Nightlife in Scottsdale

Jester’z offers up game-based and family-friendly improv, featuring absurd scenarios capable of loosening up straight-laced librarians and splitting the sides of hardened motorcycle gangs. The performers make up situations and details as they go along, and what hilarity emerges is a result of training, audience suggestion, and underlying psychological issues. Experience this comedic instability firsthand at a Jester’z show. The show's 10 p.m. start time coupled with the clean laughs make the experience equally ideal for filling awkward silences during first dates and preventing awkward outbursts during after-hours office outings.

At Stand-Up, Scottsdale! bellies ache from a rotating selection of nationally known comedians seen on Comedy Central and late-night talk shows. The intimate 180-person venue, where such local legends as David Spade got their start, beckons a cast of talented funny persons that changes regularly. Voted Best Comedy Club this year by Arizona Foothills magazine, the ha-ha hot spot has recently hosted performances by noted names including Dana Carvey, Frank Caliendo, and Norm Macdonald. With a recent appearance on Spike TV's "Bar Rescue," they now boost a full menu of pub-food appetizers and entrees keeps would-be hecklers otherwise occupied, and Wednesday evening open-mic nights allow rookie comics to test their mettle.

This intimately outfitted hot spot specializes in an unintimidating wine list and a stellar selection of small plates and sandwiches. Grape guzzlers of all varieties will find satisfying sips with Centro's extensive wine list. Wines by the glass start at $7, and complements abound on a complete menu of plates sized for sharing. The goat cheese and slow-roasted tomatoes crustini sedates testy taste buds with a jet-setting serving of chevre, slow-roasted tomatoes, parmesan, and olive oil ($9.50), and the mixed olive bowl allots for the recommended daily dose of olives ($6). Graduate from grade-school tomato-soup soakers to Centro's sophisticated grilled cheese, which elegantly entwines fresh mozzarella, prosciutto, tomato, and arugula ($9.50) or the lulu's press with Vermont yellow-and-white cheddar, jack cheese, and tomato ($9).

Whether they’re celebrating gridiron victories or a fastball-filled afternoon spent with America’s pastime, Sports Grill 101 fuels fandom with a smorgasbord including stuffed hoagies, sizzling calzones, and Italian eats. As the sights and sounds of sportsmanship fill the bar’s television, diners bond over baskets of wings, savor topping-flecked slices of house-made pizza crust, or toast successful touchdowns, home runs, or goalie-mask-decorating workshops with a frosty beer fresh from the tap.

An aroma of high-quality tobacco swirls with a rhapsodic bouquet of whiskey and leather to greet each guest who walks through the Scottsdale Cigar Club's unassuming façade. The club's staff warmly invites patrons to enjoy sumptuous leather club chairs, card tables, and humidors. These fixtures imbue the smoke haven with the ambiance of an old-world retreat modernized by eight 50-inch televisions, hooked up to Directv and playing business news and sporting events. Resident cigar experts translate a collection of more than 400 cigars—which include Churchill and Robusto cigars from Romeo y Julieta, Arturo Fuente, and Kristoff—revealing the flavorful nuances hidden within each cigar's origin, wrapper shade, and long filler leaves.

The well-ventilated club rents out its prestigious quarters for parties, special events, and the rebirth of Sigmund Freud, which scientists predict will happen any day now. The team also rents out humidified lockers to keep members' cigar stashes fresh, and the in-house cigar shop purveys cutters, ashtrays, and humidors to prevent patrons from fashioning them out of partially ripped plastic electronics wrapping, their cereal bowl, and a box situated in the rainforest, respectively.

Voted the Best Local Performing Arts Troupe by readers of the East Valley Tribune in 2011, National Comedy Theatre’s ensemble of players concocts improvised situations at lightning-fast speeds, relying on audience participation and their own wits to elicit thunderous laughter and applause. After turning to their all-ages crowd for assistance in shaping games and scenarios, the cast employs knowledge gleaned from operating-room sketches to tickle ribs with anatomical exactitude. The show often favors spontaneity over prudence, with performers gleefully stepping into their roles as acrophobic skydiving champions or long-winded court stenographers. Audience members get to select the winning team at the conclusion of the show, and can learn the form themselves during improv classes.