Northwest Hillsborough around Gunn Highway and Ehrlich Road, named for the groves that were here before the subdivisions, with a few family kitchens holding their ground among the plazas.
Citrus Park Cafe is a small morning and lunch counter on Ehrlich Road whose whole identity is its address: it sits on the Upper Tampa Bay Trail, so its regulars arrive on bicycles. It pours Peet's coffee and makes custom subs, salads, Cuban sandwiches and smoothies, and it closes at 2:30pm. It is shut Monday and Tuesday, and it posts its holiday and vacation closures on the front page rather than leaving people to find out at the door.
Southern Luv BBQ smokes over pecan wood on Citrus Park Drive in northwest Tampa, run by founder and pitmaster Chef Essi Tadrus. His own story on the site starts with a plate of ribs at a gas station in Fort Hood, Texas at age five, where his father was stationed; he opened his first restaurant at nineteen and later brought it home to Tampa. The kitchen took second place for World's Best Cuban Sandwich at the International Cuban Sandwich Festival in Tampa, and it bottles its own Carolina gold and sweet heat sauces and bags its own kettle-cooked chips in small batches. When Hurricane Milton knocked out power, the restaurant fired the pit back up and handed out free pulled pork and mac and cheese to neighbours.
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