Randy Garsee
In the Sept. 28 Media Watch, John Schuster profiled KOLD Channel 13 news anchor Randy Garsee. Make that ex-news anchor. He was fired this week. John Schuster today talked to KOLD Vice President/GM Jim Arnold and Michelle Germano, the news director. The backstory, according to John: Garsee sent out an e-mail criticizing Germano’s managing style,…
Women Who Rock?
Sure, there are other, pressing, more important political issues going on right now, but this really chaps my hide: AOL’s Top 20 Women Who Rock Right Now is just wrong on so many levels, it’s hard to even begin. Granted, the list is on AOL, and hence has to reach a “mainstream” audience, and everyone…
RE: Mark Foley
It’s nice Foley is revealing he was molested by a clergyman as a teenager and all, but I think it would have had more impact had he done so before the scandal erupted. Now it just looks like groveling. I hope Democrats don’t get too self-righteous about the scandal. It sucks that this is the…
Your Tuesday Morning News Update
— The hubbub over Russell Pearce’s derogatory remark continues. — Those grumbles about Phoenix and Tucson merging? Well, one UA bigwig thinks it will really happen. — Got nukes?
On Foley
There are sooo many things I could say about the Mark Foley matter. Here are just a few things: — OK, so he’s checking into rehab. Good for him. However, even if he is an alcoholic, would that have ANYTHING to do with him sending inappropriate, sexual messages to underage boys? No, it would not.…
CD 8 Poll: Giffords Leads Graf
The latest Tucson Weekly/Wick Communications Poll shows that Democrat Gabrielle Giffords has an 18-point lead over Republican Randy Graf. The survey shows that 52 percent of voters surveyed supported Giffords, while just 34 percent supported Graf. Almost 10 percent of voters said they were undecided. “I think the poll shows broad, bipartisan support across the…
Republican Dumbass of the Day
This is … just sooooo stupid. Russell Pearce is a loon.
Zogby Poll
The Wall Street Journal has a neat little graphic featuring poll results from Zogby Interactive. It’s interesting. It shows Janet Napolitano leading that homophobe by only 9.4 points, while it has Jon Kyl leading Jim Pederson by a mere 6.5 points. What to make of all this? Probably nothing. Nonetheless, it is interesting.
Innocence and Lust
Michel Gondry makes an almost-perfect movie about dreams
Building Bonanza
Architecture Week returns to bring the good-design word to the masses
Best Outdoor Venue
Every metro area of a certain size boasts at least one “shed”–the entertainment industry’s term for an open-air venue with sloped seating and, beyond that, a lawn area for those looking to save a few bucks on their tickets. Approaching its fifth anniversary, the Anselmo Valencia Tori Amphitheater is a fine specimen of a shed,…
Best Barbecue
Once upon a time in Kentucky, a certain scurvy Best of TucsonTM writer was treated to “real barbecue” by the locals. Expecting some tiny hole-in-the-wall smokehouse run by crusty, gap-toothed folk, he was instead shown the inside of a behemoth known as Famous Dave’s. Much to his pleasant surprise, they served up big fat piles…
Best Dining Deal
Once every quarter, this union of local independent restaurants comes together for a fundraiser for their organization: They offer gift certificates to all participating restaurants. The good news: The gift certificates are offered at 60-70 percent of their face value. The bad news: They’re offered online only, and chaos tends to ensue when they release…
Best Playground
While Reid Park doesn’t have a rolling wheel on which to stage a sword fight, it does have lots and lots of things on which to climb, swing and play. There are poles shaped like Keira Knightley, slides slipperier than Captain Jack Sparrow’s personality and swings scarier than Bill Nighy’s makeup. Plus, without having to…
Best Place in Town to Spend the Day Outdoors
Sabino Canyon has been a favorite for generations of Tucsonans who have spent lazy days playing in the cool ponds and invigorating hours hiking on the trails. One of the most popular trails is to Seven Falls, which is 2 1/2 miles from the trailhead. An activity favored by many is riding the tram up…
Best Seafood
Despite the fact that the same folks behind the Kingfisher recently opened the Bluefin Seafood Bistro on North Oracle Road, voters rallied once again behind this brilliant midtown eatery–no doubt for the oysters, clams and mussels, the macadamia-nut-encrusted Hawaiian fish, grilled marinated sea scallops, pan-seared Atlantic salmon and grilled Pacific sea bass. It’s a dreamy…
Best Baristas
There’s a good reason why Starbucks has revolutionized the espresso drink, and it’s mostly because of their baristas. Every single wannabe barista has to go to Coffee College (yup, that’s really what they call it) and pass a certification test before they’re even allowed near the espresso machines. We should know–we’ve been there, done that.…
Best Park
Tucsonans sure know how to diversify. We outfit our landscape with water-wise xeriscaping and cherish our cactuses. On the other hand, we love our leafy shade trees and grassy expanses, as in Reid Park. It’s like the Central Park of Tucson, with multi-use paths, a golf course, a swimming pool and facilities for just about…
Best Dry Cleaner
If a baby spits up strained carrots on your favorite silk dress; you get mauled by a Rottweiler at your birthday party, spilling vital fluids all over your adorable cashmere sweater; or, God forbid, you soil yourself while trying Margaret Cho’s persimmons diet, then Weekly readers would like to suggest a visit to Sparkle Cleaners.…
Best Men’s Fashions (locally owned)
Even in casual Tucson, the well-dressed corsair won’t settle for just another grubby eye patch. Set a course for Franklin’s, where you can find an entire alphabet of fine menswear, from Allen-Edmonds (spiffy dress shoes) to Zanella (impeccably tailored Italian slacks). The salesmen offer ample help with something more like generosity than pressure; while you’re…
Best Eyeglass Frames
In this hot, dry, dusty place, only fools wear contact lenses. Optical Image is Tucson’s source for unique stylish eyeglass frames. In addition to status designer logo (Chanel anyone?) eyewear, Optical Image stocks great designs from lesser-known European and Japanese companies that focus on style and quality. The selection ranges from glittery Hollywood rhinestone extravagances…
Best Wine Bar
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of … 1995 Chateau Grand Mayne Bordeaux? Only quality quaffs are allowed in the treasure chests that are 58 Degrees and Holding Co.; Two-Buck Chuck walked the plank long ago. Not only can you sip fine wines by the glass (or by the three-ounce “taste,” for half the price), but you…
Danehy
Tom gets his game on, college football-style
A Load of Humor
‘Jackass Number Two’ is the No. 1 box-office movie in America–God help us
Beautiful Minds
Pamela Portwood transforms mental anguish into artful poems
Best Dance Theater Reunion
Tucson’s O-T-O troupe brought dance back to the magnificent old theater for the first time in about 50 years. Meticulously restored under the leadership of artist Herb Stratford, the jewel-box theater reopened to a gala crowd on New Year’s Eve, after being closed for some 30 years. A series of performances followed, but the O-T-O…
Best Sandwich
Man cannot live by bread alone–usually there must also be a filling. Beyond Bread bakes more kinds of great bread than you can shake a stick at, and while they’ll sell you a loaf intact, you’d be well advised to let them slice it up and make you one of a couple dozen big, scrumptious,…
Best Tourist Attraction
Many locals feel that the best thing about Tucson isn’t the city itself–it’s the location. The Sonoran Desert is one of the most unique and beautiful ecosystems in the world, and we live right in the middle of it! Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of opportunities to really experience its flora and fauna here in…
Best Birthday Party Place
Balloons, pizza, air hockey, video games, soda and other kids who we don’t know having birthdays on the same day. And all this for a reasonable price that will allow parents to have money left over to buy the birthday kid something extremely electronic. We’ve all been to at least one birthday party at Peter…
Best Place to Fish
Anyone who has lived in Tucson for any length of time and has not visited Rose Canyon Lake has some catching up to do. And although there are no bad times to check out this little watery wonderland, summertime is one of the best as the temperature at Milepost 17 on the Catalina Highway is…
Best Steakhouse
Yeah, River Road is all chewed up. There’s a lot more development than there used to be, and the setting is losing its charm. But go inside, and it’s the same old dependable El Corral that decades of Tucsonans have gone to for celebrations, to impress a date, what have you. Dress, especially in the…
Best House-Blend Coffee
Not only is Raging Sage a repeat winner in this category, but it is also a repeat winner in multiple categories as far as coffee is concerned. (Somehow, some big chain joint won in the barista category–we demand a recount! Or at least a careful reading of what “Best of TucsonTM” means.) The blend here…
Best Local Activist/Advocacy Group
It’s hard to imagine a Tucson gay scene without LGBT community center Wingspan. The nonprofit provides a bewildering array of programs, including intervention services for victims of violence, social services for all ages and gender identifications, and even a film festival. Wingspan is also active politically, working its magic to defeat Proposition 107 and encourage…
Best Florist
We love them for their down-home service–if you are looking for an inexpensive yet attractive bouquet for your kid’s kindergarten teacher, they’ll come up with something fantastic (and within budget) in no time. The stores’ murals delight us as we pass by. And the messages on the store signs, whether an offering of support for…
Best Video Store
The Black Pirate (Rage of the Buccaneers), 1926, Douglas Fairbanks vehicle; Los Corsarios del Chip (Pirates of the Chip), 1996, Spanish suspense involving computer hackers; Crimson Pirate, 1952, Burt Lancaster parodying ’30s swashbucklers; Davy Crockett and the River Pirates, 1956, a river race with Mike Fink; The Ice Pirates, 1984, water-seeking space pirates; Jonny Quest:…
Best Hot Guys in Retail
We don’t know how they do it, but all the guys that work at Rum Runner are HOT, HOT, HOT! The staff at Rumrunner looks more like a group of employees one would expect to find at a bike shop or something (read: 20-something and yummy). While one shops through Rumrunner’s extensive collection of wines,…
Best Signature Cocktail
If you want to feel like you’re in the tropics, but don’t have the dough for a plane ticket to Fiji, check out the Kon Tiki Restaurant and Lounge and its signature drink, the Scorpion. This aptly named, thoroughly delicious citrus and rum concoction not only stings, but after a couple of hits, anesthetizes its…
Tuttle
When it comes to age milestones, which represents the best of our lives?
