Cooling weather makes it high time to hit the road, east on the sunflower-lined I-10 and down the Arizona 80 past Benson and Tombstone, to beautiful, breezy Bisbee.
Perched a mile high into the steep crags of the Mule Mountains, Bisbee is the perfect fall getaway. Even if it's, say, a Tuesday — as I recently figured out — the artists' community offers an array of restaurants, bars and great places to have fun.
Working the night shift as a copy editor, I tend to have strange days off, and was worried my family trip might suffer from the weekday doldrums. But the spacious, people-less streets not only made it easier to watch where you're walking (extremely important in the hilly, antique town) but also made it a breeze to book a hotel, grab some dinner, and crash the ghost tour all in the same night.
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WHERE TO SLEEP: Let's start off with this first, although it's very possible to skip this step and go straight to drinking. You enter The Bisbee Grand Hotel through the bar after all, and do your booking with the bartender while she's pouring beers. The bed and breakfast is a quirkier alternative to the stately Copper Queen, and features seven unique suites and six guest rooms, all decorated with kitsch. My family shared two semi-suites aptly disguised as a storefront off the street: The Hollywood Western lined with vintage movie posters, and the Old Western, which was basically a covered wagon made into a bed. The two rooms, each complete with a jacuzzi bath, were $110 each.
Bisbee Grand Hotel, 61 Main St.
The Copper Queen Hotel, 11 Howell Ave.
WHERE TO EAT: I admit, this one was a toughie. The highly-lauded Cafe Roka was closed for the night, as well as our favorite gourmet pizza joint Screaming Banshee. So instead, we cruised over to the colorfully contemporary Santiago's Mexican restaurant, where I enjoyed a sizzling molcajete lava bowl of juicy steak and jumbo shrimp popping out a spicy ancho-chipotle soup, topped with melty white Oaxacan cheese and earthy organic quinoa. The next morning, we drove out of the downtown area to a decaying old shopping district overlooking the lavender dusted open pit copper mine. Inside sits the posh diner Bisbee Breakfast Club, a popular haunt with the best dang blueberry walnut pancakes I've ever had.
Santiago's, 1 Howell Ave.
Bisbee Breakfast Club, 75 Erie St.
Cafe Roka, 35 Main St.
Screaming Banshee Pizza, 200 Tombstone Canyon Road
A NEW BREW: On the weekends, the charming dive bars along Brewery Gulch are packed with rowdy patrons and musical acts. But the streets are a bit more quiet during the week. We preferred to do some day-drinking on the patio of the Old Bisbee Brewing Company, which serves a sizable beer sampler with a citrusy crisp Hefeweizen, double-hopped IPA and more. But there's a new beast on the block, in the old home of Dave's Electric, and it's changing the game for the better. Beast Brewing Co., only a year old, boasts a big-city selection of stylish, craft beers, including an excellent strong ale with a floral nose and a great finish. Their tap room doesn't seem to be open that often, but you can catch their brews at several bars across town, including the Grand Hotel.
Old Bisbee Brewing Company, 200 Review Alley
Beast Brewing Co., 1326 W. Highway 92, #8
