Cavender's Boot City opened its first Phoenix-area store on Thursday at 2817 S. Market St. in Gilbert, marking the opening chapter of a three-store push across metro Phoenix. The Texas-based Western wear chain is taking over a former Big Lots space near Ulta inside the SanTan Village Marketplace, a power center just south of San Tan Village Mall.
The Gilbert opening was reported by Arizona Foothills Magazine, which noted the store is the first of Cavender's planned new metro Phoenix locations to open its doors. According to WhatNow, the retailer is planning three new stores across the Phoenix area, with Goodyear and Tempe still to come, though exact opening dates for those two locations have not been announced. The SanTan Village Marketplace itself spans 672,725 square feet with 33 retail spaces and 3,245 parking spots, according to commercial real estate listings on LoopNet, and counts Marshalls, DSW, Ross, Old Navy, and Ulta among its co-tenants.
Goodyear and Tempe Locations Still Taking Shape
Per the same WhatNow report, Cavender's is also headed to the Market at Estrella Falls in Goodyear, at 1600 Pebble Creek Pkwy, in a planned store of roughly 15,000 square feet. That location is expected to bring Western apparel and footwear to the West Valley, and the West Valley View has reported it should open this fall. The Goodyear site continues a pattern the chain has used elsewhere in Arizona: backfilling a former Party City space, similar to how Cavender's previously converted a vacant Party City into a store at The Spectrum shopping center in Tucson, as Real Estate Daily News reported in August 2025.
The third Valley store is planned for Arizona Mills at 5000 S. Arizona Mills Circle in Tempe, near the mall's Entrance 4, where the Arizona Mills directory already lists Cavender's as coming soon, per the seed reporting. No opening date has been set for either the Goodyear or Tempe stores at this time.
Tucson Store Set for September Opening
Cavender's is timing its Valley rollout around its third Tucson location, a 15,655-square-foot store at 7200 E. Broadway Blvd. that is scheduled to open Tuesday, September 15, according to AZ Big Media. That outlet reported the Gilbert store is expected to open after the Tucson location, treating the Tucson opening as something of a benchmark before the chain expands further across the Valley.
Cavender's district manager Cheryl Millard told AZ Big Media that Tucson's deep Western heritage and proximity to historic towns like Tombstone and Bisbee make Southern Arizona an ideal market for the chain's growth. The outlet also detailed how Cavender's builds loyalty through in-store services such as boot fitting, stretching, and hat shaping, offerings the WhatNow report also confirmed are part of the Gilbert store's lineup.
A Texas Retailer With Deep Roots and a Growing Footprint
Cavender's Boot City was founded in 1965 in Pittsburg, Texas, by James Cavender and Patricia Cavender, and has since grown to more than 130 stores across 18 states, according to the WhatNow report. Stores carry boots, hats, clothing, accessories, and work gear for men, women, and children, stocking national brands including Ariat, Wrangler, and Resistol alongside exclusive private labels such as Rockin' C, Rafter C, and JRC & Sons, per AZ Big Media.
The chain has also leaned on pop-culture partnerships to reach younger shoppers. In June, Cavender's teamed up with country artist Zach Top and denim maker Kimes Ranch to launch an exclusive “ZT” jean across all of its more than 130 locations nationwide, according to a release distributed via PR Newswire.
Competing With Boot Barn in a Growing Market
Cavender's expansion puts it in direct competition with Boot Barn, the market leader that had grown to more than 500 stores across 49 states as of November 2025, including multiple Phoenix-area locations in cities like Phoenix and Chandler, per a corporate announcement carried by PR Newswire. Cavender's roughly 130-store footprint remains far smaller, but its rapid multi-city Arizona rollout mirrors a broader industry pattern of backfilling vacant big-box retail spaces, a strategy Hoodline previously documented in a former Saks OFF 5TH location in San Antonio.
The push into Arizona comes as the broader Western wear market keeps expanding. Global Western apparel sales were valued at $91.8 billion in 2025 and are projected to reach $162.9 billion by 2035, a 5.9% annual growth rate, according to market research published by Market.us in January 2026. That growth, driven by casualization trends and the rising popularity of country lifestyle culture, helps explain why chains like Cavender's are betting on suburban power centers in fast-growing Sunbelt metros like Phoenix.