Now Showing at Home
“Lady Vengeance,” “Jackass the Movie: Unrated Special Edition,” and “The Office: Season Two”
Noshing Around
New: Ascolese’s Italian Ristorante Joe Ascolese, the former owner of Jersey Joe’s, moved downtown to the former home of Samaniego Place, in between the Tucson Convention Center and La Placita Village. The restaurant serves Jersey-style Italian fare such as mussels marinara, homemade ravioli, Italian steak and pork chops. Lunch is served weekdays from 11 a.m.…
Best Painting Exhibition
Bailey Doogan scored a dazzling two-venue exhibition of her monumental paintings and drawings at both the art museum and the city’s leading contemporary gallery. A longtime beloved professor of painting at the UA, now retired, Doogan’s shows traveled through decades of her work, from an early lampoon of Minnie Mouse right up to a painting…
Best Pizza
Of all the perennial Best of TucsonTM winners, Magpies is the most often bitched about. People complain that Magpies has an unfair advantage because of its multiple locations. Some folks lob allegations of ballot stuffing. Well, take it from someone with intimate knowledge of the ballots: Magpies wins every year because hundreds of real, legitimate…
Best Farmers’ Market
We’re so tired of shopping centers starting “farmers’ markets” with the cynical motive of increasing foot traffic. Finally, the Santa Cruz River Farmers’ Market is the real thing. Tucked in the trees and picnic tables of the Santa Cruz River Park, it’s a dynamic mix of real farmers and backyard gardeners, old-school westside neighbors, downtown…
Best Fun for the Whole Family
Maybe it’s the way the giraffes are fed so that they’re right in front of you, tongues working away to grab a nibble. Or the envy one feels when one watches the polar bears swimming around in their refrigerated pool. Or walking around through the double-doored aviaries where kids (and their parents) can be in…
Best Urban Wildlife Walk
Many a startled motorist has noticed that there is a pack of urban coyotes that calls the central stretch of Broadway Boulevard home. Enjoyed by some, feared by others, these cosmopolitan critters are a symbol of the vibrant desert ecosystem that has adapted to life in the big city. The neighborhood bordering the Arroyo Chico…
Best Sushi
Sushi-Ten must be doing something right to be voted “Best Sushi” for six years in a row. Belly up to the sushi bar and get an artfully decorated plate of sashimi, or generously thick, melt-in-your-mouth pieces of nigiri, or the ever-popular deep-fried Vegas roll. The fish is fresh and tasty, and for dessert, you can…
Best Café Hangout
The key to this category is “hangout.” It’s not so much about great coffee, savory sandwiches or a multitude of sweet treats, although Epic has all those things and more. No, it’s about the funk. It’s about anchoring the north end of Fourth Avenue, that vein of funky gold in Tucson’s core. It’s about the…
Best Public Servant
It’s the mustache. Chicks dig the mustache. Runners up: 2. Bob Walkup, www.ci.tucson.az.us/mayor.html 3. Karin Uhlich www.ci.tucson.az.us/wardthre.html
Best Sex Toy Shop
Hey, remember when you were a kid, and your mother told you never to put anything bigger than your elbow in your ear? Well, thank God for Fascinations and the fact that whether you’re a guy or a gal, there are no holds barred on your rear. You want double-barreled dildos? Fascination’s got ’em in…
Best Retail Music Store
You may not be able to find a CD of your favorite 18th-century hornpipes, reels or jigs–then again, you might–but if you’re looking for the latest by Pharrell, Hawthorne Heights, LeToya or Tom Petty, Zia has been the place to shop for music, and an Arizona tradition, for more than two decades. You can often…
Best Auto Mechanic
You walk in to an aura of calm. Classical music plays quietly in the background. The staff members all greet you warmly. The coffee pot is always on, and they have free snacks and bottled water. The place is immaculately clean. These are all fine, but the best part is that these folks are impeccably…
Best Wine/Liquor Store
Grog was Jamaican rum, diluted with water and fed to the Royal Navy guys chasing pirates around the Caribbean. You can’t really buy grog at Plaza Liquors, but they have a fine selection of rum. And beer. And wine. And other liquors. Stacked almost to the ceiling. Typical excited comment from an employee: “We got…
Best of Tucson™ 2006
About a year and a half ago, some of us Weekly folks were in a meeting when Best of Tucson™ art ideas came up. We were brainstorming, just in case an art-theme contest we were having didn’t work out. (It worked out beautifully, leading to last year’s Roaring ’20s theme, illustrated with Ruben Moreno’s elegant…
Guest Commentary
Considering the brainlessness of the teenage male, how does humanity survive?
Indie Watch
What’s happening in the world of independent film in Tucson.
Seal of Approval
Trident Grill goes above and beyond the usual bar fare
Best Artist By Which to Be Pleasantly Creeped Out
Scally’s work is a weird but curiosity-arousing combination of photorealistic figure drawing, portraiture and anthropomorphism that juxtaposes humor and horror to pleasingly disturbing effect. Her sometimes-nightmarish dreamscapes are little insights into human and animal bodies and faces, and much of what she does is the art-world equivalent of observational humor: Wouldn’t it be funny and…
Best Tortillas
Again and again, this westside spot wins in this category, and with good reason: The tortillas are warm, soft and huge! The only way you could make anything close at home is if you had a nana in your kitchen. They also make gorditas, the smaller, slightly thick version. No corn tortillas, though, but that…
Best Place to Get Free Stuff
OK, so it’s not exactly “free” stuff–you have to donate blood first. But really, that’s not so bad–you get to lie in a comfy chair, roll a stress ball that looks like the Earth in your hands and chat with the friendly techs. Not much to do for some Fig Newtons and a can of…
Best Summer Pool
This pool provides endless shrieking summer fun. It has built-in water toys that won’t let you stop giggling, no matter what your age: a purple horse head that allows the operator to spray complete strangers with water; the highest, fastest, twistiest waterslide of any city pool; and our favorite, the buckets, a device that empties…
Best Place to Meet Spring Wildflowers
After a few chilly months by the fire, the desert rewards Tucson’s patience with a fireworks show in the form of wildflowers. Bright blooms of owl clover, Mexican gold poppies, penstemon and bluedicks (yes, that’s what it’s called) crop up in every nook and cranny. A particularly picturesque enclave can be found at the eastern…
Best Thai
There’s pretty tough competition for Best Thai in these parts, as both runners up are fine establishments. But you, the farsighted crew of Weekly readers, landed on Char’s Thai as your favorite. Maybe it was the many seafood delicacies, the squiggly squids and curvy shrimps, floating in heavenly lagoons of peanut and coconut. Maybe it…
Best Local Coffee Roaster
The best coffee roasting in town is going on in the little coffeehouse on Campbell Avenue. Great care is taken to create coffee that has the optimal blend of flavor and acidity. Everyone knows that pirates started the Fair Trade movement, although their recent participation has been actively discouraged. Raging Sage offers a selection of…
Best Day Spa
Ye haggard hair, ye weathered skin … where’s a salty wench or cap’n to go? Catch a trade wind to one of the multiple convenient locations of Gadabout SalonSpas. At Gadabout, you only need one eye to see that comfort is the No. 1 priority! From the plush waiting area to the exotic beautification services,…
Best Gentlemen’s Club
Boys’ night out? Girls’ night out? Curves Cabaret is the place for all-around entertainment in our category of Best Gentlemen’s Club. Beautiful women abound in this trendy hotspot, which has multiple stages, a VIP room and more drink specials than you can shake a booty … um, stick at. The club is 21 and older…
Best Women’s Fashions (locally owned)
Are you missing the thrill of spending hundreds of dollars on a pair of jeans? You won’t be for long if you head to Zoe, the upscale boutique on Fourth Avenue, just south of University Boulevard. If you can afford designer duds, or if you just like to pretend you can while trying them on,…
Best Warehouse Sale
Once a year, fans of colorful Berryware line up early to elbow their way into a crowded throng of women pushing and grabbing colorful bowls and plates for much less than what they can pay in trendy gift stores. Think of a static roller derby of women who want it all, especially the lime green…
Best Cosmo
Imitating the posh ladies from HBO’s Sex in the City is now easier than ever in Tucson, thanks to Laferlita’s cosmopolitans. The tasty cranberry, vodka and Cointreau orange liqueur concoctions are served up with a splash of lime juice and a twist of orange peel. The sleek ambiance and delicious munchies make for a delightful…
Happy BOT!
