Shopping And Things To Do In Cave Creek, AZ

Cave Creek sits about 30 miles north of downtown Phoenix, where the last stretch of suburban Scottsdale gives way to open Sonoran Desert.

It's a town that never sanded down its edges.

Cave Creek Road is still lined with independent shops, saloons, working art studios and galleries, and a rodeo that has been running since 1977. There are almost no chain stores here.

That combination makes for an unusual ... and special ... day trip.

You can spend a morning on a desert trail, an afternoon working your way through shops that exist nowhere else, and an evening listening to live music at a bar that has been in business since 1951.

Here is what is worth your time, starting with the shopping the town is known for.

Shopping in Cave Creek

Shopping is the main reason most visitors make the drive, and it is not the kind of shopping you can do anywhere else in the Valley. Cave Creek has no mall. What it has instead is a mile or so of Cave Creek Road stocked with owner-operated stores: Western wear and boots, turquoise and Native American crafts, consigned designer clothing, antiques, pottery, hot sauce, leather, furniture and fine art.

Most of these businesses buy their own inventory and answer to nobody, which is why the merchandise is unusual in the best sense of the word.

A great approach is to park once and walk from store to store. The core shopping stretch is compact, and the interesting stores tend to sit next to each other rather than spread out.

The Cave Creek Road entrance to Rare Earth Gallery, with carved stone tortoises out front and a pair of citrine geodes in the doorway.

Rare Earth Gallery

Rare Earth Gallery is the largest single stop on Cave Creek Road, at roughly 10,000 square feet on the southeast corner of the four-way stop at School House Road. It reads less like a store than a cross between a natural history museum and an art gallery.

Inside are crystals and minerals ranging from tumbled stones to specimens taller than the people looking at them, authentic fossils, genuine meteorites, gemstone jewelry, natural stone décor and a sound healing area.

Outside, the street frontage is lined with onyx garden statuary, Arizona petrified wood and more than 200 natural stone outdoor fountains running at once.

A panoramic look inside the gallery: amethyst and citrine cathedrals, backlit onyx lamps and glass-topped geode tables.

It is worth an hour even if you are not buying anything. Most people have simply never seen this much of the Earth’s crystal beauty assembled in one room, and the scale of the larger pieces does not always translate to photographs.

TripAdvisor currently ranks Rare Earth Gallery first among places to shop in Cave Creek.

Frontier Town and the Cave Creek Road Shops

Frontier Town’s Western storefronts and boardwalk. Photo by Marine 69-71, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Frontier Town, established in 1969, is a cluster of Western storefronts and boardwalks near the center of town, with small independent shops selling locally made goods. It is the most concentrated version of the Old West streetscape Cave Creek trades on, and it is a good place to start if you want to get your bearings before ranging further down the road.

The surrounding stretch of Cave Creek Road fills in the rest: curio shops, souvenirs, Western apparel, home goods, consignment and thrift. Several of these are worth digging through rather than browsing.

Galleries, Western Stores and Antiques

Cave Creek has been an artists’ town longer than it has been a tourist one. The Sonoran Arts League has operated here since 1975, and a number of working studios and galleries are open to the public throughout the Desert Foothills area. You will find Southwestern painting and sculpture, metalwork, pottery, jewelry and photography, much of it made within a few miles of where it is sold.

Antique and consignment shops are scattered along the same corridor. Inventory turns over constantly, so two visits a few months apart will not show you the same store twice.

Unique Things to Do in Cave Creek

Cave Creek Museum

The museum entrance on Skyline Drive. Hours shown on signage may be out of date — check the museum’s website before visiting. Photo by Marine 69-71, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The Cave Creek Museum covers the archaeology, mining and ranching history of the Desert Foothills, and its standout exhibit is outdoors: the Golden Reef Stamp Mill, a recovered ten-stamp ore crushing mill and the only fully operational one in Arizona. On scheduled dates the museum runs it, and you can watch rock get processed the way it was a century ago.

If you are already interested in what comes out of the ground here, this pairs naturally with a stop at Rare Earth Gallery. The museum keeps a seasonal schedule and is closed during part of the year, so check current hours on the museum’s website before you plan around it.

Buffalo Chip Saloon and Steakhouse

The Buffalo Chip has been in business since 1951. It is a Western dance hall, restaurant and live music venue with an outdoor rodeo arena, and it hosts amateur bull riding on a regular schedule. The building burned down on Thanksgiving Day in 2015 and was rebuilt larger. It is the closest thing Cave Creek has to a town square after dark.

The Carefree Sundial

The Carefree Sundial on the plaza in downtown Carefree. Photo by Marine 69-71, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Five minutes east in neighboring Carefree stands one of the largest sundials in the world, built in 1959, roughly 90 feet across with a gnomon standing about 35 feet above the plaza. It takes ten minutes to see and costs nothing. The adjacent Carefree Desert Gardens is one of only two public botanical gardens in the greater Phoenix area, free to enter and open year-round.

Time Your Visit Around a Cave Creek Event

Three events reliably fill the town. Cave Creek Rodeo Days is a PRCA rodeo that has run since 1977, with a parade, dances and mutton bustin’ alongside the competition. Wild West Days brings gunfight reenactments, cowboy poetry, a chili cook-off and pig races. And the Sonoran Arts League’s Hidden in the Hills is the largest and longest-running artist studio tour in Arizona, a free self-guided tour across six days and two weekends that opens private studios to the public. Dates shift year to year, so check the organizers before booking anything around them.

