations. Some good beers (used to have a lot more) and good pizza pies -- specialty stuff.
Internet: FastQ. Grew out of the local Apple user's group, but is a Linux, Solaris shop mostly. Everyone answers the phone there, and everyone you talk to knows their shit. Dedicated IPs are cheap and the ToS is permissive, and they don't screw with your traffic or bandwidth.
Coffee: This is a real flash point with me. Current set is Mill's End Cafe (on Mill), Three Roots (also on Mill but further down) for working, but the extremely boisterous and bizarrely ignorant college students frequent Three Roots and families with screaming kids and organizations composed entirely of fat old men frequent Mill's End. Inza Coffee NW corner of the 101 and Shea in Scottsdale: every "for here" latte order gets you coffee art! Open mics, music, art exhibits, free dance lessons, homemade food, outlets everywhere. Also, loud, obnoxious, shouting sales men on cell phones during the day. Bleah.
I'm sure I'll think of more later (and edit them in)...
-scott
