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Tucson Shopping
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There are two main areas of shopping
in Tucson: downtown and everywhere else. Generally speaking,
you will be well served to stick to the former. The roads that
grid the surrounding sprawl are massed with the same outdoor
malls and department stores that can be found anywhere else
in America. Speedway Boulevard is particularly notorious for
its ugliness. Fortunately, the downtown concentration of singular
small businesses emphasizing a |
southwestern heritage more than compensates. A walk up and down
Fourth Avenue is a virtual requirement. Here you’ll find restaurants,
cafes, bars, bookstores, food co-ops, boutiques, thrift shops, galleries,
furniture dealers, and specialty craft stores. Continue beneath
the underpass and turn right onto Broad Street to complete your
walk. As you do, be sure to stop into the Hotel Congress, the legendary
Tucson fixture where John Dillinger was first arrested. Now it also
contains a fine restaurant, the Tap Room bar, a concert venue, and
a beauty salon.
The restaurants along these streets are diverse and good, but it
is worth making a trip to South Tucson for the Mexican food. Mi
Nidito is the most popular choice, but the long waits for a table
may send you to the much more modest but still excellent El Indio.
In Tucson proper two fine options are La Fuente, which has live
Mariachi music, and El Charro Café, a chic nightspot that
alleges to have invented the chimichanga.
If you should tire of Mexican food, there are plenty of other places
to eat. On two extremes lie Daisy Mae’s Steak House and Govinda,
which has a full-serve vegetarian buffet. Bunbuku has cheap, delicious
Japanese food and is loved by students.
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