A note from the editor.
Top Ten in Movies
Casa Video’s top rentals for the week
Best Fine Art Gallery
You have to wonder: Were there any serious pirate artists out there? Between the raping, the pillaging and the drinking, do you suppose any of those scurvy bastards had an artistic side? (This is a free master’s thesis idea for an enterprising UA student). Meanwhile, Etherton Gallery is 25 years old this year. Good for…
Best Functional Art Installation
Daniel Martin Diaz is a nationally established visual artist who often combines the Catholic imagery of his upbringing with sepia-toned gothicisms creating dramatic, moody pieces of elegiac beauty. He is frequently commissioned for various projects, including an album cover for the Christian goth-rock band POD, fixtures and design elements for New Orleans hotels that are…
Best Ice Cream
A daily double dip from Cold Stone Creamery can be a great motivator to quit smoking: It can make the inevitable 15-pound weight gain seem worth it. Lose your guilt about lengthening the line while you go through all the tasting spoons you require. Cake batter actually tastes like cake batter; cotton candy tastes like…
Best Dog Park
About eight years back, we used to have a category called Best Dog Walk in City Life–this was before the days of legal, leash-free dogs runs in the city. Sure, there were always illegal places to let your hounds roam wild, but it’s a lot safer to take Fido to a dog-designated, fenced-in, grassy knoll…
Best Halloween and All Souls Procession Costumes
The All Souls Procession and Halloween are almost here, and making your own costume is the best! SAS is a treasure trove of sparkly princess fabrics, ferocious fake furs, uniform badges and gold braid for sergeants and officers, stretchy mummy wrappings, cutesy-pie calicos for Bo-Peeps, amphibious green vinyl for frogs, dangly tassel trims, boxes of…
Best Open-Air Retro Romp for You, Your Friends and Your Parrot
After years on the high seas, swooping at helpless villagers and flying from masts, what’s your landlocked avian sidekick to do? Take Lord Flappy and a few of your best mateys down to Magic Carpet Golf! This relic of the past makes for a perfect daytime activity, and Flappy’ll love perching atop the majestic sphinx,…
Best Upscale Dining
Birthday? Anniversary? The Grill at Hacienda del Sol is such a classic place to celebrate that they’ll ask you what the occasion is when you make the reservation. Even getting there is special. The winding drive up to the old luxury guest ranch in the foothills between River Road and Sunrise Drive makes you feel…
Best Tea Service
Picture this: Your mother docks in town, attempting to convince herself that you are not leading a life of thievery, assault and pillage. What’s a ruffian to do? Trade in those skulls for paper lanterns and take her straight to Seven Cups for an authentic tea experience, reminiscent of your long hours in the Far…
Best Local TV Newscast
An accomplished buccaneer finds success taking advantage of the weaknesses of an established authority. In the realm of television news, nothing was more established than KVOA’s stranglehold on the top spot. But that two-decade status quo was abruptly usurped once a renegade news team started creating waves. News anchor Randy Garsee guided the KOLD sloop…
Best Goth/Leather Shop
Whether you’re looking for a leather collar for your slave, or more animal-friendly fun in the form of liquid latex body paint, Hydra’s got it. Delighted customers range from giggling 30-somethings toddling in tipsy after cocktails in the lobby bar of Congress, to club kids on the prowl for a new outfit, to the straight-laced…
Best Resale Clothing
Since when do high fashion and consumerism go hand in hand with recycling? Well, here in Tucson, at least since 1974. That’s when Buffalo Exchange first opened its doors to fashion- and budget-conscious citizens, offering both an affordable resale shopping experience and the chance for those with stuffed closets and empty wallets to exchange their…
Best Place to Solve a Crime
As independent bookstores struggle in the Amazon and big-box book world, a niche genre bookstore can be found neatly tucked on a side street in the retail revolving door known as Broadway Village, located just west of the intersection at Country Club Road and Broadway Boulevard. Mystery lovers can get their fix among the well-stacked…
Best-Tasting Local Brew
Of course there’s the cool name, the monkey and the local angle, but the bottom line is that Nimbus makes excellent brew. Really excellent. (We keep the fridge stocked with the pale ale: It’s bitter and sharp and tastes great in the heat.) Nimbus makes ales and stouts and not lagers because of the nature…
Mailbag
Howls of outrage and squeals of delight from our astonished fans.
The Argentine Swede
José González uses his light, airy tenor to bring focus to messy emotional issues
Best Art Museum
This year’s exhibits no doubt had something to do with this perennial winner’s repeat performance. Deborah Butterfield’s stunning scrap metal/found-wood horses, an exhibit of the lacy cut paper art from Mexico and the touring Birdspace: A Post Audubon Artists’ Aviary wowed visitors. And the permanent collections, which include a 1,900-piece collection of Art of the…
Best Graffiti
Graffiti, like any other form of expression, has a wide range of quality, ranging from undecipherable crap all the way to incredibly elaborate murals that make a persuasive argument for their own status as public art (Tom Danehy’s opinions notwithstanding). Stencils, a common downtown graffiti style, have the advantage of uniformity and recognizability; even if…
Best Bagels
This popular chain, which has several Tucson locations, refutes old-school bagel logic. Although many cantankerous transplants from back East have been known to insist that real bagels are hard, tasteless hockey pucks baked without the benefit of asiago, sun-dried tomatoes, raisins or blueberries, Bruegger’s proves bagels can taste delicious and not destroy your dental work.…
Best Car Wash
Face it: We live in a desert. Hence, washing the car regularly is as pointless as sweeping the dust off your porch: It’s just gonna get dusty again, my friends, and all that water you just wasted could have been saved for thirsty orphans. You wouldn’t want orphans to go thirsty all because you wanted…
Best Summer Excursion
Where the ice cream trucks shop! Bring your cooler to lug home wholesale boxes of orange creamsicles and red, white and blue bomb pops and frozen SpongeBob thingies. If you ask nicely, they will give you vinyl stickers with your favorite popsicle on them, so you can customize Dad’s car to look like an ice…
Best Outdoor Place for a Quickie
Consider this: You just got done watching one of the Friday the 13th movies with a loved one, and you want to live out one of its scenes. Chances are that you don’t fancy running by a killer in a hockey mask, but you want to go on a hike and have an intimate moment…
Best Casual Dining
We love how B-line creates a whole experience, not just a meal. We remember the months it took to prepare the space before it opened, every detail exquisitely designed and crafted. The food matches the décor: hip and urban and expertly prepared. It’s fun to sit at the counter facing Fourth Avenue and people-watch. Save…
Best Bulk Tea Selection
Tea isn’t just a beverage. In some places, it’s a religion. Tucson’s most distinguished temple of tea is Seven Cups, a serene, otherworldly retreat on Sixth Street where you can drink it, learn about it or buy it in bulk. (Did you know that the powdered tea that comes in bags is called “dust” in…
Best Radio Station for News
There’s nothing worse than sitting in traffic on a hot afternoon in Tucson, unless it’s sitting in traffic ignorantly. One option to put your mind elsewhere: Tune your radio to 89.1 FM and distract yourself from the sun and bad drivers with good old National Public Radio. Offering everything from your basic local and world…
Best Urban Walk
Downtown Tucson New in February 2006, the Presidio Trail is a self-guided, 2.5-mile walking tour that meanders through Tucson’s history, leading walkers past 23 Hohokam, Spanish, Mexican and Arizona territorial sites. The trail is a line of turquoise paint on the sidewalk so you can’t get lost. It winds through plazas and parks, over bridges,…
Best Antiques/Kitsch/Collectibles
Meander through Annabell’s Attic, and experience a heady déjà vu of fussy aunts and black-and-white television programming. This is the stuff that was in our grandmothers’ houses that we wish we’d had the good sense to hold on to … but how do we schlep around massive china cabinets filled with colored-glass collections? Here, you…
Best Store to Buy Vinyl
PDQ Records was recently converted into some bizarre bazaar. Enter Twist and Shout, opened by Fantasy Comics owner Tom Struck and staffed with some PDQ expatriates. The affinity for polyvinyl chloride is as palpable here as a pirate’s love of booty or a fat kid’s lust for cake, and the range of titles spans the…
Best Martini (TIE)
The light is lava-lamp ookey. The air is murky; the 1961-preserved-in-amber thing is weirdly cool; the martinis are dirty. Actually, they’re any way you like them, and very good. If you crave that extra dimension that only the tickle of cigarette smoke, the click and rumble of billiard balls and a dark room full of…
Truth and Consequences
Are Proposition 301’s backers selling a bill of goods?
