What it is
The Melrose District is a mile of Seventh Avenue in north-central Phoenix, from Indian School Road north to Camelback Road, lined with the single-story commercial buildings the city put up in the 1940s and 1950s when this was the edge of town. Those storefronts, which emptied out as Phoenix moved north, filled again in the 2000s with the Valley’s vintage and antiques trade: furniture shops, consignment and thrift stores, a vintage sneaker dealer, a restoration shop, and a rotating cast of small operators who come and go every year. The avenue also became, and remains, Phoenix’s gayborhood, with Charlie’s, a country-and-western bar open since 1984, and Boycott Bar, one of the few lesbian bars in the country, among its anchors, and the annual Melrose Street Fair closes it to traffic for a day of vendors and music.
The landmark is a kink in the road. The Melrose Curve, near the middle of the district, is where Seventh Avenue bends to correct a misalignment in the city’s street grid; everything is measured from it. Along the mile are the Fry Bread House, the James Beard America’s Classic that moved here from its old home, Copper Star Coffee in a converted gas station, and the shops: Michael Todd’s Treasures at 4701, Retro Ranch at 4303, All In One at 4501, Rewind at 4150, Modern on Melrose around the corner on Campbell Avenue.
Why leave Scottsdale for it
Because Scottsdale’s antiques are expensive and its vintage is curated. Our shopping note sends readers to the Antique Centre, Antique Trove and Vintage by Misty, and they are good; they are also priced for the resort visitor. Melrose is where those dealers’ competitors buy, a street of shops with thrift-store floors and the odd great midcentury piece at a Phoenix price. And for an LGBTQ visitor, it is the neighborhood Scottsdale does not have, which our LGBTQ Scottsdale note says plainly.
The practical version
Twenty-two minutes from Old Town straight west on Indian School Road. Park once, at a shop lot or on a side street, and walk; the avenue is flat and a mile long. Go Wednesday through Sunday, because many shops close Monday and Tuesday, and Saturday if you want everything open. Lunch at the Fry Bread House, coffee at Copper Star. Bring a vehicle with a flat floor.
When to go
Saturday from eleven is the day the street is built for: every shop open, the avenue busy, the bars filling by late afternoon. Weekdays are quieter and better for talking to owners, but check hours first; Michael Todd’s, for instance, runs Wednesday through Sunday, and that pattern is common. October through April is the season for walking the mile; in summer, do the shops in the air conditioning and skip the stroll.
The Melrose Street Fair is the one date to plan around, an annual Saturday when Seventh Avenue closes to cars and the shops, food trucks and bands take it over; the district posts the date each year. Pride season brings events to the bars.
The shops, from the north
- Michael Todd’s Treasures, 4701 N 7th Ave. Multi-room, “industrial shabby chic” by its own description: lamps, mirrors, kitchenware, tiki mugs, Hawaiian shirts, a working typewriter. The most antiques per square foot on the avenue.
- All In One, 4501. Buy, sell and trade: vintage and new sneakers, graphic tees, jackets, watches and chains. The twenty-year-old in your party goes here.
- The Fry Bread House, 4545. Lunch; see its own guide.
- Retro Ranch, 4303. The thrift-priced vintage store: posters, records, ceramics, board games, sweaters and boots from several decades.
- Rewind Consignment & Vintage, 4150. Furniture, collectibles and novelties, including the metal bar shaped like a van.
- Modern on Melrose, 700 W Campbell Ave. Just off the avenue: midcentury furniture, lamps, glass and stereos, the shop for the serious buyer.
Expect turnover. Shops open and close on this street every year, Antique Sugar left for downtown, and the best approach is to walk the whole mile and go into whatever is open.
Eating and drinking
The Fry Bread House for lunch, Copper Star Coffee in the old gas station for the afternoon, and the bars at the Camelback end in the evening. Windsor and Federal Pizza on Central Avenue are a mile east for dinner.
With kids
The shops are fine for a child who can keep hands off glass; the fry bread is the bribe.
The story
Seventh Avenue was built out in the years after the war as a commercial strip serving the new subdivisions between Indian School and Camelback: a mile of small shops, service stations and motels, with the Melrose Curve, where the avenue bends to reconcile two surveys of the city grid, as its only geographical feature. The neighborhoods on either side, Woodlea and Melrose and Pierson Place, were modest 1940s ranch houses, and when Phoenix’s retail moved to the malls in the 1970s the avenue hollowed out.
What refilled it was two things at once. Gay bars found the cheap rent in the 1980s, Charlie’s opening in 1984 and becoming the home of the Arizona Gay Rodeo’s February crowd, and the neighborhoods behind the avenue became the center of gay Phoenix. Then, in the 2000s, a group of business owners who were tired of being overlooked and a city planner who kept showing up organized the merchants, named the mile for its neighborhood, and recruited antique and vintage dealers to the empty storefronts. The Melrose Street Fair, the streetscape improvements and the arch that now marks the district followed. It is one of the few examples in Phoenix of a commercial street revived by its own tenants rather than by a developer, and it still feels that way: uneven, independent, better on the ground than it looks from a car.
The Scottsdale connection
Scottsdale built its antiques trade in the 1950s and 1960s around tourists, on Fifth Avenue and Main Street, and it has stayed a tourist trade. Melrose grew from the other direction, from residents furnishing ranch houses, and the two streets have traded dealers and inventory for decades. A Scottsdale visitor who has done the galleries and the Antique Centre and wants the version with the prices still on masking tape should spend a Saturday here.
Getting there
Indian School Road west from Old Town for seven miles to Seventh Avenue, about twenty-two minutes with no traffic; the district starts at the corner and runs north. From the Camelback corridor, Camelback Road west to Seventh Avenue is fifteen minutes and lands you at the north end. Park at a shop lot or on the side streets; the avenue itself has little parking and heavy traffic. No rail reaches it.