IA Summit 2010: This One Goes to Eleven -- The Best Conversations Happen in the Hall

Hotel & Conference Location Information

Hyatt Regency
122 North 2nd Street
Phoenix, AZ 85004
(602) 252-1234

Reservations

The conference hotel rate is $179 per night. Ask for the American Society of Information Science & Technology room block.

About the Hotel & Conference Site

The IA Summit takes places at the Hyatt Regency. It is located right across the street from the Phoenix Convention Center, and near several other major downtown attractions, like Symphony Hall, the Phoenix Heritage Center, and Herberger Theater. It’s also a hop, skip, and a jump away from the Metro light rail, which goes up and down Central Ave, a hub for bars, restaurants, art galleries, and more. Read full hotel description.

Getting There From the Airport

It’s about a 10-15 minute cab ride. Use AAA Yellow Cab (a.k.a. AAA Full Transportation) and take advantage of the $18 flat rate to the hotel.

Restaurants on the Hotel Premises

• Compass Restaurant – Award-winning food and a great wine selection. And if that doesn't convince you, it’s also a revolving restaurant perched on top of the hotel.
• Networks Bar & Grill – Drinks, bar food, and... networking
• Einstein Bros. Café – Bagels and coffee
• Terrace Café – Brunch and other light dishes

Getting Around

• Nearest pharmacy – CVS, on Central and McDowell, 1 mile from the hotel—You can take the light rail.
• Car rental – There’s an Enterprise Rent-A-Car on sight, or you can request a car through the hotel concierge.
• Public transit – $3.50 will buy you an all-day pass for Valley Metro (metro transit), including the Metro light rail.

For International Travelers: Travelers from Visa Waiver Countries make sure to follow guidelines for travel. Click here for more details.

Some cities are stroll-worthy. Some are not. Phoenix may be the latter. If you're hoping to see interesting things by simply walking around, it may take you a while to find them.

In Robert's words:

Phoenix is huge. Our streets are very wide and pretty long, so a city block in Phoenix is something entirely different than it is in, say, Manhattan.

According to Robert, the public transit system isn't great, but the Metro light rail will take you from the center of Phoenix all the way to Tempe, with a lot to do along the way. You can find something interesting at just about every stop along Central Avenue.

Where to Eat

Breakfast

• First Watch
  1 N First St

  A great breakfast place. They have pancakes so huge, the menu warns that you may only want to order one.

  According to Robert, they mean it:

  They'll offer you a stack of pancakes, but there's no way a human being could get through a stack of those pancakes. They're probably a foot ½ in diameter. And they're really good.

Dinner Only

• Pizzaria Bianco
  623 E Adams St – About a 10-minute walk from the hotel.

  Determined to be the best in the nation by Ed Levine and Adam Kuban, who were recruited by the magazine Every Day With Rachel Ray to search for the best pizza in America. Read full story

  Important! – You need to plan in advance. The restaurant opens at 5 pm, but if you show up at 5 pm, you might not get a table until 8 pm. Robert recommends either making reservations a month in advance (seriously, a month), or getting in line at 4 pm for a good chance of being seated right at 5 pm.

  If you end up waiting, you can hang out in the little bar next store, which is owned by the same guy. When your table is ready, you can simply transfer your tab.

  Sounds like a hassle, but Robert insists it's all worth it:

  It's owned by a guy names Chris Bianca. He is – there's just no other word for him – he's an artist when it comes to making pizza. This guy personally handles every singe pizza. He picks his ingredients from the farmers market in the morning and makes pizza all day. This pizza is unbelievably good. It redefines pizza.

Whenever

• Cibo
  603 N 5^th Ave

  Robert thinks the pizza here could easily be the 2^nd best in America, yet, there's hardly ever a wait to be seated. He also recommends ordering the Nutella and Banana dessert.

• Switch
  2603 N Central Ave

  In Robert's words:

  Switch has a ½-baked chocolate chip cookie that's to die for. Get it a la mode, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on it. I've had ½-baked chocolate chip cookies in at least a dozen places. This one is by far the best.

  He also recommends the chicken pot pie galette, saying,

  You taste it and it's the best thing you've had all day.

• Macayo's
  4001 N Central Ave

  Simply great Mexican food.

  In Robert's words:

  With Arizona so conveniently located right next to Mexico, Mexican food is better here than anywhere else in the United States.

• Fez
  3815 N Central Ave

  Robert recommends getting the lamb kisra, a flat bread pita with arugula, lamb and tomatoes, which he gets nearly every time he goes.

• Hula's Modern Tiki
  4700 N Central Ave

  Hula's would be a great place to hold a large party. It could hold around 100 people and has a big open patio. Make a reservation by email.

  Robert describes it as,

  This really cool tiki restaurant that's not too campy – like a sort of modern, downtown tiki.

• Majerle's Sports Grill
  24 N 2^nd St

  Founded by Dan Majerle, a former Phoenix Suns basketball player.

  Robert says,

  It's like a high-end bar and grill. Good stuff.

• Aiello's
  5202 Central Ave

  Robert says,

  The food is just amazing. Anything you order is incredibly good. And it's one of those places designed to feel like you've left the country.

• My Florist (no really, it's a restaurant)
  534 W McDowell Rd (NE corner 7^th Ave & McDowell)

  In Robert's words:

  It's got this big, neon sign out in front of it that says My Florist and for years–my entire life–until about 3 years ago, I thought it actually was a florist. They have great food, and an amazing dessert cart.