Conversation With Nina
Sometimes you don’t have to talk about the music
Best Mural
Best mural … in a town like ours, this is indeed a toughie. A dastardly scheme undertaken by the city of Tucson to deny our seafaring origins, this beauteous stretch of wall illustrates what the town must have looked like in days of yore–preening men in fedoras, snazzy ladies in fur, silly old hats. Yes,…
Best Act of Theatrical Piracy
The people running Rogue Theatre announced early on that they were interested in text-based drama, not theatrical glitz, and they’ve taken to plopping short stories and poems right on stage as if they belonged there. Cynthia Meier’s adaptation of James Joyce’s short story The Dead was an especially brave, difficult and rewarding project last March.…
Best Burrito
Whether you are running late for work and need a quick bite to eat, or you are too intoxicated to drive and need to sober up, Nico’s Mexican Food has got your back! For years, Nico’s has been a favorite among college kids and the Tucson locals because of its scrumptious menu and cheap prices.…
Best Local Film Event
The first Friday of every month, the Loft hosts a short film contest that has very few rules and no prescreening process. On the day of the contest, hopeful filmmakers submit shorts no longer than 15 minutes, and they roll in the order they were received. After three minutes, a giant gong is illuminated, and…
Best Local Web Site for Kids
Yes, library computers can be used for good. This Web site has just about everything for precious young minds. The incredibly user-friendly site allows kids to click on such categories as Storytime and Events, Fun and Games, Be Safe, Kids’ News, Homework Help and, of course, Find-A-Book. The site is updated on a regular basis…
Best Place to Seek Solace Close to Home
For many of us who jones for a nature fix and seek outdoor solace close to home, this little eastside Eden soothes the savage beast and settles the nerves. The area’s decade-long drought has taken a toll, and not all of the three lagoons are at high water mark presently. But there’s booty enough to…
Best Outdoor Seating
Tucsonans have a love affair with dining al fresco. What makes Blue Willow the quintessential favorite year after year has to do with perception. The sides of the patio are enclosed with thick green vines and potted plants abating parking-lot fumes and noisy traffic whizzing by. Overhead clouds roll by on the other side of…
Best Brunch Item
This 20-year-old Tucson institution launched its Sunday brunch earlier this year, and the menu did not disappoint. For a mere $20, hungry brunchers can get an entrée–ranging from prime rib to a special spinach salad–coffee or tea, all the pastries you can eat and a beverage (our favorites vacillate between the bloody mary and the…
Best Country Music Station
KIIM FM, a perennial favorite in this category, has systematically eliminated its rivals Michael Corleone-style to win Best of TucsonTM. Well, OK, that’s not exactly true, but it could be argued that KIIM’s quality playlist and promotions like “Quest for Gold,” where one can win a Disneyland Pirates of the Caribbean vacation (we swear we’re…
Best Fast Casual
Zivaz shows most other restaurants of the fast-casual ilk the way it should be done. Instead of small font on a black board, the menu is well-lit and easy to read. After the food gets delivered to the table, service doesn’t disappear but continues, as the affable managing partner walks around asking everyone how the…
Best Art/Artisan Jewelry
Marooned down in the exotic Lost Barrio, among warehouse stores crowded with booty shipped in from all over the seven seas, Bohemia specializes in the work of local bohemians. Some 200 local artists ply their creations in an enterprise that is half gallery, half shop. Functional arts such as one-of-a-kind clothing, candles and ceramics are…
Best Place to Find a Zither
The Folk Shop has a tremendous collection of musical instruments that is far afield of the standard fare. A short list to give you some idea of the breadth of their offerings: hammer dulcimers, dobros, ouds, charangos, guitarrons, bagpipes, djembes, limberjacks, and of course, that simple but effective rhythm unit, the zither (think of that…
Best Lowbrow Bar Ambiance
You walk in. This place says “bar.” Ray Charles on the jukebox. A woman with big boobs, a tiny skirt and cowboy hat playing pool and drinking a Bud. Graffiti-covered walls, stools and ATM. Heart playing on the jukebox. People who, if they aren’t pirates now, once were. Old toothless guys. Bikers. Young, white-bred frat…
The Skinny
POLLISH SAUSAGE From the Scramblewatch ’06 desk: The first two polls of the Congressional District 8 race are out–and the early news is pretty good for Democrat Gabrielle Giffords. In the poll of 500 likely voters commissioned by her own campaign, Giffords led Republican Randy Graf by a staggering 19 points. Giffords had the support…
Soundbites
THE CRAWL IS BACK Even with the relatively recent proliferation of music festivals around town, there is still none bigger than the Weekly-sponsored Club Crawls. While the Spring Club CrawlTM focuses entirely on local acts, the Fall Club CrawlTM includes mostly local acts, with some regional ones thrown in, too. And consider this a string…
Best Public Art
If you’ve ever wondered how Jonah felt, try walking through the Rattlesnake Bridge. There’s not a bad view up there, looking out from the belly of the giant diamondback rattlesnake beast. You can see downtown, A Mountain, Tumamoc Hill, the Catalinas, the Rincons (except for a big-ass billboard blocking the way) and the rest of…
Best Performance by a Thespian
In a season of outstanding one-person shows, Roberto Guajardo’s turn as an obsessed, God-haunted Dutch librarian in Under the Lintel was one of the year’s most compelling theatrical experiences. Expertly directed by the insightful Jennifer Bazzell, Guajardo played a character further removed from himself than those portrayed by the season’s other fine solo actors. And…
Best Smoothie
Get fresh. Xoom Juice uses 100 percent unsweetened juices, fresh fruits and organic dairy or soy products, along with supplement blends to fight colds, cure hangovers, stimulate brainwaves and relax stressed-out minds. A hip mix of a modern, almost futuristic décor and old-fashioned customer service keeps us coming back for more. Smoothies with monikers like…
Best, Prettiest Freeway Interchange
Anyone can build a freeway interchange–just look at Phoenix. But it takes real talent to make freeway architecture pretty. You may have noticed the geometric designs of various plants gracing the columns and walls of the I-10/I-19 interchange, as they’re blatantly obvious. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration, the designs were…
Best Sports Viewing Opportunity for Kids
Located in a really remote section of the UA football stadium, the Knothole area is great for families who want to experience Wildcat football without having to forgo having that next child. Special ticket prices for kids high school age and younger make it fun and affordable. The first 1,000 people in the Knothole section…
Best Breakfast
Visits to Blue Willow are never complete without a trip to the bathroom. Something about that diminutive bathtub filled with soil and thriving houseplants sums up the homey charm and loving care of the tiny cottage from which this Tucson institution grew. Its patio satisfies a Tucsonan’s sense of entitlement about eating breakfast outdoors, safely…
Best Late-Night Eats
After a long night of pillaging the desert, the only place to go to fill a pirate belly is Grill. Where else can a pirate get a bottle of Old Peculiar Ale and scrambled eggs at 1 a.m.? Plus, it’s a little-known fact that desert pirates are especially fond of Cap’n Crunch, and are known…
Best Fish Tacos
It was a busy downtown Tucson Saturday night, and we were dining at Barrio, one of downtown’s top haunts. After perusing the delicious (if rarely changing) menu, one dish caught our eye: the fish tacos. We asked what the fish of the day was, and we were chagrinned to hear salmon. No, no, no; salmon…
Best Pop Music Station
The term “pop music” has come to mean a lot of different things over the years–take the name of just about every musical genre in existence, add a hyphen and the word “pop,” and it’s already its own genre (e.g., punk-pop, dance-pop, jazz-pop, etc.). But at its root, pop music signifies that a lot of…
Best Place to Tag
Why scrawl graffiti out on the street when you’re welcome to put it on the wall at Bob Dobb’s Bar and Grill? Anything goes on these walls: profess your love, take a shot at your ex, explain relationship dynamics or just let the world know who gives good head. (Judging from what we’ve read on…
Best Commercial Jewelry
Pirate treasure is a gaudy lot. The most coveted booty seems to be enormous, brightly colored gems in ostentatious chunks of gold with heavy, rapper-worthy chains, all mixed with the coins of whatever realms happen to be raided. Plus, it’s filthy lucre: After all, it’s buried most of the time. Marshall’s is probably more to…
Best Place to Buy a Book on Global Warming
The greatest thing about living in a college town is having access to a college bookstore, and the UA’s is the best in the state. It’s not just for students. Don’t have time or money to take a class? Buy a book and educate yourself. Check out Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers and James Lovelock’s…
Best Gay/Lesbian Bar
