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.
6 spots
Cigar City Brewing
Cigar City Brewing is named for Ybor City's cigar industry and has brewed on West Spruce Street since 2009. Its own site calls the Spruce Street brewery and taproom 'CCB's home base since batch number one', and says the beers are 'steeped in the unique culture and history of Tampa'. Jai Alai IPA, the beer it is best known for, takes its name from the Basque game the Ybor and West Tampa social clubs played. The taproom pours exclusive draft beer inside the working brewery and has its own food menu.
Filipiniana Philippine Cafe
Filipiniana is a cafeteria-style Filipino cafe and bakeshop in a strip plaza on Waters Avenue, where you point at what you want from a hot food counter and then work out how much of the bakery case you can carry home. The hot side runs dinuguan, lechon kawali, kare kare, menudo, palabok and sisig; the bakery side has ube macapuno cake, ensaymada, mamon, cheese rolls and cheese cupcakes. It makes halo halo daily, along with maiz con yelo built on homemade corn ice cream, taho, sago at gulaman and boba. That's So Tampa filed it under hidden gems and said it may have the best baked goods in the city.
La Teresita
La Teresita has been cooking Cuban food on West Columbus Drive in West Tampa for more than fifty years, run by the Capdevila family, who give their name to a page of the site and to the Capdevila Group. The kitchen opens at six in the morning, which is a West Tampa habit rather than a restaurant trend, and the site describes 'delicious homemade Cuban and Spanish dishes'. Alongside the restaurant the family runs a ballroom and a catering operation used for quinces, weddings and parties.
The Brisket Shoppe
The Brisket Shoppe is a Texas-style barbecue counter on North Armenia Avenue in West Tampa run by pitmaster Danny Hernandez, who smokes hand-selected Akaushi wagyu brisket daily over locally sourced oak. The board also carries heritage turkey breast, Cheshire pork ribs and house sausages, with local craft beer and wine alongside. The kitchen states its rules flatly: 'No Freezers. No Microwave. Chef Driven.' It serves Wednesday through Saturday from 11am until the meat runs out, and entered the MICHELIN Guide for the first time in the 2026 Florida selection.
The Sapphire Supper Club & Lounge
The Sapphire opened in May 2026 near the stadium as a supper club built on the 1950s idea of one: dinner, a band and a late night in the same room. Its own writing promises live bands, DJs and tableside flair alongside the cooking, with private dining suites bookable from 11 in the morning even though the main room does not open until 6 in the evening. On Friday and Saturday it runs to 3 AM, which makes it one of the few rooms in this part of the city with genuinely late posted hours.
This is a music venue. It is loud when a show is on.
West Tampa Sandwich Shop
The West Tampa Sandwich Shop calls itself the "Home of the original honey cuban sandwich", and the honey is the local argument: a Cuban sandwich of ham, roast pork, pickles and mustard with honey added, pressed on fresh Cuban bread. It opens at six in the morning and closes at three in the afternoon, six days a week, which is a working West Tampa schedule rather than a restaurant one. It sits on North Armenia Avenue in the middle of West Tampa, the other cigar-era neighbourhood, and it is one of the shops That\u0027s So Tampa puts on its list of the top Cuban sandwiches in the city.
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The same over 50 spots, sorted by the reasons people actually pick them.
Origin Stories
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In the MICHELIN Guide
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