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The newspaper is produced and printed on Indigenous land belonging to Tampa Bay’s Tocobaga and Seminole tribes.
The Los Angeles Lakers, Chicago Bulls, and the New York Yankees. Add Christian Restrepo to that list of legends who’ve reached the mountain top three times in a row. On July 3 in Tampa, Restrepo once again became a Hot Dog Party chompion at the infamous pre-Fourth of July, following his success in 2024 and 2023. Restrepo’s performance was not the only headline-grabber at this year’s throwdown, however, as Crowbar owner Tom DeGeorge also took to the sodium podium to tell partygoers that he was throwing his cowboy hat into the race for Tampa’s vacant District 5 city council seat (read more on p. 25). Sets from expat Tampa rapper Gat$, Kristopher James, Lychee Camp and the Dogfather Jeremy Gloff rounded things out. See all the photos via cltampa.com/slideshows.—Ray Roa
SharkCon 2025
July 12-13, 2025
Presented by National Geographic SHARKFEST at the Florida State Fairgrounds Expo Hall Purchase tickets @ sharkcon.com
SharkCon is a shark, ocean, and watersports expo that is fun for all ages!
Meet stars from shark movies & TV shows, including Jaws legend Richard Dreyfuss! Hear from National Geographic SHARKFEST speakers and more!
Over 30 shark exhibits and activities from Clearwater Marine Aquarium, Mote Marine Aquarium, SeaWorld, Sea Life, Gatorland, and other partners. Over 150 booths of shark & ocean themed merchandise. Try scuba for free, ride shark themed rides and connect with a ton of educational and conservation partners. If you love sharks and the ocean, then you will love SharkCon presented by National Geographic’s SHARKFEST.
do this
Tampa Bay's best things to do from July 10-16
Fans of all things sharks can get photos with a 45-foot inflatable Megalodon, a 27-foot shark slide and a 5-foot-5 Richard Dreyfuss when the 77-year-old and “Jaws” film franchise castmates join scientists and conservationists for SharkCon. SharkFest started in 2008, providing educational conferences around the world. SharkCon, its Tampa convention, has over 150 vendors and exhibits this year including Tampa Bay Watch and 98.7-FM The Shark. Among speakers from National Geographic and “Shark Week” are scientists like Dr. Stephen Godfrey, a paleontologist from Quebec whose work has been featured around the globe, including Animal Kingdom and Universal Studios’ Islands of Adventure. Tampa Bay Watch, Florida Fish and Wildlife and other community groups will also have educational booths. The event also includes family-friendly activities like touch tanks, a rescue exhibit and a treasure map hunt with prizes.
SharkCon: Saturday-Sunday July 12-13. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. $8 & up. Florida State Fairgrounds, 4800 U.S. Hwy-301, Tampa. sharkcon.com—Marleigh Brown
Big, gay, day
What’s worse than one bridezilla? Two. All jokes aside, in a world where making a gay wedding cake is the end of the world for some businesses, it’s important to find vendors who actually want to be part of a big, gay day. Carrollwood Country Club hosts an LGBTQ+ wedding expo next weekend for couples to explore the club as a venue and meet queer-friendly wedding professionals. Couples can sip cocktails while vendors share expertise and samples to take home along with swag bags and raffle prizes.
Tampa LGBTQ+ Wedding Expo: Sunday, July 13. 12:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m. No cover. Carrollwood Country Club, 13903 Clubhouse Drive, Tampa. rainbowweddingnetwork.com—Selene San Felice
Knife to meet you
Rooster & The Till’s Angel Gaston (pictured below) takes on Wild Child’s Brandon Greenwalt in the second round of Feeding Tampa Bay’s Epic Chef competition, a series of friendly cook-offs that help bring awareness to the nonprofit’s mission of ending hunger throughout the greater Bay area. In the opening round last month, Greenwalt earned his place by plating a tostada with smoked pork belly and pineapple; Gaston’s did it with an arepa appetizer with fresh scallop, aguichile and a crunchy, Asian-inspired slaw. The winner of this next “Chopped”-style round will compete for the $10,000 grand prize and bragging rights at the Epic Chef finale on July 28.