It took only a few seconds watching the lone dancer on IBT’s back patio to decide Tucson has an entertaining gay bar. The gentleman shouted that he was “straight from the southside” as he gyrated, lifted his shirt up and rubbed his body from every angle imaginable. But it was when his hands shot skyward,…
Land in Limbo
A Rita Ranch landowner finds his property tangled hopelessly in red tape
Nine Questions
Jennifer Peters
Best Local Visual Artist (TIE)
Virtuoso Chris Rush joined the ranks of the immortals this year when one of his works was torn right from the walls of Etherton Gallery, putting him in the company of Edvard Munch, painter of the recently recovered “The Scream.” Apparently the piratical miscreant didn’t want to fork over the substantial sums this fine artist…
Best New Classical Music Group
For just a few months, violist Jose Flores and three pals from the UA music program, most of them graduate students, came together as the Sonora String Quartet. Despite all the tensions and technical and logistical problems involved with quartet playing, this ensemble purred along from the very beginning. Not that they took the musical…
Best Sonoran Hot Dogs
The original location sits across the street from “Friendly Plaza.” A sign warns the unwary, “Do Not Forget Your Hot Dogs–We Are Not Responsible Anymore.” Obviously they have serious pirate trouble here–people could take your hot dogs when you’re not looking! Once you’ve had one, you’ll know why. You order a hot dog, with everything…
Best Place to Get Lost in the Stacks
After a brief disappearance following a buyout, PDQ is back. Their collection of vinyl has been trimmed, but in this case, less is more. It’s still one of the best places in town to go and just browse for a good, long while. You don’t even need to buy anything; just go and reminisce. Or…
Best Summer Opportunity for Westside Kids
Fun, games, health care, movies, lunch and so much more is available to kids at this vibrant, welcome summer program run at the bustling El Rio Neighborhood Center. Kids can sample arts and crafts classes, play some ping pong, learn to dance or head outside for some basketball under the covered courts. There are field…
Behind the Voting: Best Place in Town to Spend a Day Outdoors
There’s really no better way to show off your backyard than by throwing a party. That’s exactly what Kurt Nielsen did when the Weekly contacted him about touring his nomination–his own backyard–for Best Place in Town to Spend a Day Outdoors. Festivities at the Nielsen family home, just southeast of the University of Arizona, were…
Best Vietnamese
Who’d have thought that after what we did to them 30 years ago, they’d still want to come here and make us delicious food? Well, the people who run Miss Saigon, located behind the hotel near the corner of Speedway Boulevard and Campbell Avenue, clearly don’t hold grudges. Their Vietnamese spring rolls are so light…
Best Meatballs
Mangia! Mangia! Yeah, Mama Louisa’s has generally great food, a family-style atmosphere and good prices. But it’s also worth noting that Mama Louisa’s is currently celebrating its golden anniversary–yes, after 50 years, Mama Louisa’s is still going strong. For lunch, they’ve got an all-you-can-eat salad and a cooked-to-order pasta bar (oh, and did we mention…
Best Rock Music Station
When it comes to rock radio in Tucson, KFMA takes the cake–since it has been voted best rock music station in Tucson for 9 out of 10 years, and this year is no exception. KFMA continues to rock, literally, and is home to the apparently world-famous World Famous Frank Show, which makes sure you’re rudely…
Best Place to Wear a Beret
Think there’s no place in town that feels like you’re dining on the Left Bank like a pirate in the French Revolution? Au contraire, Pierre. Ghini’s French Caffé is a little taste of Paris. We particularly enjoy the eggs provencale, a mélange of eggs, tomatoes, garlic and thyme. Try it with a crusty baguette on…
Best Home Furnishings
Oh, those Scandinavians and their wicked-cool furniture. Don’t come to Copenhagen if you have a thing for avocado-green recliners festooned with antimacassars. No, no, no. Copenhagen is the place for sleek and contemporary furnishings with a Danish-Italian twist. It’s hip; it’s cool; it’s “with it.” Think clean lines and a decidedly modern aesthetic. It’s a…
Best Sports Bar
In a city that practically lives and breathes college basketball, a good sports bar is a necessity. And with so many locations filled with huge televisions, it’s no wonder Famous Sam’s is the champion of this category once again. The local chain, which opened in 1963 as Sam’s Tavern on 29th Street, serves sandwiches, burgers,…
Best Bottled Beer Selection
Got the itch to try something new? How about beers from almost every continent on the globe? With their extensive bottled beer selection, The Shanty gets our vote for best bottled beer selection, although picking a second (and sometimes third) choice when ordering is suggested, since some of the beers are seasonal or unavailable. The…
Marriage Misinformation
Domestic partners–gay and straight–will lose out if Proposition 107 passes
Live
M. Ward, Lonna Kelley and the Broken Hearted Lovers, Rialto Theatre, Monday, Sept. 25
Best Local Performing Artist
For 10 years, Flam Chen has been perfecting the art of flame-throwing–they call it “pyrotechnic theater”–and every performance tells a story, like Ms. Spyder at her Combustible Tea Party, or the Monkey King. They fly, they fall, they spin, they dance on stilts, they wear fantastic masks and costumes, all while fiery balls circle and…
Best Caterer
Omigod, what a wonderful assortment of delicacies await those who eat at Feast, or those who take home. Chef Doug Levy, a longtime Tucsonan and veteran of the foodie revolution of the 1980s and ’90s, creates an ever-changing menu in his midtown galley, which has been described in these pages in the past as “an…
Best Vietnamese Sandwich
Also known as Lo Banh Mi Viet Nam Dau Tien Tai Tucson, this secret Speedway hole-in-the-wall dishes up an adventure for foodies. The Vietnamese sandwich is a little-known legacy of the French colonial era in Indochina: traditional Vietnamese ingredients served on a very French, very fresh baguette baked on the premises. Southeast Asian food has…
Best Vet
The receptionists at this veterinary clinic, which is housed in a cool modern building on the northwest side, dress like flight attendants and are courteous, knowledgeable and caring–which is definitely a good thing, as an emergency visit to the pet doc is rarely an experience that can be labeled “fun.” We’ve heard from several satisfied…
Best Urban Landscaping
One of us at the Weekly took a picture several years ago just outside the Arizona State Museum. It looks southwest, past a row of flowers leading up to the front steps of the museum building, at a lone student studying in the shade of a tree. The sun is shining as gently rolling hills…
Best Chinese
Chocolate wands fried in spring-roll wrap, with caramel dipping sauce, on a plate spread fetchingly with toffee crumbles, can’t really be anyone’s idea of Chinese food. The Lucky 8, as it is called, is a new dessert item, consistent with the inventive twists on traditional Chinese ingredients that characterize P.F. Chang’s menu. Diners used to…
Best Japanese
“Unique.” The Weekly’s own intrepid editor used this word in a review to describe Yoshimatsu, a favorite of diners throughout Tucson who enjoy good food in a kitschy Japanese atmosphere. We think it fits perfectly. Where else in town can you sup while red teddy bears eyeball you? (If you find another place, please let…
Best Tortilla Soup
Waiter, there’s an eye patch in my soup! In a town drowning in tortilla soup, Agave at the Desert Diamond Casino is Southern Arizona’s best-kept secret. For those who have been around for a while, does the name El Rapido ring a bell? Owned by Tony Peyron, his now defunct restaurant without chairs used to…
Best Radio Personality
Non-morning people fear not: Turn on The World Famous Frank show, and you’ll more than likely forget it’s 6 a.m. and you haven’t had coffee yet, especially if you’re in the mood for discussions like, “Who’s your favorite TV nympho?” or play-by-plays of co-hosts Stagz McNasty and Tic-Tac doing shots of Gatorade. It’s petty, immature,…
Best Hole in the Wall
Two famous “desert pirates” were Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, part of the Hole in the Wall Gang. Granted these guys hung out a little farther north, but they’d feel right at home at El Sur Mexican Restaurant. Located on 22nd Street just east of Craycroft Road, this “hole in the wall” joint serves…
Best Plant Nursery
Since 1984, Mesquite Valley Growers has been serving the Tucson area. The greatest thing about their plants is that they don’t inexplicably die. This may seem like no big deal to some readers, but to us Sunday gardeners, it is huge. You can keep your Wal-Mart and Home Depot shrubs and serve ’em up to…
Best Upscale Bar Ambiance
Located in La Encantada, NoRTH has all the elements to turn an ordinary watering hole into something MoRE! The wall of windows allow for a great city view, especially at night. The sleek décor with plenty of brick, wood, industrial piping and just the right amount of leather gives the place a Euro-modern feel. And…
Best Two-Buck-Chucking
Every Friday from 4 to 6 p.m., the wine-savvy staff at the Beverage House offers oenophile wannabes the opportunity to sample an assortment of four to five widely priced wines for a mere $2. Surprisingly, hordes of after-work drinkers and leisure retirees mingle through the aisles sipping and schmoozing. Usually, pizza is available for a…
The Range
