Lux Central runs at 4402 North Central Avenue in uptown Phoenix, a coffeehouse that founder Jeff Fischer has approached as a bar since 2011, now paired with a back-room craft cocktail bar called the Lux Salon.
The room
The space sprawls across connected rooms with industrial and vintage fittings and dozens of distinct seating areas, which Phoenix Magazine described as a maze that rewards exploring. The front works as a coffeehouse by day, and a cavernous back room opened in 2020 as the Lux Salon cocktail bar. The room reads as one address that shifts character from morning to night.
What to order
By day the draw is the house coffee, roasted by Lux for its own cups across the valley. By night the Salon runs craft cocktails and a daily rotating punch, and the bartenders will build to taste rather than hand over a long list. Order a roast in the morning or a punch in the Salon at night, depending on the hour.
What regulars say
Across Phoenix New Times and the review sites the recurring notes are the coffee program, the multi-room layout, and the surprise of a real cocktail bar in the back. Regulars treat the Salon as the after-dark version of a daytime favorite. The common caution is that the maze of rooms fills on weekends, so seats move fast.
The crowd
The crowd shifts from a laptop and coffee set in the morning to a cocktail and date crowd in the Salon at night, with a creative uptown lean throughout. Weekend mornings and weekend nights pull the fullest house in their respective rooms. The Central Avenue location keeps it an uptown regulars' spot rather than a tourist stop.
Who it is for
Lux Central fits coffee drinkers by day and cocktail drinkers in the Salon by night, plus anyone who likes a room with corners to explore. Skip it if the plan needs a single quiet table at peak hours, since the rooms fill and the character changes with the clock.
Best time to go
The coffeehouse runs daily 6am to 10pm, with the Lux Salon cocktail bar working the evening end. A weekday morning is the calm coffee version, while a weekend night in the Salon is the cocktail room at full tilt.
The neighbourhood
Lux Central sits on Central Avenue in uptown Phoenix, the light-rail corridor of cafes and shops north of midtown. The location is an easy stop on the Central spine rather than a destination drive, with the rail at the door. Fischer opened the room in 2011, and the 2020 Lux Salon turned a daytime favorite into a day-to-night address.
The history
Jeff Fischer opened Lux in 2011 and built it as a coffeehouse approached like a bar, a framing Phoenix Magazine used in its 2022 profile of the room. Lux roasts its own beans for cups across the valley, which anchors the daytime program. The 2020 addition of the Lux Salon cocktail bar in a back room turned a daytime favorite into a single address that carries from morning coffee to evening drinks.
The bottom line
Lux Central is the uptown Phoenix coffeehouse run like a bar, a Central Avenue maze that pours house-roasted coffee by day and craft cocktails in the back-room Lux Salon by night. Order a roast in the morning or a rotating punch in the Salon after dark, and let the room set the mood. Pick a weekday morning for calm or a weekend night for the Salon. For a Phoenix room that works from coffee to cocktails in one address, it earns the list.
Stay in the city with our best cocktail bars in Phoenix roundup, the wider Phoenix bar guide, and our edit of cocktail bars worldwide. Pair Lux Central with Postino Wine Cafe in Phoenix, Century Grand in Phoenix, and Windsor in Phoenix.
Sources: Lux Coffee official site (2026); Phoenix Magazine (2022); Phoenix New Times; Lux Arizona Instagram; azcoffeeshops.com.
