Suzanne’s Hot Stuff

Fantastic rub for any grilling! Have used repeatedly on both chicken and pork. Enjoy our weekend trips to Cave Creek and always restocking Suzanne’s Southwest Rub!

If you’re visiting Cave Creek in the Phoenix area, you must visit this store. One of the members in our group always stops in when visiting so we wanted to see what it was all about.
The store is pretty tiny but there is a lot of inventory. Lots of specialty dipping and marinating sauces and great gift items.
The gal working was very friendly but borderline a pushy salesperson. If you picked something up to look at, she’d instantly sell you on it. I get turned off by that so after her doing it 5 or 6 times, I didn’t bother picking up anything in fear I’d get 25 reasons why I can’t leave without it.
In the end, we purchased a mango habanero sauce and also a few gag gifts which were great. My favorite was, «Wake The F#$@ Up Coffee».
If you can get past the pushy sales antics, you’ll enjoy this store.

I live in Los Gatos but spend time in Scottsdale. I gotta tell you that this place is fantastic and worth while visiting if you are up in the Carefree/​Cave Creek area. The owner is the nicest person you could ever meet and her staff is very helpful. I love it and always stop by for @$$ kicking Hot Stuff!

This place is tiny and generally crowded, even when Frontier Town is pretty dead, and there’s so much stuff crammed into the space that it’s hard to look at anything.
When I went here, given that I like spicy things, I was immediately drawn to the «food additive» section, the hot sauce that is so hot that for liability reasons they can’t call it hot sauce, jars that contain substances with higher Scoville ratings than some pepper sprays and carry 5-​point legal disclaimers.
Given that I’m in the latter half of my twenties, I’d like to think that I am not easily mistakable for a young teen who might need to be supervised, so the conclusion I can draw from what followed is that if you are under the age of 40 and walk over to look at this section, you earn the woman staffing the place walking over and standing next to you and staring at you until you leave.
She did somewhat explain herself, stating that if one were to accidentally drop the high-​end stuff, it would be like launching tear gas into the store (great thinking for a cramped crowded location!), but still, if you don’t want people looking at it, don’t sell it or keep it behind the counter instead of being rude to customers.
As a touristy thing to see, it’s not bad to I guess, and I didn’t feel like I was cheated out of the 5 – 10 minutes of my life I spent in here, but if you’re on the fence, I wouldn’t bother, and I doubt anyone would have a reason to go back a second time. If you really want anything they sell here, order it online.