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SanTan Spirits is making a splash in Arizona and beyond with a tasty trio of canned cocktails perfect for sipping in the sunshine. Aptly named SunSplash, these ready-to-drink vodka sodas came out in July and combine SanTan’s award-winning vodka with fun flavors – cherry lime, watermelon and white peach. SanTan’s sales manager, Alejandro Fontes, says the SunSplash concept has been years in the making. Fontes, who has been with the brewery and distillery for nearly...

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When Kimhak Em and Eugenia Tai opened their brick-and-mortar coffee café, Pair Cupworks, in February 2020, they had no idea that three weeks later, they would be forced to close due to the pandemic. Rather than focusing on all the negative aspects surrounding the closure, Em turned it into a positive. During the shutdown, Em made in-person deliveries of whole coffee beans to customers in the area. “So when we reopened, we had already established...

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  Photo by Nikki Buchanan   Chaufa Combo at Taste of Peru If you’re thinking this Peruvian dish looks remarkably like good old fashioned Chinese fried rice — but with more meat — bingo! That’s exactly what it is. “Chaufa” is a loanword from Cantonese that means “fried rice.” The Peruvians co-opted this dish from the Chinese laborers who worked on plantations and built railroads in Peru in the late 19th Century and early 20th...

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Openings The Caspian Cup Gourmet shaved ice, popsicles, ice cream, handmade drinks and virgin Jell-O shots headline this San Tan Village sweet shop. 2268 E. Williams Field Rd., Gilbert, 623-401-2720, thecaspiancup.com Flaming Pig This Phoenix Filipino restaurant features barbecue on sticks and platters along with rice and noodle-based dishes, soup, appetizers and house specials. 1534 W. Camelback Rd., Phoenix, 623-999-7446, flaming-pig.com Fryd Bird Your one-stop shop for fried chicken is now open in Fiesta Commons...

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If you never quite got around to visiting Character — Peter Kasperski and Richie Moe’s cool New American in Roosevelt Row — it’s too late. You missed out. The restaurant, which opened late last November, has permanently closed. When I reached out to Kasperski about the news I’d heard, he sent me a text which said, “Despite the glowing reviews from food writers (thank you again), bloggers, Yelp, and local patrons, we couldn’t make the...

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  Photo by Nikki Buchanan    We’ve all noticed the increase in pop-ups and ghost kitchens since COVID-19 put a kink in day-to-day restaurant operations, but here’s a trend that seems to be thriving within the confines of the new normal: the commissary kitchen, cloud kitchen, virtual kitchen, shared-use commercial kitchen… there are a half dozen names for basically the same thing. Shared-use kitchens aren’t a new phenomenon, of course. Caterers and other small food...

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Whether you are passing through Williams on your way to the Grand Canyon or just looking for a temporary escape from the Southern Arizona heat, this small historic Route 66 town offers plenty to see and do, plus a slew of notable dining destinations. Here are three popular restaurants enjoyed by visitors and locals alike for their unique food options and welcoming atmospheres.   Photo by Angel Gonzalez   Pine Country Come for the pies...

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  Photo courtesy Buck &Rider   THE SCENE “I don’t eat seafood in landlocked states.” That sentence – along with its cousin, “Seafood in the desert? Pass.” – is up there on the list of trite refrains I regularly field from friends and relatives about dining in the Valley. When I hear someone say it, I have to fight a visceral urge to shake them and bellow, “Do you think we’re still in the 1950s?!” In a time before overnight shipping and advanced packing and cooling techniques, sure, you would have...

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  Photo by Nikki Buchanan   1. Pernil Empanada at Republica Empanada I cannot explain such a lapse, but I shamefully admit to never having visited this small, winsome pan-Latin empanada emporium until this summer. Yes, I know, the place has been open for eight years now. I’m pathetic. My buddy and I tried a half dozen empanadas just to get the lay of the land, and we pretty much loved them all. They’re small...

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  Pigtails Downtown interior | Photo by Nikki Buchanan   Maybe I’ve read The Great Gatsby too many times, but I’m fascinated by the speakeasies of the ’20s and early ’30s — back when bars, liquor and the drinking of liquor were made illegal by the Volstead Act, which, of course, just encouraged people to seek out illegal bars selling illegal liquor, where they could happily drink illegally as long as they did it quietly...