A recap of last week’s news
Rhythm & Views
Fading Trails is a compilation of songs from four different recording sessions; there’s the Nashville Moon session, recorded with Steve Albini at his Electrical Audio studio in Chicago; the Black Ram session, produced by Cracker’s David Lowery in Richmond, Va.; the Sun Studio session, done at the famous Memphis, Tenn., studio; and finally, the Shohola…
Best Dance Production (Since 7/05)
In its second year as a fully professional company with paid dancers, Ballet Tucson once again put on the most classic of the city’s cornucopia of Nutcrackers. Staged at Centennial Hall, the production had a charming Victorian sensibility, complete with an intricately choreographed snow scene, velvety Christmas costumes and scores of cute little dancing tykes.…
Best Specialty Shop
The best place to find homemade cannoli, fresh pastas and any kind of olive oil you can imagine is Roma Imports. If you’re looking for some real Italian eats or just some really good pasta salad from the deli, this tiny shop hidden in the industrial park south of Broadway Boulevard is a haven. Now…
Best Milkshake
Ah, fat, calories and dairy all wrapped up in one delicious, illicit treat! Although longtime Tucson landmark Austin’s relocated to a former Souper Salad location several miles east of the original over the summer (and, if it must be said, service has suffered a bit in the tumult), this sandwich and soda shop still whips…
Best Summer Musical Treasure
For 10 years, the Bach Society has splendidly presented an eclectic mix of classical and contemporary pieces played on both traditional and innovative instruments. Among the summer doldrums, this series provides an affordable escape from the local cultural desert island. The recently completed four-concert season included works by Vivaldi, Verdi and Bartók, as well as…
Best Bike Riding
Out-of-towners must think Tucsonans are nuts. We complain about some of the lowest gas prices in the nation, call 90-degree summer days “cool” and label the Rillito River Park trail “the river.” True, the flow is pretty spectacular after the summer rains. It could be argued, though, that winter is the season in which the…
Best Diner
This is the place you’re most apt to muster a crew for your Black Pearl, or encounter landlubbing pirates enjoying hamburgers and a bottle of rum. Grill is belligerent about being welcoming, to anyone and everyone, 24-7. Its menu features a treatise on the subject. That doesn’t mean they’ll be nice to you or that…
Best Pan-Asian
With Chinese, Japanese and Thai influences, the menu at Firecracker provides a leisurely romp through the Orient–dock the ship in Bangkok for an appetizer, head over to Japan for some sake and sashimi, and then relax in Beijing with a generous helping of Buddha’s feast. It’s enough for more than one pirate to share. The…
Best Passion of the Crust
Gotta love this small Arizona-owned chain for having the best ads and billboards that frequently cause squeals of laughter and guffaws. Let’s salute the master of irreverent humor while reading the menu when there is no right from wong (chicken wings). You can order alfredo the dark, the lady is a scampi and zany ziti.…
Best Radio Talk Show (Host)
Amy Goodman is an honorary pirate. With her deep, resonating snarl and her deliberate question-asking, she leaps onboard the latest political struggle or social injustice, brandishes her journalistic machete and takes no survivors. Every show, her guests and commentators provide insight and perspective, and, unlike most news programs, Goodman lets her guests talk, unedited, so…
Best Little Neighborhood Buried Treasure
This little midtown deli/restaurant/wine shop/gourmet store has been around forever. Ted’s offers super-fresh sandwiches on fabulous bread and great little salads. It’s a get-and-go kind of place, but tables are available for eating in. The wine selection offers some boutique labels at pretty decent prices. Gourmet selections are heavy on pastas, sauces, crackers and the…
Best Sporting Goods
After being dethroned last year, Big 5 Sporting Goods has fought its way back with an impressive knockout victory to reclaim the prized Best Sporting Goods championship! With a gigantic pullout ad section every Sunday in the daily, it is hard to miss what is on sale every week at a Big 5. The best…
Best Nightclub
Club Congress is a home away from home for many of the local live-music seein’, late-night dancin’ and drinkin’ crowd. You can sit at the club bar and watch a band, and if that’s not doing it for you, go to the Tap Room and kick back in a booth to some jukebox tunes. If…
Best Manhattan
“Where can a woman find a good drink in this town?” This was precisely the question posed by a pirate wench as she swaggered into a bar in the Midwest. The bartender boasted that their specialty was the Manhattan, but then blew it by asking, “Would you like vodka or gin?” At a newer restaurant…
Media Watch
KOLD’s Smart-Ass Anchor Awaits His New Partner
Rhythm & Views
Tim Rutili’s lyrics are like a secret garden of language and imagery, evoking emotions more than revealing them. In fact, he’s said that what listeners bring to the experience is the most important component of meaning in his songs. Their effect is nevertheless inescapable, owing to the creative intensity of the arrangements, assembled from found…
Best Theatrical Production (Since 7/05)
ATC cooked up a good-lookin’ Hank Williams musical biography, starting with the miracle of Hank’s birth and going all the way to his death in the backseat of a car, his body laced with substances that didn’t belong there. It’s a too-familiar tale, but in Hank’s case, he managed to take enough time out from…
Best Desserts
All ye be warned–Something Sweet Dessert Lounge will capture your sweet tooth. This cozy dessert lounge offers an enormous variety of more than 40 cakes, pies, cheesecakes and specials, including the “Big A$$ Brownie.” To complement your dessert, take a pick from hot and cold teas, coffee, hot cocoa, soda or a good, cold glass…
Best Tapas
Tucson occasionally, and usually temporarily, has entertained an eatery dedicated to the Andalucian gastronomical heaven called tapas, but there’s never been one as delightful as the relatively new Casa Vicente–named for owner and Spanish expat Vicente Sanchez. Tapas are appetizers, small dishes from which can be built a complete meal, often shared family-style; the Spaniards…
Best Free Escape
If it’s intense pleasure you’re seeking, matey, check out these presentations held weekly in January and February. World travelers talk and show photos of their journeys so the audience can experience the fun and excitement of the trip without having to dive into their own pocketbooks. The resident librarian also displays books and other information…
Best Public Garden
Tucson Botanical Gardens is truly an oasis in the desert, a lush haven from the arid, busy city. Walk into the shaded entryway, and the cool, serene surroundings seem to envelop you. Gaze at the lovely silver pineapple guava trees–the fruits are as delicious as they sound!–and run your fingers over the healthy, thick bark…
Best Greek
For four out of the last five years, you’ve chosen this easy-to-miss Fourth Avenue restaurant presided over by Andreas Delfakis as serving the best Greek food Tucson has to offer–and considering the fine fare served by the runners-up in this category, winning four out of the last five years is no easy feat. The comfortable…
Best Mexican
The location and the décor have changed, but little else has. Conversion of the Santa Rita Hotel into condominiums sent Café Poca Cosa looking for a new home. Now, appealing aromas and taste treats at this culinary gem can be found at 110 E. Pennington St., in the ground floor of the Pennington Street Garage.…
Best Hidden Treasure
It’s unlikely that your average pirate would set sail for breakfast at the Tohono Chul Tea Room, seeing how it’s located in the middle of a landlocked desert park. But our pirate pals are missing out on big ol’ English muffins, thick French toast and an astonishingly good bacon, avocado and cheddar omelet, topped off…
Best Local Web Site
Once again, the astute readers of the Tucson Weekly have voted our very own Web site as the best of its kind locally. The third time’s the charm! We’d be tempted to credit our swell new blog (blog.tucsonweekly.com) if it hadn’t made its debut after voting closed and if we didn’t know for a fact…
Best Cheese Plate
Ah, the lovely little Monkey Box. There’s a style here not found in too many places in the Old Pueblo. Drinks, music and good company are all dressed up in industrial chic. And the food, well, let’s start with the artisan cheese plate. The cheeses are divine: tart and creamy, flecked with fruit and herbs,…
Best Outdoor Recreation Store
When it’s time to gear up for your own pirate expedition and head off to locales exotic and unknown, Summit Hut has been the place Tucsonans have gone to for a long, long time. They’ve got travel guides, water filters, water bottles, car racks, tents, sleeping bags and pads, backpacks, day packs, fanny packs, duffel…
Best Cocktail Menu
Ahoy and avast! Upon first sighting, sharper-eyed pirates will immediately notice that Kon Tiki is set up perfectly to be a regular outpost for mayhem. Indeed, Kon Tiki seems to target the discriminating pirate customer, as the establishment has thoughtfully installed a (currently dry) mini-river leading from the parking lot straight toward the door. So…
Best Place to Meet Errol Flynn for a Drink (Were He Still Alive)