Epic Chef Round 2: Monday, July 14. 6 p.m.-9 p.m. $400 per two guests. Epicurean Theatre, 1207 S Howard Ave., Tampa. feedingtampabay.org
—Kyla Fields
Duunnn dun…dun dun dun dun
DAVE DECKER
Treat yo self
Perhaps best known to those old enough to drink as Jean-Ralphio from “Parks and Recreation”—and to their kids as the voice of the rebooted Sonic the Hedgehog—Ben Schwartz won’t be the only one making the Straz Center crowd laugh. “Ben Schwartz & Friends” includes a few surprise guests also familiar from the silver screen. In classic improv style, they’ll take cues from the audience to make up hilarious scenes. Recent improvisers have included Schwartz’ “Earliest Show” co-star Lauren Lapkus, Gil Ozeri, Colton Dunn, Drew Tarver, Eugene Cordero and Jessica McKenna.
Ben Schwartz & Friends: Friday, July 11. 8 p.m. $39.50 & up. Carol Morsani Hall at David A. Straz Center for the Performing Arts, 1010 N W C Macinnes Pl., Tampa. strazcenter.org—Selene San Felice
Shroom for improvement
Tampa’s Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) is spreading climate change solutions one “mind trip” at a time. Arcadia Earth’s 360-degree documentary, “A Vision for Tomorrow,” began playing at MOSI’s new 360 Saunders Planetarium & Digital Dome Theatre on June 28 and will screen there through August. The 54-minute film dives into how pollution affects our environment in the land, sea and air, and how we can prevent further damage as plants, animals and skies morph into colorfully mindmelding pictures. According to MOSI, the planetarium picture allows viewers to learn how forests protect our climate, how pollution affects the planet and the global water crisis. Each section of Arcadia Earth’s “urgent environmental challenge” ends with a call to action and a QR code that connects viewers to organizations, including American Forests and Water Mission.
‘A Vision for Tomorrow:’ Weekends through Aug. 31. 5:15 p.m., 6:45 p.m. and 8 p.m. $18 & up. MOSI, 4801 E Fowler Ave., Tampa. MOSI.org—Jani Burden
By design
Keith Arsenault surely has a place in any future Tampa Man Hall of Fame. A living legend of the local arts scene, the multiple Best of the Baywinning set designer now runs New Tampa Performing Arts Center, but has had his fingerprints on countless Bay area productions. He finds himself onstage this time when The Commodore (which has spent the last year-and-change establishing itself as a vital Tampa institution of its own) presents its “Salud and Happy Days” show where a guest (Arsenault) regales the audience with stories before improv comedians act them out.
‘Salud and Happy Days’ w/Keith Arsenault: Friday, July 11. 7:30 p.m. $18.11. The Commodore, 811 E 7th Ave., Ybor City. commodorecomedy.com Ray Roa
JESSICA WAKEFIELD/HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY
Saturday, August 16 · 5 - 8pm 2009 N 22nd Street, Tampa, FL
Tipsy history
Beloved historians top Tampa-centric events celebrating the city’s 138th birthday.
By Ray Roa and Jani Burden
Birthday parties call for drinks. A 138th birthday party calls for a lot of them. Best of the Bay-winning historian Manny Leto definitely won’t be the drunkest guy in the room on Tuesday, and he won’t judge anyone who has one too many at this sold-out second installment of Drunk Tampa History.
“The idea is to get at the truth, but in this sort of fun, kind of a different way,” Leto, former editor of Cigar City Magazine and current Executive Director of Preserve The ‘Burg, told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. “I get excited and passionate about it, and the passion definitely increases if I have a couple of beers.”
Last year’s event covered political violence, transportation, and development in an extremely lovable way. Leto is almost always the smartest guy in the room when it comes to Tampeño history, and there’s no way this year’s event doesn’t deliver (read more from a contender for that title, Rodney Kite-Powell on p. XX).
