How Glendale Eats: From Sugar City Fields to Downtown Kitchens

Glendale's food story starts in its fields. The town grew up beside the Arizona Canal as a farming colony, shipped trainloads of produce, and for a while called itself Sugar City after the beet factory on Glendale Avenue. Those farms are mostly subdivisions now, but walk the blocks around Murphy Park and you can still taste the layers the decades left behind: family Sonoran kitchens, a German beer hall, a Polish lunch room, a fourth-generation candy maker and a Saturday market where growers and bakers set up side by side.

Fields, figs and Sugar City

The colony that became Glendale was founded in 1892 to farm. Water from the Arizona Canal, finished in 1885, turned desert into orchards and fields, and in 1906 a beet sugar factory opened near today's 52nd Avenue and Glendale Avenue. The town took the nickname Sugar City and put the sugar beet on its municipal seal when it incorporated in 1910. The factory building still stands at 5243 West Glendale Avenue and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The beet boom faded within a decade, and farmers turned to lettuce, melons, cotton and hay. An ice plant built in 1910 at 59th Avenue and Glendale Avenue chilled produce for the railroad, and by 1920 the city records Glendale as the largest produce shipping point in Arizona.

For a glimpse of what grew here before all that, visit Sahuaro Ranch Historic Park at 9802 North 59th Avenue. In the 1880s and 1890s the ranch raised figs, olives, oranges and dates, and its 1891 packing house was built to dry and pack figs. A later owner planted the date palm grove that still stands east of the ranch houses, and the rose garden in front of the main house dates to 1890. The historic grounds are free to wander.

Sonoran kitchens, old and new

Mexican food has deep roots in Glendale. The historical society notes that the annual Mexican Independence Day fiesta was already a popular town event in the 1920s and 1930s, and family-run Sonoran restaurants remain everyday places to eat across the city.

Carolina's Mexican Food on West Greenway Road comes from a Phoenix family business that Manuel and Carolina Valenzuela started in 1968 with homemade tortillas, burritos and tamales. Four generations have kept it going, and the tortillas are still the thing people come for.

Ajo Al's on West Bell Road, near Arrowhead, is another family-owned kitchen. It has served Sonoran-style food since 1986, with smoked street tacos and Mexican pizzas among its specialties, and the Arrowhead location opens early on weekends for brunch.

Closer to the center of town, Manuel's Mexican Restaurant & Cantina is on West Peoria Avenue, near Sahuaro Ranch, and handles party-sized catering orders for families.

A downtown that eats around the world

Historic Downtown Glendale packs several kitchens with roots far from Arizona into a few blocks.

Haus Murphy's, on West Glendale Avenue, has served German food in the old downtown for more than two decades. Long tables fill the indoor hall and an outdoor biergarten, and the giant pretzel is a fixture.

A Touch of European Cafe, on North 57th Drive in the historic district, is run by owners Margaret and Waldemar. The menu is Polish home cooking: pierogi, cabbage rolls, hunter's stew, smoked kielbasa and soups such as dill pickle and white borscht. It is a bring-your-own beer or wine spot, and the owners also teach cooking classes.

Just down West Glendale Avenue, La Piazza Al Forno bakes Neapolitan-style pizza in a wood-fired brick oven, with San Marzano tomatoes, double-zero flour and house-made mozzarella.

Sweet things and morning stops

Glendale has a long relationship with chocolate. Cerreta Candy Company was started in Phoenix in 1968 by Jim Cerreta Sr., who learned candy making in his father-in-law's factory in Ohio, and it has made candy at 5345 West Glendale Avenue since around 1990. Four generations now make caramels, brittles, taffy and the company's French Mint chocolates, and the family gives guided factory tours on weekdays.

That sweet streak peaks each February at the city's Chocolate Affaire. The 2027 festival is set for February 13 and 14 at the Glendale Civic Center, with tastings, dessert sampling, live entertainment and local vendors, and the city says admission and parking are free.

Downtown mornings run on a few independent counters along North 58th Avenue. Blue Corn Cafe & Bakery turned four this October at its original Historic Downtown Glendale cafe and bakes artisan sourdough, pastries, quiche and paninis; its Blue Corn Express on West Glendale Avenue adds smoothies and boba. A few doors away, Coyote Oaties bakes oatmeal cookies every day from whole rolled oats and real butter, and packs them in gift crates. Around the corner on West Glendale Avenue, The Black Sheep pours coffee made with an organic dark-roast Honduran bean from a local roaster, alongside panini-pressed sandwiches and homemade pastries.

Saturday at the market

For produce and food from small makers, the Arrowhead Farmers Market meets every Saturday at Dream City Church Glendale, near 75th Avenue and Loop 101. From October through April it runs from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and the organizers list more than 175 vendors, plus food trucks and activities for children. The market used to set up at Arrowhead Towne Center, so check the organizer's page for the current location and any holiday changes before you go.

Between the market, the old ranch orchards and the downtown counters, Glendale's table still reflects the farm town it started as: people who grow, bake and cook for their neighbors, a few blocks or a few generations at a time.