For anyone too young to remember, Errol Flynn was the original movie swashbuckler, Captain Blood. His wild and raucous private life is legendary, but we’ll only speak of his drinking here. The Tap Room is Flynn’s kind of place. It’s a bar! A tavern! You go there to drink, man! The décor hasn’t changed much…
T Q&A
Tucson Q&A with Deborah Shelton
Top Ten in Music
CD City’s top sales for the week
Best Classical Music Performance (Since 7/05)
Our scurvy crew of readers, fighting among themselves, couldn’t settle on which Tucson Symphony performance this season was best, so here’s a suggestion: the May concerts under guest conductor Guillermo Figueroa. No offense to music director George Hanson, but the TSO players are always at their peak when they’re trying to impress a visiting maestro,…
Best Delicatessen
Tucson is, when you think about it, a town populated by pirates. Really! UA students sail over in their boat-sized SUVs, raid the town and navigate back home four years later. For the little-known Jewish pirates, kosher food is hard to come by on the high desert seas. They–and numerous others–know that Tucson is a…
Best Chicken Soup
As the cooler weather swings around, there cannot be too much chicken soup. Hot-and-sour soup, both the thick Chinese kind and the fiery, clear Thai version, Mexican tortilla soup and casuela, Greek egg-and-lemon soup–they’re all nourishing and so good. When it comes to heft, flavor and sheer eating fun, though, we vote for the nabeyaki…
Best International Update
Americans aren’t known for their knowledge of global issues. In fact, we’re downright dumb about many things which occur beyond our borders but which can affect us immensely. To find out what is happening, from front-page stories to recent pirate attacks in the South China Sea, listen to this one-hour program at 2 p.m. weekdays.…
Best Recreation Area in Southern Arizona
You want riparian, you want desert, you wanna ride your bike up the meanest, most mo-f**kin’, yet breathtakingly beautiful mountainside in Southern Arizona? Sabino Canyon is the place. It’s located at the north end of Sabino Canyon Road, tucked right up against the foot of the Catalina Mountains. If you’re feeling inert, there’s always the…
Best Indian
When a pirate gets home from work and wants to take the significant other out for a nice meal, where to go? How about someplace exotic, a place where the cares of the workaday pirate world just drift away. You walk into this place, and the wizened old visage of Gandhi himself stares calmly down…
Best Salsa
Of course the salsa at Guadalajara Grill is the best: You get to tell the nice lady who comes to make it tableside exactly how you want it. Mild, medium or hot; with everything or hold the cilantro; more tomatillos and fewer tomatoes–it’s up to you. She’ll spoon in salt, garlic, chiles, onion and other…
Behind the Voting: Best Smoothie
If what Mike Townsend says is true, Tucson’s best smoothie maker, Donna Mayfield, has been hiding her smoothie skills from all of us. But Townsend, her boyfriend, came forward with the information about these smoothies when he voted in the Best of Tucson™. The Weekly decided to investigate. I met with the smoothie expert and…
Best Gym
We’ve always found it distracting trying to work out while taking in the delicious eye candy at a gym. It’s hard to “feel the burn” when there are so many built studs wandering around, the sweat glistening on their bulging pecs. Attention is diverted every time they push and pull and press and make all…
Best New Bookstore
The Book Mark. Haunted Bookshop. Books West Southwest. Books Brothers. Coyotes Voice. And all the rest. All gone now, and sadly missed. The big-box bookstores invaded like a gang of bloodthirsty pirates–they took no prisoners and are here to stay. That said, they’re a nice place to go, meet a friend, grab a café mocha…
Best Bike Shop
Sailing the high seas may not be a viable option here in Tucson, but cruising the streets on one of Ordinary Bike Shop’s bikes is. Seasoned bikers and novices alike can choose bikes from a selection of cruisers, mountain bikes, road bikes and so forth at Ordinary. All are welcome to test-ride bikes of choice…
Best Happy Hour
Well, shiver me timbers! Yet another “Best Happy Hour” victory for Applebee’s, that omnipresent chain restaurant that spends millions of advertising dollars a year attempting to convince you that they’re just “part of the neighborhood!” And what neighborhood saloon is complete without a heapin’ assortment of grogs, bumboo and inexpensive grub? Nary, we tells ye.…
Best Wine List for a Not-So-Fancy Place
This is casual dining the way it should be. No frills, good food, smart service and a wine list that is a little out of the ordinary. A featured wine is always in the offering, and the choice here is usually something not found on every wine list in America. The owners, wine pirates in…
Police Dispatch
Lend A Hand Orange Grove and Shannon Roads, Sept. 6, 9:10 a.m. A woman said a man she didn’t know walked onto the edge of her property and asked if she could help him “jerk off,” a Pima County Sheriff’s Department report stated. The woman said she saw the man pushing a bike through the…
Rhythm & Views
Although in his mid-20s, rapper Travis McCoy perfectly captures the seriocomic frustration of a brighter-than-average adolescent male on the third album by this alternative hip-hop quartet. The foundation for the groovy music–which references not only Prince and Funkadelic but Burt Bacharach and Philly-style soul–is built on live bass, drums, guitars and keyboards. The CD was…
Best Sculpture Shows (TIE)
Butterfield galloped into the museum with a delightful collection of giant horses made out of scrap metal and farm tools. Her enormous equines seemed ready to whinny and trot, but they were not the conventional steeds of cowboy art. Instead, her horses veered close to abstraction; they were gargantuan line drawings in steel. Cajero’s dark…
Best Custom Cakes
As little girls around town go to sleep tonight, some of them may dream about their future wedding. It would be no surprise if a cake from Maribelle Cakery appeared in these dreams. Since 1992, Maribelle has baked cakes from scratch, using its own recipes. With distinctive cake flavors including lemon almond, spice cake and…
Best Coffee at a Coffee House With Wireless
We can’t resist saying it: We like Ike’s. It’s hip, friendly and locally owned, and the operational aesthetic is a civilized compromise between Starbucks and funkier local joints. Ike’s has heart, but it’s sleek, the tables aren’t sticky, and the staff moves fast. And the band is broad: You’ll see more laptops per table at…
Best Toy Store
Where else besides Yikes! would you find an action figure of Blackbeard next to one of Carl Jung? Among its vast array of treasures, this unique toy store has so much pirate merchandise, you’d think you were in Pittsburgh. While Yikes! keeps old favorites on hand, from children’s books to gooey eyeballs, it also periodically…
Best Hike
If you’re serious about this hiking stuff– requiring top-of-the-line boots and a GPS unit to get you to a summit somewhere, with the challenge to excel, prove, and conquer–this hike isn’t in the equation. If you’re the kind of hoofer who treks more for the experience of the road rather than the destination itself and…
Best Italian
Reading the menu at Gavi is an undertaking akin to perusing an almanac–small print, thick with detail and immutable fact, and replete with meatballs. Er, we suppose that last part is peculiar to Gavi. Nevertheless, the point is that Gavi’s selection is unequaled in the torpid confines of T-Town, which must be rather annoying to…
Best Mexican Fast Food/Drive-Thru
When you want to think outside the bun, you have several choices of quick Mexican food besides Taco Bell (thankfully). With Nico’s as the top selection, fast and delicious Mexican is only a short drive away–with 10 locations in town. With all of your favorites–delicious tacos, burritos, rice, beans and more–the menu is a treat…
Best Annual Festival
When the same event keeps winning year after year, there’s really not much more that can be said, is there? But this twice-a-year festival–usually in April and early December–always has a surprise or two. This is especially true of the arts and crafts sold there. Everything from handmade jewelry to furniture to clothing and more…
Best Hair Salon
Oh, how we love our locks … long, short, spiky, curly, wavy, straight, lowlighted, highlighted, layered and glossed. But first, there’s the aroma therapeutic shampoo, where experienced magic hands begin to pamper your soul. Just as we doze off, a smiling hair stylist takes you to her station and makes you feel like you’re the…
Behind the Voting: Best Greek
Growing up in the ’70s, the culture I experienced was pretty Americanized–The Partridge Family on television, meat and potatoes for dinner and KISS on the radio. But when my family took the occasional trip out of state to see my Italian grandparents, I got a taste of Old World customs. My maternal grandparents immigrated to…
Best Musical Instrument Store
Though it smells vaguely of dust and antiques, the Chicago Music Store is a pirate’s booty of gold and silver–musical instruments, that is. Whether you’re looking for something large like a bassoon or a tuba, or something small like a piccolo, you can bet that it’s buried somewhere in the plethora of instruments. But there…
Best Place to Dance
One thing you’ve got to adore about Tucson is its overall open-mindedness, and there’s no better place to bask in this than Club Congress. From straights to gays, from frat boys to goth types, they can all be found at Club Congress, dancing and drinking and just having a fantastic time together. Yeah, there may…
