1983
South MacDill restaurant, bar and arcade from a Tampa hospitality group. Publishes Bucs and Gators schedules, NFL and college football all season, and Premier League on weekends. Says it has 80 TVs.
220 East
220 East sits on Davis Boulevard in the small village strip at the top of Davis Islands, and its own site calls it a locally owned American kitchen 24 years strong. The menu runs wider than most neighbourhood rooms: shrimp and grits, a hand-cut New York strip, pizzas including a dill-pickle one the site tells you to trust it on, and a weekend brunch with chicken and waffles. Its Cuban sandwich is built on Cuban bread from La Segunda, which it names on the menu. Several dishes are marked GF on the menu itself.
7th + Grove
7th + Grove sits on East Seventh Avenue in Ybor City and describes itself as the flagship of the 7th + Grove Hospitality group. The cooking is Southern comfort food crossed with Guyanese flavours, served with what the site calls creatively crafted cocktails, and the room runs late on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. It is one of the Ybor rooms Creative Loafing Tampa Bay lists among Tampa Bay's restaurants, and it leans into events... a Saturday day party with hookahs and small bites, NFL Sundays, private parties and catering.
Go early. It turns into a late-night spot later in the evening.
Al's Finger Licking Good Bar-B-Que & Soul Food
Al's cooks Tennessee-style barbecue in Ybor City, dry-rubbed ribs smoked over wood with a tomato-based sauce, and it has won best barbecue in Tampa more times than anyone bothers to count. The food is family food in the literal sense, with dishes on the menu named for the people they came from ... Uncle John's smoked sausage, Aunt Nita's black eyed peas, Sparky's pulled pork, Mazie's serve-it-up yellow rice and chicken. The business started as a concession stand in 2003 and became a sit-down restaurant in 2009, and it now runs barbecue and soul food out of one address on East Seventh Avenue after folding the two shops together.
BellyUp! Tampa / Over 50
Over 50 Tampa
Nobody publishes the noise level, and it is the thing that decides the night.
Good places to eat and drink in Tampa, minus the nightclubs. When a spot gets loud later or draws a lot of kids, the card tells you.
7 spots
Coco Lov
Coco Lov is a family-run dessert shop on South MacDill built around coconut milk, dates and sea moss. The ice cream, cheesecakes, chocolate mousse, smoothies and bowls are plant-based, gluten-free and dairy-free, with no refined sugar. The current Tampa Instagram bio publishes daily hours, and the official menu lists the Tampa address and the ingredients for each dessert.
HaleLife Bakery & Bistro
HaleLife is a bakery and bistro on South Dale Mabry Highway whose whole kitchen is built around food restrictions rather than around a diet trend. Its own South Tampa page states the rule plainly: 100% Gluten-Free, Vegan, & Allergy Friendly. The kitchen is dedicated free from gluten, dairy, eggs, soy, peanuts, tree nuts other than coconut, and shellfish, traced down to the manufacturer, and the company says it has had no reported reactions since opening in 2017. The board runs to beignets, cinnamon rolls, donuts, breakfast tacos, pizza and cakes. USA Today named it a top gluten free bakery in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Plant Life
Plant Life is a plant-based, gluten-free kitchen on Henderson Boulevard serving breakfast, bowls, sandwiches and prepared meals. It also supplies food at Urban Jungalow on West Cass Street, where its menu sits beside SOHO Juice Co. That relationship matters because Tampa guides often list the brands as separate restaurants without telling you that two of them can be found inside the same North Hyde Park cafe.
Pure Kitchen
Pure Kitchen is a 100 percent vegan grab-and-go kitchen on West Kennedy Boulevard. The menu changes every morning and the food is made in small batches from fresh ingredients, so this is the practical stop when you want a prepared meal without ordering from a fixed restaurant menu. The kitchen posts the day's choices on Facebook and Instagram, and its September 26, 2026 Instagram post confirmed that the shop was open that day.
The Vegan Halal Cart
The Vegan Halal Cart is a fully vegan food truck working South Tampa, run by Nick Alami, the University of South Florida alum behind Vegan International Co. on North Nebraska Avenue. It takes the New York street-cart format, the gyro and the kefta and the rice plate, and builds it without animal products. Alami told TAMPA Magazine that more than forty percent of his customers are not vegan.
Vegan International Co. Kitchen & Market
Vegan International Co. is a fully vegan kitchen and small market on North Nebraska Avenue in north Tampa, near the University area. Its own about text is unambiguous: it says it is a 100% Vegan restaurant with market items, and that the store offers express service for take-out as well as limited outdoor dining. The kitchen says the meal you are eating was prepared the same day by committed and knowledgeable vegans, and the business also runs a food truck called the Vegan Halal Cart. It is open seven days a week, which is unusual for a small vegan kitchen in this city.
WeVegan Cafe
WeVegan Cafe sits on South Manhattan Avenue in Interbay, and its owners Sandra Carson and Effren Denson are Tampa natives who grew up in that neighbourhood. The business started because they went plant based and could not find a vegan cookie they actually enjoyed, so they worked on their own recipe until they had one they loved. They sold the first batch at a farmer's market in November 2017, which grew into a wholesale business supplying vegan cookies and breads to coffee shops and delis around the bay, then an online retail operation when Covid hit the restaurant industry, and finally this cafe. It serves craft coffee, homemade baked goods and hot and grab-and-go breakfast and lunch seven days a week.
What these spots are known for
The same over 50 spots, sorted by the reasons people actually pick them.
Origin Stories
Who built this and why?
Neighborhood Institutions
What has been here forever?
Rooftops and Patios
Can we sit outside?
Big Groups
Will they seat twelve of us?
Private Dining and Buyouts
Can we take a room?
In the MICHELIN Guide
Who has the inspectors paying attention?
Historic Rooms
What was this building before?
Vegan and Plant-Based
Where can I eat with no asterisks?
Community Quotes
Recommendations from real Tampanians, always attributed to whoever wrote them.
Nobody’s shared a over 50 recommendation yet. Be the first.
Run one of these rooms?
Every Tampa spot here already has a free profile going, put together from what you publish publicly. If we have you filed wrong, or we are missing what you most want to be known for, tell us.