Barrio Café

Don’t confuse this spot for the chain of similar-named restaurants—there’s only one Barrio Café. Since opening in the early 2000s, the Calle 16 original has become a fixture in Phoenix for regional Mexican favorites. There are two main reasons why: the tableside guacamole and the chef’s community involvement. When the pandemic hit and the restaurant was closed, she provided free food to the neighborhood from the empty parking lot. Nowadays, it's back to its normal state of being almost always packed with people feasting on tlayudas and cochinita pibil.