Tirion Boan
Tirion Boan is the Food Editor at Phoenix New Times, covering the food and drink scene with a focus on restaurants, bars, and everyday dining decisions. Her coverage is defined by close, continuous tracking of openings and closings, large-scale ranked lists, and practical guides that show how the local dining landscape is changing in real time. She combines news about restaurant churn, curated recommendations, and food culture reporting, giving readers both a map of what is new and context on the institutions that shape the city’s eating and drinking habits.
Restaurant openings, closings and the shifting dining map
Boan keeps a running account of the restaurants and bars that arrive and disappear, turning what could be simple listings into narrative snapshots of the dining economy. In monthly and periodic pieces such as “These 12 Phoenix restaurants are now closed, one after 30 years,” “These 16 Phoenix restaurants and bars are now closed,” and “These 7 Phoenix restaurants are now closed,” she documents which local family-run spots shut their doors, which national chains exit the market, and which short-lived concepts fail to stick. These stories spell out how long a place has been open, what kind of food it serves, and why its closure matters, giving a sense of the city’s culinary memory and loss rather than just listing names.
She balances this by tracking new arrivals in roundups like “The 6 most exciting new restaurants now open in Phoenix,” “The 6 most exciting new Phoenix restaurants that opened in June,” and “Sprouts is on a roll. Another new store coming to the Valley,” highlighting emerging concepts alongside grocery and fast-casual expansion.
The result is a beat that treats openings and closings as core food news, showing how quickly the dining map redraws itself and who is driving that change.
Ranked lists and guides to eating and drinking now
Boan leads or co-leads the masthead’s major list projects, using rankings as a way to define what it means to eat and drink well in the city at a given moment. She publishes large annual packages such as the Top 100 Bars and Top 100 Restaurants, drawing on extensive visits and tastings to identify standout cocktail bars, neighborhood joints, and destination dining rooms. In “The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix,” she and her colleagues frame the list as the product of editors and writers traveling across the Valley “doing research disguised as drinking,” assembling a spectrum from dive bars to craft cocktail spots.
In “The top 50 restaurants in Phoenix right now,” she updates a previously published list to reflect the latest openings and rising stars, presenting an edited set of 50 that she describes as defining the city’s food scene at that point in time. Beyond these marquee packages, she writes recurring service pieces such as “The 5 best bites we tasted at Phoenix restaurants in September” and “The 6 best bites and sips we tasted around Phoenix in July,” short, focused guides that pick specific dishes or drinks from a range of restaurants. These stories favor clear descriptions over hype and give readers concrete starting points - what to order, where to go, and why a particular plate or cocktail stands out.
She also contributes to broader editorial projects like Best of Phoenix, reinforcing her role as a central curator of the city’s food and drink recommendations.
Food culture, fandom and fairground novelties
While much of Boan’s work is grounded in openings, closings and lists, she regularly steps into food culture features that examine why people care about certain places or experiences. In “’Don’t disrespect the beaver.’
Buc-ee’s fans defend beloved gas station,” she explores the loyalty around the Texas-based convenience store brand as it expands, focusing on how fans talk about its snacks, brisket sandwiches, and overall experience rather than treating it as a simple retail story.
Her coverage also extends to festive, one-off eating environments. In “The wackiest foods we tasted at the Arizona State Fair, ranked worst to best,” she and her team taste through fair offerings, from deeply indulgent fried items to novelty desserts, and rank them with an eye on both fun and value for money. She brings a similar lens to pieces on where to find the best ice cream in Phoenix and to stories highlighting when local spots are named among America’s favorite ice cream destinations, tying national attention back to specific neighborhood scoops and shops. Across these features she treats food as both sustenance and social experience, showing how brand loyalty, special events, and comfort desserts fit into the broader dining culture.