Best Men’s Restroom in a Fourth Avenue Bar
Club Congress may have that funky, brushed-metal thing going on with its bathroom. The porn plastered on the walls in The Surly Wench restroom gives you a little somethin’ somethin’ to look at while you’re relieving yourself. And the privacy accorded by Bison Witches’ single-occupancy facility can’t be beat when it comes time to make…
Pick of the Week
Snakes Galore
The Nature of Forgiveness
The performances make Beowulf Alley’s production of ‘Frozen’ something special
Best Movie Theater
Oh, how we love our Loft! They feature the indiest of the indies, quirky local film fests, a weekly Rocky Horror Picture Show screening, foreign films, documentaries, classics and cult faves. The theater even manages to lure industry big-shots such as Philip Seymour Hoffman to our dusty burg on occasion. Recent Loft extravaganzas include a…
Best Fresh-Baked Bread
Nothing compares to a fresh loaf of bread, made that day, crusty on the outside, perfectly moist on the inside … it’s a heaven you can digest. Beyond Bread makes about 30 different kinds of bread, all excellent. There’s sweet bread, like the chocolate babka or the cinnamon raisin, and there’s savory breads, like rosemary…
Best Paletas
Paletas are Mexican popsicles, and Paletería Diana is operated by the daughter of the Pico de Gallo family across the parking lot, so you know this will be something fresh, surprising and delicious. Diana offers a fantasia of more than 50 different kinds of paletas, unheard of even in Mexico. This is not self-conscious nouvelle…
Best Clothing Store
One of our colleagues was forced to walk the marital plank, meaning that he had to accompany his wife on a shopping trip to the mall. While there, he saw pre-torn clothing with holes and frayed edges being sold new for $100 for a pair of jeans and $80 or so for the matching (intentionally…
Best Backpacking Trail
Sometimes, a seaman just needs a break from all that yo-ho-ho wine, women and song stuff. They need a little quiet time just like the rest of us, communing with nature, smelling the flowers, doing a little bird watching that doesn’t involve a parrot and catching some shuteye in a place that isn’t always pitching…
Best Middle Eastern
Nestled in an alcove on University Boulevard is Tucson’s favorite Middle Eastern restaurant. This top-notch eatery has imported some of the finest vegetarian and meat dishes from the Middle East, including hummus, beef and chicken shawerma, babagannouge and falafel. Sinbad’s offers several authentic and splendid drinks, such as Turkish coffee. Diners have the option of…
Best Vegetarian/Vegan
Who would dare attempt to fool a carnivorous pirate with fake meat? Lovin’ Spoonfuls would, and they would fool those scurvy-ridden pirates to the bone. This Tucson vegan/vegetarian hotspot has divided its treasures into a breakfast menu that offers various tofu scrambles; a lunch menu that contains items such as soy sesame-chicken salad and a…
Best Spectacle for Charity
The Oxford Dictionary defines “spectacle” as “anything attracting public attention.” What could attract more public attention than 12,000-plus women, men and children decked out in pink ribbons, running to raise funds to fight breast cancer? Nothing our readers could think of. The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure is an annual 5k run held…
Best Bowling Alley
Instead of playing around with cannon balls on a rickety pirate ship, maybe you should consider a game of bowling at Tucson’s top-rated Lucky Strike bowling alley. As a well-suited venue for families, gaggles of teenagers and serious bowlers, Lucky Strike offers all the standard attributes of a bowling alley: enumerable well-polished lanes, florescent-colored bowling…
Best Used Books
What can we say about Bookmans? It’s practically an institution. For one thing, it’s huge, with by far the best selection of used books anywhere in town. It also offers CDs, movies, DVDs and video games at very reasonable prices, and it’s a great place to bring your old books and music if you need…
Best Pet Supplies Store
PetSmart encourages people to bring in their pets, and considering how many dogs there are in the stores at one time, they are remarkably well-behaved, treating the outing as an opportunity to make new acquaintances and explore the latest pet-care products. They especially love watching all the lively, edible prey–safely behind glass. Chew toys are…
Best Beer Selection on Tap
Who doesn’t need to down a grog or two after washing into town on shore leave? Even landlubbers can appreciate Old Chicago–where pizza, pasta, burgers and billiards help build your thirst, and the joint’s pride and joy is that stretch of some 30 beer taps patiently awaiting your attention behind the bar. Our two favorites…
Best Buffet
If you don’t have enough green in your diet, Sweet Tomatoes is the place to go to add in that missing color. With lettuce and greens piled high, you are sure to get enough veggies to make your mom happy. Not to worry if you aren’t an iceberg salad fan. You can select salads such…
City Week
Our top picks of what to do and where to do it for the week.
Top Ten in Books
Mostly Books best-sellers for the week
Best Indoor Venue
The Rialto has been delivering popular performing and cinematic arts to the hoi polloi since it opened with vaudeville shows in 1920. Historic as it is, its stewards have sensibly resisted making it an upscale artifact. Instead, they’ve tweaked the acoustics, added air conditioning and given it new life as the best big rock club…
Best Burger
This perennial Tucson favorite boasts an undeniable winning concept–you get the luxury of having a hamburger cooked for you to order, starting at one-third of a pound of meat and growing from there, but you also get to prepare it the way you like it, heaping on condiments and rabbit food in your own unique…
Best Secret-Menu Sandwich
This little southside eatery is a popular lunch spot with worker bees in the Valencia/Country Club roads area in large part because of its menu of tasty sandwiches, salads, soups and other offerings. But one of the tastiest entrées Caffe Nation offers is not even on the menu: It’s called the BST. The good folks…
Best Catered-to-Kids Restaurant
“Fish ‘n’ Fun” gives you tickets for nabbing, with a magnet, fish of various values as they circle a chest of pirate booty and several sunken ships. You can’t lose, but the winnings are meager. Contrastingly generous is “Rubble Bubble,” which seems to exist solely to dispense tickets one after the other. When your kids…
Best Campground
The perfect vacation that is not really a vacation for most Tucsonans is just a quick trip northeast. If the beautiful scenery and countless recreational activities don’t sound appealing, the 20-degree drop in temperature (especially during the summer) sure does! And if pitching a tent and baking a can of beans is too rugged, residents…
Best Nouvelle Cuisine
Pastiche is a seamless composition, featuring an inventive seasonal menu that will please conservative and adventurous eaters (burgers and sweetbreads) with bistro or full-plate options. The professional waitstaff anticipate diners’ needs without hovering. Pastiche’s Philanthropy with Phlavor project proves their strong sense of community. (They have raised more than $45,000 for local charities.) We love…
Best Veggie Burger
After years lost on the high seas, penniless and petulant, you spot a glimmer on the horizon. A barrel of rum? No, it’s Lovin Spoonfuls, Tucson’s premiere, vegan-friendly restaurant experience! Any savvy vegan, vegetarian or carnivore should know there’s more to vegetarian dining than just limes, kelp and sea salt! Sail on over for a…
Best Contemporary Architecture
Simon Donovan’s slice of snake against sky has its share of detractors, who delight in calling it the Bridge to Nowhere. But year in and year out, Tucsonans charmed by its latticework of steel bones and colored diamonds vote it one of the city’s best-loved attractions. Donovan’s ingenious design for the pedestrian/bicycle bridge over Broadway…
Best Yoga Studio
With a focus on affordable classes, Tucson Yoga takes the honor of best yoga studio in town for the second year in a row. The downtown studio, which opened in 2003, focuses on promoting health and well-being through yoga to all people. Class prices range from $5 for a drop-in to $240 for a six-month…
Best Independent Bookstore
Browsing through the wide aisles of Antigone Books, a sharp-eyed shopper recently spotted a children’s book entitled Piratica: Being a Daring Tale of a Singular Girl’s Adventure Upon the High Seas. Nearby, travel books either in stock or for order offered portholes to adventure anywhere around the planet. The variety of both new and used…
Best Dresses
Why doesn’t anyone wear dresses anymore? Because they haven’t found Rochelle K. The clothes here, just like you and me, girl, are never less than beautiful, unique, intelligent, passionate and witty. Rochelle’s handpicked selection transcends fashion; these clothes are about style, so you can wear them for years to come, not just for the next…
Best Margarita
Order a blended margarita, and you may as well tattoo “gringo” on your forehead. Margarita purists contend that the traditional cocktail is made with four ingredients: lime juice, orange liqueur, tequila and salt–then shaken and served over ice. Yet, the almost addictive (bet you just can’t drink one) margaritas at El Charro pack a fragrant…