• Postino
  2 locations: 3939 E Campbell Ave (you'll need a cab for this one), and another newer location on the light rail path at 5144 N Central Ave.

  Postino winecafe is a hip place with a lot of outside seating and a great wine selection. Robert says,

  I highly recommend going to Postino. It's one of my favorite places to eat in all of Arizona. The bruschetta is absolutely amazing.

  One order of bruschetta includes 4 different kinds, so 2 orders of bruschetta would be enough for dinner for 8 people.

  The Postino on Campbell Ave is located next to La Grande Orange Grocery (see below), which makes it especially great, but the one on Central is on the light rail route, so you can get to it easily from the hotel.

• La Grande Orange Grocery
  4410 N 40^th St. (Shares a parking lot with Postino on Campbell Ave)

  In Robert's words:

  They've got weird pet toys [and] all sorts of odd interesting things you can buy there. But the bakery has these amazing desserts. So basically, you eat bruschetta at Postino and walk across the parking lot to La Grande Orange and order your dessert, and it's the perfect way to spend your evening.

• Tuck Shop
  2245 N 12^th St.

  A little family-owned restaurant in the historic Coronado district. Robert says,

  If you go there only once, order the chicken and waffles, and get the dates as an appetizer. I can't say enough good things about the food at this place – it's incredible.

Things to Do

Historic Districts With Photo-Worthy Character

You can talk to the hotel concierge for directions to these neighborhoods, which are a couple of square miles worth of neighborhood around downtown Phoenix.

Coronado District

This is Robert's hood, so he knows a little something about it:

All the homes in the neighborhood were built in like the 30s and 40s. There are no cookie-cutter homes – every street has its own character. Everybody is really friendly in the neighborhood and everyone is out walking their dogs every day. It's a really cool, eclectic place to live and is very photogenic. Just taking an hour to walk around some of the streets in a historic neighborhood would be a great thing to do.

Willow District

Roosevelt District

Arts & Culture

Cultural Events and Sites

• Japanese Friendship Garden – 1125 N 3rd Ave (Right across the street from the public library)
• Asian Festival – Takes place in Heritage Park (115 N 6th St) all day on April 10th and 11th. Robert actually belongs to a taiko dojo and will be performing both days! Stay tuned for his performance times.
• About.com describes the festival:

  A free festival featuring ethnic cuisine, arts and crafts, and entertainment such as martial arts demonstrations, cultural dances and music from nearly a dozen Asian countries.

Theater

• Orpheum Theater – 203 W Adams St.
• Read the history
• In Robert's words:

  It has that really ornate architecture, [with] one of those ceilings that looks like a natural sky. It's a really cool place. If you can find an excuse to go to the Orpheum, I highly recommend it.

Art Galleries

• Downtown Phoenix has an event called First Fridays, where you can tour all of the art galleries located in downtown Phoenix, many of which are located near the event.
• Get a map and read more about the First Fridays art walk

Shopping

In Robert's words:

A lot of Phoenix revolves around strip malls, which sounds kind of sad, but some of those strip malls can be really cool. There're a couple on Central Ave and at 7^th Ave and 7^th street, which are a mile west and east from Central Avenue, respectively.

Some Noteworthy Shops:

• Apple Store – You can find it in an outdoor mall called the Biltmore – Located on 24^th St. and Camelback–about a 10-minute cab ride from the event.
• Wag-n-Wash – A small, boutique pet store (especially for dog fanatics, which Robert admits to being). They have artist-designed collars and interesting pet toys for dogs and cats, and you can customize a bag of gourmet dog treats.
• Go-Kat-Go – 4314 N 7^th Ave.

  In Robert’s words:

  It‘s kinda like an antique shop for bikers…an interesting little place. You can go in there and find Harley Davidson memorabilia and all sorts of other oddities you might only find in a house from the 1950s or 60s.

Outdoors

Camelback Mountain and North Mountain are great hiking sites. You'll need a cab to get to them.

If it's the desert you're craving, Robert says:

If you rent a car, you could jump on the freeway, drive about 45 minutes, and you could be in the middle of the dessert. You can do that going north or south.

Must-See Tourist Spot

Taliesen West

Taliesen West is the international headquarters of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, and a repository of his life's work and ideas.

Robert gives it high praise:

[It's] something you can't experience in any other city. It's in the middle of a city, but it's surrounded by nothing but desert. It's kind of this quiet oasis in the middle of Scottsdale, and it's a really amazing place.

He recommends getting a tour that starts at dusk, around 6:00 or 6:30, so part of your tour is at night and you can see the city light up around you. The cab ride would be around 30 minutes, so you may want to go with a group and share the fare.

The UX Community in Phoenix

Robert tells us a little about it:

The UX community in Phoenix is small and relatively quiet – it's sort of a focused, very tight-knit group of people that are involved in web design in various aspects. But there're all sorts of little groups springing up that are creating more and more opportunities to get involved with people in the web profession in Phoenix.

UX Groups in Phoenix

• Phoenix IxDA (The Interaction Design Association) – The Phoenix chapter of the IxDA
• AZ UPA – the Arizona chapter of the Usability Professionals Association
• Social Media Club
• Commpose – A group for copywriters
• Co-working spaces, like Gang Plank (about 40 minutes away from the event).