Over 50 Tampa: University Area

University Area · jamaican, caribbean

The Fowler Avenue room with the bright teal roof is the flagship of four Jerk Hut locations, all of them in Tampa, and it is the only one that is a full restaurant rather than a carryout window. It runs a Jamaican lunch buffet Monday through Friday and a Sunday brunch buffet with live reggae, alongside a full liquor bar and a separate carryout counter. On Friday nights the patio turns into a market of Tampa Bay vendors with live cooking stations that runs to midnight, and the ladies' night behind it goes to 3am. The Tampa Bay Times included Jerk Hut in its list of Tampa Bay's 25 most iconic restaurants, a list that required at least a decade in business to qualify.

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

University Area · asian, chinese, vietnamese, filipino, korean

MD Oriental Market is the large pan-Asian grocery on East Fowler that the rest of the USF food corridor shops at, with its own departments for fresh produce, live seafood, a bakery and a hot deli. The hot deli and bakery counters are why it belongs on a food list rather than only a shopping one: people come in for roast meats, mochi and custard cakes without buying groceries. Its own recipe section is organised by country, running China, India, Japan, Mongolia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, which is a fair description of what the aisles carry. Local chefs and food writers named it to Creative Loafing's guide to Tampa Bay's best Asian markets.

University Area · $ · hot dogs, american

Mel's opened on July 3rd, 1973 at the corner of 42nd Street and Busch Boulevard, and it is still there. Mel was a Chicago musician who came to Florida with his rock band in the early 1970s, and the site tells the origin plainly: after a late night he found himself in Tampa 'craving the comfort food of his hometown: the Chicago-style hot dog,' noticed nobody in the city was selling one, and opened a stand. The Szabo family, described on the site as longtime customers spanning four generations, bought the business on September 6, 2023 and kept the recipe and the room the way they found them. Half a century in, the yellow building on Busch is the kind of place people bring their own kids back to.

University Area · german, swabian, deli, brewpub

Dunderbak's has been serving Tampa since 1974 and sits in the Oak Ramble Shopping Center on Bruce B Downs, which is a plain strip plaza and exactly the point: this is a German beer hall, brewery, deli and European market behind a strip-mall storefront. It started as one of about 30 franchise locations nationally, and co-owners James and Christina Ellis bought this one in the 1990s; the franchise folded and they turned it into a brewery with a dozen or so house beers on tap, told to That's So Tampa. The kitchen cooks from family recipes, with the potato pancakes made fresh every morning from James's Oma's recipe and the coleslaw from his mother's. Live polka plays on weekends, the beer hall room on the left seats 32 for private bookings, and the site's own parking advice is to arrive by 6pm on a Friday if you want a space.

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

University Area

A sports pub and grille in University Square, north of USF. Its site counts 40+ big screens and lists football, hockey and baseball playoff viewing on its events page.

University Area · seafood, floribbean, smoked fish, oysters

Skipper's has been on Skipper Road north of the University area since 1980, a tin-roofed compound of weathered wood that calls itself a world class music venue and cooks Floribbean seafood to go with it. The kitchen's best known plate is the blackened grouper Reuben, which the site notes was featured on the Travel Channel's Best Sandwich in America, and there is an oyster bar alongside it. Music runs in the yard behind the restaurant, with free live music on Sunday afternoons in addition to the ticketed calendar. In January 2026 the venue announced a partnership with the Straz Center for the Performing Arts, which is an unusual pairing for a smokehouse under live oaks.

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

University Area

The Orpheum spent most of two decades as an Ybor City rock club and has moved north: it now runs out of 14802 North Nebraska Avenue, minutes from the University of South Florida. The booking has not softened, running to punk, metal and hardcore several nights a week, and the venue also books a second room it calls Oscura.

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

University Area · vegan

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.