“People want to have a better understanding of, and a better connection to, where they live. And I think that looking at history is sort of one way to do that,” Leto added.
Pre-paid tickets will be required, and the inside of the venue will close to the public between 5 p.m.-7:30 p.m. for the presentation. Leto’s talk, however, will also be available over a PA system for the overflow crowd in the Shuffle backyard where there is no cover. Cake will be served to everyone afterwards before one of the best open mics in the city, Remix, closes the night off with a special performance by Tampa rapper Perception.
And if you can’t snag a ticket to Drunk Tampa History, save the date when Leto is a guest of Tampeña author and professor Sarah McNamara, who appears at Centro Asturiano de Tampa on Saturday, July 19.
McNamara’s “Latina Legacies” brunch event, complete with free mimosas, is part of the City of Tampa’s Archive Awareness Week and includes a screening of a city-produced short film about Ybor City’s antifascist march mural.
The film showcases how the district’s Latinas were the driving force behind activism in the late-1930s. At the time, fascism had become prominent in Spain and was spreading to other areas of the world, but the women of Tampa
did what they could to fight back. The women marched with arms linked, to address Mayor R.E.L. Chancey at City Hall. The march was designed to illustrate a funeral—of both freedom and people—with the activists lined up like a mass procession with men and children walking in the back.
McNamara—who released “Ybor City: Crucible of the Latina South” in 2023—is featured heavily in the short documentary and will be at one of the district’s oldest buildings to discuss alongside the Drunk Tampa History headliner. “The Tampa we have today is in part a result of the work done by those who raise
a week-long celebration in the summer. The week’s goal is to recognize a city’s need to document and preserve its development and heritage through exhibits and programs that bring gems from the City of Tampa Archives and Records division together with some of Tampa’s most enlightened historians. Three local exhibits are part of the celebration, but there are also 13 events—all free-to-attend and in Tampa proper unless otherwise noted—scheduled across town starting Sunday, July 13.
Manhood at Work in 1925 Who worked at the Tampa Bay Hotel? Trace its history using archival records and then get a tour of the
their voices in spaces just like this,” McNamara says in the film.
More information on the talk is available is the rundown of Archives Awareness Week events below.
City officials celebrate Tampa’s 138th birthday with 13 events over seven days
The National Archives marks its archives awareness month in the fall, but in 1992, the City of Tampa Archives Advisory Committee moved to mark the municipality’s founding with
“Dressed for Success: Fashioning Manhood” exhibit on display through Christmas Day. Located at the former Tampa Bay Hotel, this show goes back to the hotel and explores how masculinity shaped the look of staffers in the late-1800s. Sunday, July 13. 1 p.m. Henry B.
Plant Museum at University of Tampa, 401 W Kennedy Blvd. plantmuseum.com
Sacred Heart Catholic Church Downtown Tampa’s Sacred Heart Catholic Church is the oldest Catholic church on Florida’s West Coast, and docents will give a tour and verbal history
of the venue, from a yellow fever outbreak that killed three priests, to the opening of its ornate sanctuary in 1905, and more. Sunday, July 13. 3 p.m. Sacred Heart Church, 509 N Florida Ave. sacredheartfla.org
Happy birthday Tampa Last March, Frances Henriquez passed away at the age of 94, and officials will celebrate the trailblazer at city hall where she broke into the all-male clerk-typist office in 1954. Henriquez—who in 1973 beat three men to win the City Clerk title with 74% of the vote—was born in Ybor City and served the city for nearly 40 years before retiring in 1993. A booklet—”100 Years Ago: Tampa in 1925”—will also be handed out after Fred Hearns, Curator of Black History at the Tampa Bay History Center—discusses pivotal city events from the last century. Monday, July 14. 3 p.m. Tampa City Hall, 315 E Kennedy Blvd. Restoration of the Sanchez y Haya building In case you missed it, J.C. Newman Cigar Co. is leading a revival of Tampa’s V.M. Ybor neighborhood, which more or less revolves around its El Reloj cigar factory. Part of that rebirth is work to restore the 115-year-old Sanchez y Haya building across the street. Company historian Holden Rasmussen and fourth-generation owner Drew Newman discuss the building’s history and restoration plans, then lead a guided tour of the project. Tuesday, July 15. 11 a.m. J.C. Newman Company, 2701 N 16th St. jcnewman.com
