Why We Came to Phoenix

Why We Came to Phoenix

Notes from Cary Prewitt on building Saguaro Nights Entertainment Group in downtown Phoenix.

People sometimes ask why Melissa and I moved to Phoenix.

From the outside it probably looks like a strategic decision. A growing city, a hospitality project, a new company.

The truth is the story started a lot earlier than that.

When Melissa and I first started dating I was living in Austin and she was in Santa Monica. Phoenix became the easiest place for us to meet somewhere in the middle. At first it was just a convenient flight for both of us.

But those trips started to stack up.

A few days here would turn into long weekends. Morning hikes in the desert, late dinners outside, sitting on patios long after we meant to call it a night.

We kept coming back.

Eventually it became several trips a year.

But the moment Phoenix really stuck with us happened in the summer of 2018.

At that point we had just left Austin and were trying to figure out where “home” was actually going to be. We loaded up the car and drove to Phoenix planning to spend about a month here before moving on to wherever life took us next.

We had already committed to building the brewery project at that point, so Phoenix wasn’t really part of the plan yet. The thinking was simple: spend a month here, enjoy the desert, then come back in a year or so once everything else was sorted out.

Summer in Phoenix is… educational.

One afternoon we left the car parked outside all day. When we came back later that evening half the toiletries and a couple bottles of booze had literally exploded in the trunk from the heat.

Lesson learned.

Phoenix summers don’t mess around.

But something about that month stuck with us.

Even though we left and went on to build other things, Phoenix stayed in the back of our minds.

We kept coming back whenever we could.

When Rip was born the trips didn’t stop. If anything they became a little more meaningful. Phoenix turned into our winter escape. Mornings outside, afternoons with Rip jumping in the pool about 700 times, evenings on patios where no one seemed particularly interested in ending the night early.

Somewhere along the way we also became Suns fans. A few games downtown and suddenly I had strong opinions about the starting lineup.

The more time we spent here the more something about the place started to click.

The desert does something to you.

The openness.
The saguaros standing quietly over everything.
The way the light hits the mountains late in the afternoon.

But just as much as the landscape, it was the people.

Phoenix has a kind of energy that’s hard to describe unless you’ve spent time here. People come here to build things. Businesses, ideas, entirely new chapters of their lives. There’s ambition here, but it doesn’t feel rigid or overly serious.

It feels optimistic.

Eventually we realized something that probably should have been obvious sooner.

Phoenix had stopped feeling like a place we visited.

It felt like home.

The Long Way Back

The funny part is that our “we’ll come back in a year” plan took a little longer than expected.

Six years, to be exact.

In the spring of 2023 we finally started seriously looking for hospitality projects in Phoenix. The city had changed a lot since those early visits. Downtown was evolving quickly. New restaurants were opening. New neighborhoods were coming alive. You could feel the momentum building.

That’s when the idea of building something here started to feel real.

In the winter of 2023 we walked through a building downtown that immediately caught our attention. Old bones, textured walls, the kind of place that felt like it had stories inside it already.

We couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Over the next several months we kept coming back to that building, trying to figure out if it could become something special.

In the summer of 2024 we finally signed the lease.

That building will become Pablo’s.

And it’s the first project under our new hospitality company, Saguaro Nights Entertainment Group.

The plan that was supposed to take a year ended up taking six.

But sometimes things take the time they need to take.

The First Chapter: Pablo’s

Pablo’s will live inside a 1950s Spanish-style building at First Avenue and McKinley in downtown Phoenix.

The idea behind it is pretty simple.

We want it to feel like the best house party you’ve ever been invited to.

Not one big room where everyone stands around all night, but a place where the experience changes as you move through it.

Three bars.
Smaller lounges where conversations happen.
A courtyard under the desert sky.
And later in the night, a room where the music takes over and the whole place shifts gears.

That room is called Night Tiger.

But the goal isn’t just to build a bar or a nightclub.

The goal is to build a place where the night unfolds naturally.

Some of the best nights I’ve had all share that same feeling. They start casually and then something shifts. The music gets better. The room fills up. Conversations get longer. Suddenly it’s two in the morning and nobody is ready to leave.

A mezcal bar in Oaxaca where conversations stretched until sunrise.

A courtyard somewhere in Mexico where strangers slowly became friends.

Rooms where the lighting, music, and crowd somehow line up and create a kind of electricity you can’t really manufacture.

Those experiences stay with you.

Pablo’s is inspired by a lot of them.

El Consejo

Inside Pablo’s we’re also building a smaller space called El Consejo.

It will be a private members lounge tucked inside the venue.

The idea isn’t exclusivity for the sake of exclusivity. It’s about creating a space for the kinds of people who shape the energy of a room. Founders, artists, musicians, designers, people who bring interesting conversations with them.

In great hospitality spaces the crowd becomes part of the story.

El Consejo is meant to nurture that kind of community.

Building Something Bigger

Melissa and I didn’t move to Phoenix just to open one venue.

The goal is to build a hospitality company here.

Saguaro Nights Entertainment Group is the platform for that, and Pablo’s is the first chapter.

Phoenix is growing quickly right now. New residents arriving every day. Neighborhoods evolving. Downtown changing block by block.

Anyone who has spent time in the Sonoran Desert knows the feeling once the sun drops behind the mountains. The air cools just enough, the sky turns that deep purple for a few minutes, and suddenly everyone wants to be outside. Patios fill up. Conversations get longer. The city exhales a little. Nights in Phoenix have their own rhythm, and once you feel it, you start to understand why people stay.

Those are the kinds of nights we want Pablo’s to be part of.

It feels like one of those moments when a city is still shaping what it’s going to become.

Those are the moments that are fun to build in.

We believe Phoenix has the potential to become one of the most interesting hospitality cities in the country.

We’re excited to be part of that.

And we’re just getting started.

Legendary Nights. Mezcal & Memories.

Coming 2026 to Downtown Phoenix.

About the Author

Cary Prewitt is the founder of Saguaro Nights Entertainment Group, a Phoenix-based hospitality company developing immersive nightlife venues and private membership concepts inspired by the culture, design, and spirit of the American Southwest.

This article was originally published on Cary Prewitt’s substack.