Best Sports Bar, West Valley 2013 | Red Embers Bar & Grill at Uptown Alley | Bars & Clubs | Phoenix
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Best Sports Bar, West Valley

Red Embers Bar & Grill at Uptown Alley

Jessica Obert

If the yardstick of any sports bar ultimately is the size, quality, and visibility of its screens, then Red Embers is the heavyweight champion of the West Valley. Most everyone else? Mere 90-pound weaklings when compared to this upscale bar and grill inside Surprise's labyrinthine Uptown Alley entertainment complex (read: bowling alley on steroids). Though not a sports bar in the strictest sense, it rivals any jock joint with its fantastic wings, brew selection, and vast selection of screens, including the monstrous 20-by-15-foot projection HDTV. There aren't many craned necks or bad seats in the house as the titanic screen is the centerpiece of the Sports Theatre attached to Red Embers and is visible from practically anywhere in the place, as well as most of Uptown Alley (and maybe from Wickenburg). Perched in front are eight overstuffed chairs and a row of benches for up-close viewing. And mere steps away are a huge arcade, a circular lounge with pool and darts, and (of course) 40 bowling lanes. Kinda puts your neighborhood game-day hangout to shame, bro.

Best Sports Bar, South Phoenix

CK's Tavern & Grill

On game day in Ahwatukee, you'll find the serious sports fan at this friendly neighboorhood hub. It's easy to see why: about three-dozen flat-screen high-def TVs, subscriptions to all the major sports packages, a congenial atmosphere, a major-league selection of beers, and respectable bar-food options. In business for a nearly a decade, the family-run CK's also offers daily drink and food specials and live music on the weekends. If you can't actually attend the big game, then you'll discover CK's is the next best option.

Best Sports Bar, North Valley

Connolly's Sports Grill

Like North Phoenix itself, Connolly's Sports Grill might leave you with the subconscious urge to stretch out a little. It's not that it's big, just more open than you might be used to — an airy outparcel made artificially sports-bar-dark with blackout curtains. Well-spaced tables are all that stand between the entrance on one side and a well-stocked bar on the other; mounted on all four walls are big, clear TVs, seemingly one to a table. There might not be a lot of history or character in a North Phoenix outparcel, but that also means there's no history or character getting between you, your meal, and your favorite team.

Best Sports Bar, Scottsdale

Goldies Neighborhood Sports Cafe

The best sports bar in Scottsdale doesn't look very much like a sports bar at all, which seems appropriate — from the outside, Goldies could easily be a trendy breakfast place or the kind of dentist's office that makes you worry about how much your filling is going to cost. Inside, things are a little more conventional, which is good — TVs everywhere (including a few comically large screens for special occasions), darts, pool, shuffleboard, and other ways of avoiding too much eye contact at halftime. It's all topped off with food you'll actually want to eat — they'll give you extremely hot Buffalo wings and nachos if that's what you're looking for, but their sandwiches and Huge Burgers (that's a name, not a judgment) lack the greasy, predigested feel you might be conditioned to reach for in the middle of a Suns game.

Best Sports Bar, Tempe

Lucky Break

The sports bar industry continues to attempt to redefine itself with establishments striving to offer more than cheap domestic beer in pitchers, pathetic frozen pizzas and wings, aging TVs, and boorish dudes in football jerseys. It's all about upscale these days. You know, a nice place, where you can feel comfortable watching the game in mixed company because some loudmouth isn't offending everyone in the joint with his drunken color-commentating. At Lucky Break, the food is certainly a step up from most sports bar, the beer selection (lots of local and national craft brews) is exceptional, the room clean and tastefully appointed, and the giant flat-screen TVs plentiful. In fact, there isn't a bad seat in the house if you absolutely, positively can't miss one second of action in the game.