Outdoor Things to Do in Cave Creek

Black Mountain Trail

Black Mountain is the peak you have been looking at all day. It rises directly behind town, and the trail to the top starts less than half a mile from Rare Earth Gallery — the trailhead is a small gravel lot on School House Road, the same street as the gallery’s corner, with overflow parking along Military Road.

It is short and steep. Figure two to two and a half miles round trip and somewhere between 1,000 and 1,200 feet of climbing, most of it packed into the first mile. The footing is loose slate that gets rockier as you go, and coming down takes more care than going up. Most people are out in two to three hours. It is not a hike for small children.

What you get at the top is a 360-degree view of the Sonoran Desert, the town below and the ranges beyond it.

Go early. The trail has almost no shade, and from May through September the only sensible time to be on it is right after sunrise.

Because the trailhead and the gallery sit on the same street, this is the easiest full day to assemble in Cave Creek: climb Black Mountain first thing, come down and spend an hour or two in the gallery, then walk to lunch. Add the Cave Creek Museum in the afternoon and you have a complete day inside a couple of square miles.

Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area

Spur Cross is where the longer hiking is. It covers roughly 2,150 acres of upper Sonoran Desert a few miles north of town, with eight trails and a segment of the Maricopa Trail running through it. The range is wide: the Dragonfly Trail is an easy creekside walk suitable for most people, while Elephant Mountain and Black Mesa (a different peak from Black Mountain in town) are genuine climbs, with Black Mesa topping out near 4,700 feet as the high point of the area.

Gate hours change with the season and there is an entry fee, so check the Maricopa County Parks site before you drive out.

Cave Creek Regional Park

Closer in, Cave Creek Regional Park covers around 2,900 acres with more than 15 miles of multi-use trails rated easy to moderate, plus a campground. It is the better choice if you want desert scenery without committing to a hard hike.

Family-Friendly Things to Do in Cave Creek

Cave Creek is easier with kids than it looks. The best options are outdoors, hands-on, or both.

Take the Kids on a Crystal Treasure Hunt

Rare Earth Gallery runs a treasure hunt for children. Kids work their way through the gallery searching for specific items, and along the way they end up looking closely at crystals, minerals, fossils and meteorites they would not otherwise encounter. When they finish, they choose a crystal or mineral from a bowl to take home.

The hunt works because it gives children a reason to actually look. Most kids are already curious about rocks and fossils and unusual stones from the Earth, and turning the gallery into something to explore rather than something to walk through is what makes the visit stick. Families are welcome, and the gallery is set up for them.

Other Stops That Work With Kids

The nature center at Cave Creek Regional Park keeps live desert animals on display, including rattlesnakes and scorpions behind glass, and there is a covered playground and easy trails nearby. The Cave Creek Museum’s stamp mill demonstrations are loud and mechanical and tend to hold children’s attention better than a display case will. And during Rodeo Days, mutton bustin’ is exactly what it sounds like and is the most popular event of the weekend with families.

Best Restaurants in Cave Creek

Cave Creek eats well for a town its size, and several of these are within walking distance of the shopping district. Many feature live music. These are our staff’s picks.

The Grotto Cafe

Conveniently located next door to Rare Earth Gallery and set back from Cave Creek Road, The Grotto is a quaint and cozy spot for breakfast or lunch. The Grotto staff serves a simple but tasty menu that includes a nice selection of sandwiches, salads, soups and tacos. We enjoy their chicken salad sandwich, served on yummy toasted cranberry walnut bread. View The Grotto Cafe menu.

Dairy Queen

The only fast food for miles, sometimes you just can’t beat a Blizzard, a dipped soft-serve cone or a Dilly Bar, especially when it’s hot outside. View the Dairy Queen menu.

El Encanto Mexican Restaurant

Authentic Mexican food made from scratch and served around a distinctive water feature. We like their chips and guac, and the carne asada tacos are flavorful, too. View their menu.

Cryin’ Coyote BBQ

Get. The. Brisket. It is so melty and flavorful that you won’t regret your choice. The ribs are great, and sides are, too. We like the beans. View The Cryin’ Coyote BBQ menu.

Local Jonny’s Tavern And Cafe

Our favorite burger place in town, hands-down. They also offer a great brunch. View Local Jonny’s menu.

Harold’s Cave Creek Corral

We’ve yet to have a bad meal at Harold’s. It’s got a large menu and solid offerings all around, and their specials provide a lot of value. View Harold’s menu.

Z’s House Of Thai

Maybe you didn’t expect there to be a Thai restaurant in Cave Creek, but residents are happy there is. Well prepared, fresh and tasty. Their massaman curry is top-notch. View Z’s House Of Thai menu.

Ofrenda

Modern Mexican cuisine in a trendy space. We always get the brisket tacos, they’re delicious. And be sure not to skip the flan, it’s to die for, custardy, smooth and creamy. View Ofrenda’s menu.

Hansen’s Cowboy BBQ

Oh man, the brisket is so mouth-watering and melty that we are drooling on our keyboard as we type this. The ribs are also 100%. View Hansen’s Cowboy BBQ menu.

Visit Rare Earth Gallery

Rare Earth Gallery is at 6401 E Cave Creek Road, on the southeast corner of the four-way stop where School House Road meets Cave Creek Road. Parking is free and on-site. If you are coming from Phoenix, Scottsdale or Carefree, full driving directions are on our location page.

Come in and look around. There is no admission, no pressure, and a good chance you will see something you have never seen before.