Standards, inspections and the less glamorous side of dining
Boan also looks at food safety and regulatory scrutiny, adding a watchdog element to her beat. In recurring stories such as “Fish and flies: The worst Phoenix restaurant inspections of July,” “Cockroaches, flies, mold: The worst Phoenix restaurant inspections of June,” and similar monthly pieces, she compiles inspection reports that document violations ranging from pests to cleanliness issues. These articles name specific establishments and detail the problems inspectors found, making clear which kitchens failed to meet standards rather than speaking in generalities.
By placing these inspection roundups alongside recommendations and celebratory lists, she offers a more complete picture of the local dining scene, acknowledging that quality involves both taste and safety.
Boan has worked on the food desk at Phoenix New Times since May 2022 and holds the role of Food Editor, anchoring the publication’s coverage of restaurants, bars and food trends. Before taking on that role, she worked for publications including The Arizona Republic and Tucson Weekly, bringing broader regional reporting experience to her current beat. Across news roundups, ranked lists, health inspection reports and culture features, her work is consistent in its focus on clarity, specificity and usefulness for people who want to understand - and navigate - the city’s evolving food landscape.
4 more food journalists.
Aaron Guerrero
Aaron Guerrero is head of the digital department at Miami’s Community Newspapers, where he pairs restaurant coverage with community-facing content. He focuses on how Miami-area restaurants evolve, celebrate, and experiment through new concepts, menus, and neighborhood-focused dining experiences. He reports on restaurant openings, such as an Italian food hall at Plaza Coral Gables, new executive lunch menus, and wood-fired Latin steakhouse brunches, explaining what sets each venue apart. He also covers awards, like a Wine Spectator honor for an Italian chophouse, and events that turn dining rooms into social hubs. His bylines extend to features on sports-themed gatherings, civic renamings, local visits to restaurant programs, sponsored community pieces, and official notices. His work is straightforward and descriptive, helping readers and local businesses connect around specific openings, promotions, and dining experiences.
Aarron Fleming
Aarron Fleming reports on how courts, jails and public safety systems work over time. He is a reporter at The Daily Memphian covering public safety, the local court system, suburban news and business developments in North Mississippi. His work follows trials, sentencing, appeals, plea deals and judicial decisions, including major cases tied to Tyre Nichols and rapper Young Dolph. He also covers jail conditions, inmate deaths, crime data, prosecution units, trafficking, shootings and public-order incidents. His suburban reporting examines cannabis businesses, restaurant openings and how commercial growth affects communities such as Olive Branch. Fleming previously covered education in the same newsroom. He uses clear, unadorned prose to explain legal steps, deadlines, institutional problems and the political, commercial and community effects of public-safety decisions.
Alana Al-Hatlani
Alana Al-Hatlani is a food writer and editor who treats recipes, restaurants, and food features as ways to explore culture, community, and the business of eating. She works on the food team at Southern Living, overseeing and contributing to print recipes and reported features. Her pastry-focused, restaurant-tested perspective comes from time in restaurant and bakery kitchens. She helps plan and write monthly food packages, including “The South’s Most Treasured Desserts,” and wrote “8 Summer Recipes Our Editors Make Every Year.” She also writes recipe tips, ingredient explainers, restaurant guides, and reported stories about workers, owners, and communities. Her subjects include regional specialties, dining scenes, kitchen basics, and food industries. Her work has appeared with OpenTable and Yahoo. She reports on the ground, explains techniques clearly, and connects specific dishes and places to larger stories about food and livelihood.
Alana Edgin
Alana Edgin is a business reporter whose strongest focus is food, restaurants and consumer-facing businesses. She works at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and has also had work syndicated across AOL and Yahoo News. She covers new openings, closings, expansions and franchise growth, along with retail, health, services, corporate news, data incidents, business support programs and sponsorships. Her reporting includes detailed roundups of new restaurants and businesses, coverage of El Pollo Loco’s opening, and stories on burger trucks, dessert shops, Vietnamese sandwich restaurants and gourmet markets. She also contributes to food and drink reviews, including fall coffee and jerky comparisons. Edgin reports with practical “what, when, where” details, structured comparisons and clear explanations of how offers, partnerships and business changes affect consumers and the local economy.