Best Sports Bar, Southeast Valley

Stadium Club

The jock and nerd crowds supposedly don't mix well, right? Maybe only in hackneyed movies, bro, because things are a bit different at the Stadium Club. The brainiac brigade and sports nuts seem to get along like peas and carrots whenever the twice-weekly Team Trivia competitions on Wednesdays and Fridays coincide with some can't-miss game airing on the two-dozen high-end televisions. (And nary a swirly takes place.) Plus, there always seems to be a slew of karaoke dorks in attendance ready to make like Kid Rock or Rhianna. The sing-along sessions, taking place six times a week, seemingly are the preferred sport at the Chandler joint (despite its status as both a Green Bay Packers and Buffalo Bills bar), given the number of people who turn out and cheer along for those who stay on key or get completely wild wielding the microphone, like one dude's over-the-top mimicry of Maroon 5. He didn't have any moves like Jagger, but he was still entertaining to watch.

Best Pool Hall

BullShooters

Bull Shooters comes by its Best Pool Hall crown in one obvious way — it boasts 44 tables, and they're all better maintained than the sad one that sits moldering all alone in the average bar. But tables aside, this place'll keep you around between games with its grasp of all the other ways people who would go someplace with 44 pool tables might want to entertain themselves. That means copious amounts of darts, TVs, the occasional poker game, and — if you're not afraid of affecting your trick shots — lots of cheap beer. If you're an expert, Bull Shooters is big enough and serious enough that you'll always be able to find a table. If you're a terrified newbie, Bull Shooters is big enough that you'll probably be able to find a table far enough out of sight that nobody can see the way you're holding the cue.

Best Smoking Patio

Hazelwood's First Place Sports Grill

Taking a drag at Hazelwood's isn't much of a drag, since the 2,000-square-foot smoking patio's a fairly pleasant place. A gigantic metal awning cloisters things from harsh sunlight, while the shoulder-high cement fence dampens the traffic noise from Indian School Road. Several ceiling fans keep the fresh air circulating, and strategically placed air conditioners and heat lamps make temperatures tolerable, depending on the season. A ring of six HD screens hangs from the ceiling, typically tuned to whatever big game is happening at that particular moment, while local folk and acoustic troubadours visit the corner stage Sunday and Wednesday nights. And there's always free poker every Sunday and Monday evening.

Best Go-Go Boys

BS West

Benjamin Leatherman

There's nary a trace of body fat to be seen gracing the chiseled shapes of BS West's hunky crew of go-go boys. It's to be expected, considering that these musclebound specimens of hunkitude not only practically live at the gym but get in upwards of four hours of hardcore cardio shaking their nearly naked moneymakers during twice-weekly appearances at the Scottsdale gay bar. And believe us, the four to five body-painted dancers who appear on Wednesday and Saturday nights do indeed make mad bank, as evidenced by the wads of dollars stuffed into their revealing low-rise briefs by the extremely appreciative gay men and straight women eager for a big slice of beefcake. The go-go boys reward such generosity with a few suggestive pelvic thrusts in the patron's direction while perched atop their platform, each timed perfectly with the high-energy beats laid down by DJs. It's one of several moves in their respective repertoires — along with hip-shaking, strutting, and fist-pumping — and often results in wide eyes and big smiles because of the size of their, um . . . Let's say that rock-hard abs and bulging biceps aren't their only endowments and just leave it at that.

Best Go-Go Girls

Martini Ranch

Martini Ranch's upstairs Shaker Room is aptly named, considering the vast amount of hip-shimmying and rump-bumping that gets unleashed between its walls on weekends. The most eye-catching booty shakers in the place, however, typically are the go-go girls prancing on the bar, steel boxes, or any of five different stripper poles. The leggy, scantily clad dancers and their sexy moves are often the center of attention (and the stars of hastily shot cell phone videos) during the four nights they perform. At the all-ages dance party, for instance, the girls of Platinum Entertainment sport LED-laden brassieres and spangly belts and boots that glimmer in the colored lights at the off-the-chain all-ages dance party put on by DJ Slippe. During Retox Sundays, however, it's like go-go's gone wild as they'll squat down to drizzle booze into mouths or allow dudes to get in a free spank or two while friends record the scene. Hope your girlfriend doesn't see it all on YouTube.

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