If Sun City were a food, it'd be a raisin because it's so sweet.
"We are an age-restrictive community," says Paul Herrman of the Sun City Visitor's Center. "We encourage visits from people who are looking for a place to retire."
By taking a 30-minute drive from Tempe on the Interstate 10 and the Loop 101 North, a day trip to Sun City is a good chance to scope out a future home and get an early in on the scene.
Driving in, there's a couple driving a minivan and the skinny dame in the front seat is wearing a bedazzled baseball cap and peach lipstick. The man sports a sweater.
Perhaps the people-watching is its own treasure — there are cougars, there are grumpy and grumpier old men, there are more than a few high-hitched trousers, and an ASU lad could learn a thing or two about how to grow a proper beard.
But there are a few places worth stopping at, and not just to ogle at people passing by.
Entering off of Grand Avenue located at 101 Street is New York West Bakery. Grandma could have made everything in the shop. It's pretty hip, too — the 50-something man cooking in the back is wearing a V-neck.
Next stop is Sunburst Fashions Misses and Petites at the northwest corner of Del Webb and Thunderbird roads. It's the source of the bedazzled hat as well as the place to go for clip-on earrings, denim in every version of apparel and XL screen-printed kitty sweaters.
Sun City holds one of the best thrift centers in the Valley, with the most reasonably priced goods and the most interesting variety. Lutheran thrift, Suroptimist Thrift and Sun City Animal Rescue Resale Shoppe are all in one center — the southwest corner of Peoria and 107th Street — and supply you with overstuffed sofas, pretty candy dishes and amazing, embroidered handbags for a few dollars.
Advertisers use the line all the time: "this isn't your Grandparent's blank." Sun City can't really be packaged that way because, well, it is your grandparent's Sun City. But that's what makes it Sun City. And that's what makes it great.
