Local Champion in Arizona: Rate Five Places, Name Your Top 3

Local Champion in Arizona is a title earned inside the Mosey app by a diner who has done three modest things in one town: rated five places, answered three Top 3 questions and made a list. The title says nothing about taste. It records effort, which is why an honest one-star rating counts exactly as much as a five-star glow.

If you have ever been the one who takes visitors to dinner in Tucson, Prescott or Yuma, you already do the hard part. This page covers the rest, with desert towns in mind. It belongs to the Arizona food guide for every town, and the US food guides cover the other states.

What do you need to earn Local Champion in Arizona?

A checklist of three. One: five ratings of different places, each with a place and stars and nothing more required. Two: three answered Top 3 questions. Three: one list you made yourself. All three must happen in the same town. Tick them off in any order, over a weekend or a year.

The app describes the idea in a single line: rate places, name your top 3 and build your list.

How do you rate five places in your town?

Anything you actually ate. A breakfast burrito before a hike, a coffee on a plaza, a taco stop on the highway, a date shake, a slice after a game: five different kitchens by Sunday. Rate each one close to the meal, while you still remember the heat of the salsa and the length of the wait. Naming the dish is optional, but it gives your rating a handle that a stranger can use.

A tip for the road: rate before you drive on. Add a tag or two, such as Outdoor seating or Quick Service, and tag the friend who was with you, who can add a rating of their own for the same meal.

What are the Top 3 questions in Arizona?

One question on each visit to the app. Each asks where the best place is for one thing, such as coffee, a restaurant or brunch, and you pick up to three places and put them in order. First place is your favorite. Skip any question you cannot honestly answer, though a skip does not count toward the title. Later questions bring pizza, burgers, pastries, date night and cuisines, and the Mexican one is likely to start the loudest arguments in Arizona.

There is no wrong answer and no timer. Pick the three you would genuinely send a visiting friend to, put your favorite first and leave a question blank if your top three would be a stretch. You can change an answer whenever a new place wins you over, and the list the app keeps for you changes with it.

Where does your private Top 3 list live?

In one private list that the app keeps for the town, with a section for every question. It updates when your answers change. No one else can open it. You can share the title as a picture, which shows the title and not the list.

How do you make a list in your Arizona town?

You made it, and it has places in it. Beyond that it is yours to shape, and the app suggests ways to start. If three or more of your rated places share a tag, it can offer to turn them into a list with every place ticked and an editable name. Otherwise, begin from scratch: a list for cool-weather patios, a list for the road to the Grand Canyon, a list of every roadside date stand you passed. Give each place a short note on why it belongs. A list can be private, or public so that anyone can find, save and follow it.

Which towns can earn the title?

Any town where you do the work. The tools are built for towns as well as cities: rate five places in your town and the app shows your progress toward the title. For meals worth rating, start with the Bisbee restaurants guide and the Flagstaff breakfast guide.

What does the title never do?

It never pays. There is no prize, discount, free meal or money, and a business cannot hold or buy one. It never ranks anyone, never changes a place's score and never decides who is right. It is a mark of attention, nothing more, and it is available to anyone who cares to look around their own town with a hungry eye. You can share the title as a picture with your first name on the card, or keep it quietly on your profile.

What if you leave town?

The title stays with the place where you earned it, and you start again in the next. Your ratings and lists stay with you.

How this works in the app: Local Champion and Top 3.

Get the Mosey app, and the next time you sit down to eat in Arizona, rate the plate and begin your five. Rate a breakfast in Flagstaff, a taco in Tucson and a patio dinner in Prescott, and your progress shows in the app as you go.