Over 50 Tampa

Midtown Tampa · italian, cuban, bakery, sandwiches

Alessi has been baking in Tampa since 1912, working from 'family recipes passed down through four generations'. It is a Sicilian bakery that grew up alongside the Cuban and Spanish bakeries of West Tampa and Ybor, and it sells both traditions ... Italian pastries and cannoli on one side, fresh Cuban bread and scachatta on the other, plus a deli counter, custom cake studio and rotisserie chicken. The business has moved into a single new building on West Cypress Street that puts the bakery, cake studio, deli and cafe 'under one roof'.

Ybor City

BarrieHaus is a lager house in Ybor City built on a family brewing line the owners trace back 150 years, and it pours many of its beers through Czech side pull faucets imported from the Czech Republic. The 5,000 square foot space holds a wrap around copper bartop, an indoor taproom, a small room they call the Den and an outdoor Biergarten. Its Vienna lager Family Tradition took a 2022 World Beer Cup gold and the Czech-style pilsner Bublina took another in 2024. Well behaved leashed dogs are welcome outside.

East Tampa · cuban, italian, sandwiches

Brocato's opened in 1948 and has worked its way through three businesses in the same family: grocery store, then meat market, then sandwich shop. Its own site puts the arithmetic plainly, that nearly eighty years later 'countless restaurants, diners and sandwich shops have come and gone' and Brocato's has not. The counter is known for the Tampa trinity of Cuban sandwiches, deviled crabs and stuffed potatoes. It sits on East Columbus Drive in East Tampa, closes at 5:30 in the afternoon and is shut on Sundays, which tells you it is a working lunch counter rather than a destination restaurant.

Ybor City · cuban, italian, spanish, sandwiches

Carmine's has been on the corner of Seventh Avenue in Ybor City since 1948, and its own site describes it as 'a cornerstone of Ybor City for over seven decades'. The menu is the Ybor mix rather than one country's cooking ... Cuban, Italian and Spanish dishes side by side, with the Cuban sandwich and the deviled crab croquettes as the two orders it is known for. Owner Carmine Iavarone runs the room, and the site credits him with 'deep roots in the community' and decades of keeping the recipes going.

Ybor City

A cider and mead house in Ybor City, open since late 2014, and one of very few rooms in Tampa built around either drink. Most of what it pours is exclusive to the tasting room, and the company says its ciders and meads are made with Florida grown ingredients and are always 100 percent natural. It is unrelated to Cigar City Brewing despite the shared nickname for the district.

Ybor City · spanish, cuban

Casimiro Hernandez, Sr. opened the Columbia Saloon on December 17, 1903, and it became the Columbia Restaurant in 1905. It is still run by his descendants, now into the fourth and fifth generations ... Richard Gonzmart, Casey Gonzmart Sr., Andrea Gonzmart Williams and Casey Gonzmart Jr. The Ybor City original has grown from a corner saloon into 15 dining rooms across an entire city block, 52,000 square feet with seating for up to 1,700, and the company calls it the largest Spanish restaurant in the world. Flamenco is performed during dinner, with seatings at 5:30, 6 or 6:30pm for the 7pm show Monday through Saturday and 8:30 or 9pm seatings for a second 9:30pm show on Friday and Saturday.

Live music some nights. Go before the band starts if you want to talk.

Ybor City · american, cuban, sandwiches

Gaspar's Grotto sits on Seventh Avenue in the middle of Ybor City and builds its whole identity on Jose Gaspar, the legendary Gulf pirate Tampa throws Gasparilla for every January. Its own site says the bar pays homage to the legendary local pirate Jose Gaspar and celebrates Tampa's immigrant past. There is an indoor bar and dining room plus two outdoor patios with live entertainment weekly, and Sunday brunch has become the thing it is known for. The bar also runs a pig roast, a VIP bottle lounge, weddings and its own Ybor Gift Company merchandise shop.

Go early. It turns into a late-night spot later in the evening.

Tampa Heights

Hidden Springs opened to the public on 18 September 2015, but the first beer was made in the garage of Josh and Jacqui Garman after Josh's mother Marsha gave them a Mr. Beer kit one Christmas. She died soon after, and the brewery still tells that story. It is family owned and run, on Franklin Street in Tampa Heights, and the tasting room is bookable. Its manifesto is printed on the site: 'Hidden Springs is a place where we abide no hatred and exist to create community, great tastes, and connections.'

Ybor City · cuban, sandwiches, coffee

King Corona has been on Seventh Avenue since 1998, which by Ybor City standards makes it a newcomer and by everyone else's standards makes it a fixture. The Ybor room pairs a full bar and a walk-in humidor with Cuban coffee and sandwiches, and the sidewalk tables are one of the standard places to sit and watch Seventh Avenue. The house also rolls its own small-batch cigars under the Dulzura Farms name. A second Ybor site, King Corona 1902, is announced for November 2026: twelve thousand square feet on Seventh Avenue with a members-only floor and a balcony over the district.

V.M. Ybor · cuban, bakery

La Segunda was founded in 1915 and still bakes on North 15th Street in V.M. Ybor, just north of the Ybor City historic district. Its own site counts '110+ Years of Family Tradition' and says the business 'started in a small Ybor City bakery'. The bakery says it turns out '18,000+ Loaves Baked Daily', which is why so much of Tampa's Cuban bread, and most of the city's Cuban sandwiches, trace back to this one address. There are now several counters around Tampa Bay, but 2512 N 15th St is the original bake house.

Hyde Park · new american, coffee, tea

The building went up in 1891 across the street from Henry B. Plant's Tampa Bay Hotel, held an arcade of local shops from the 1920s, then sat empty for decades until the century-old brickwork was restored. Brother and sister Blake Casper and Allison Adams reopened it as Oxford Exchange on September 24, 2012, and Casper's line for how it started is that it started with a bookstore and an office. Under one roof now are the restaurant, the bookstore and shop, a coffee bar, the TeBella Tea Bar, a champagne bar, the Commerce Club membership workspace, and the OE Studio and podcast room. The design takes its cue from the old London clubs and shops, and the stated intent was a place to belong.

Ybor City · new american

The Bricks opened in 2010 at the corner of East Seventh Avenue and North 14th Street, which Ybor City also calls Avenida Republica de Cuba. It was started by a local team in partnership with the Skate Park of Tampa, and the idea was a hangout for skaters, artists and musicians rather than a bar chasing the Seventh Avenue club crowd. There are two performance spaces ... an open-air courtyard and a small Cafe Stage that overlooks the bar and the front windows ... and most shows are listed with no cover.

This is a music venue. It is loud when a show is on.