Preserving Tampa’s Black History: Boots on the Ground Campaign Tampa’s Black History Museum is slated to open in the Encore district,, but it needs your personal artifacts. This kickoff for a new campaign is a chance to learn more about the effort from museum staff. Tuesday, July 15. 6 p.m. Registration required. Tampa’s Black History Museum. 1213 N Central Ave. tampabayhistorycenter.org 100 Years of Booker T. Washington School Hearns and Ashley Morrow—Curator and Manager, respectively, of Black History at the Tampa Bay History Center—discuss Ybor City’s local elementary (and former middle) school and the man it's named for. Wednesday July 16. 5:30 p.m. Tampa’s Black History Museum. 1213 N Central Ave. tampabayhistorycenter.org continued on page 17
PICTURE THIS: Lynn Ash’s ‘Story of Tampa’ painting inside City Center at Hanna Avenue.
continued from page 15
Archiving class with Tampa Museum of Art Artists, clean that clutter up with TMA, who will bring staff to Ybor City for an adult class that will help you create a professional portfolio. Thursday, July 17. 11 a.m. Robert W. Saunders Sr. Library. 1505 N Nebraska Ave.
Archives of America’s favorite airport
Just visit @flytpa on Instagram, and you’ll see that the local airstrip has a whole lot of fans. They’re all posers if the don’t take this chance to dive into TPA’s archives, which include original concept drawings, archival film and photos of Davis Islands’ Peter O. Knight Airport, formerly federally-owned Drew Field, and the terminals that served passengers before 1971. Thursday, July 17. 5 p.m. Main terminal (level, three) at Tampa International Airport, 4100 George J. Bean Pkwy. tampaairport.com
Building community partnerships with the Progress Village Collection The University of South Florida’s Planner-inResidence Amber Dickerson and a class from the school’s Masters in Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) program bring to life Tampa’s first low-income housing suburb via USF’s robust archives which include select images, records, oral histories and maps. Thursday, July 17. 2 p.m. USF libraries, 4202 E Fowler Ave. (First floor). digitalcommons.usf.edu
Soulwalk historical marker dedication
Members of the Hillsborough County Historical Advisory Council, together with local leaders, unveil a new historical marker for the Marti-Colon Cemetery, St. Joseph Aid Cemetery/Montana City Cemetery and Woodlawn Cemetery. Friday, July 18. 11 a.m. Community room inside City Center at Hanna Avenue. 2555 E Hanna Ave.
‘Invisible Immigrants’ exclusive exhibit tour Tampa Bay History Center, alongside Spanish nonprofit Fundación Consejo España –EE.UU., celebrated the opening of a new exhibition
this year. Invisible Immigrants: Spaniards in the U.S. (1868-1945) is open now through Aug. 3 at TBHC, which is the first U.S. museum to host this exhibit honoring the cultural impact of Spanish immigration—including how modern Tampa owes a lot to immigrants who started to arrive in our sleeping fishing village in the late-1800s. Just 25 guests can join, and an RSVP is required. Friday, July 18. 2 p.m. Tampa Bay History Center, 801 Water St., Tampa. tampabayhistorycenter.org
Latina Legacies: Brunch, book, and film premiere w/Dr. Sarah McNamara There will be free mimosas and brunch for this event emceed by Creative Loafing Tampa Bay Editor-In-Chief Ray Roa. Read more about the presentation in the beginning of this story. Saturday, July 19. 11 a.m. RSVP requested. Centro Asturiano de Tampa, 1913 N Nebraska Ave., Ybor City
More ways to explore Tampa history
• The Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative offers online opportunities to browse the City of Tampa Archives and Records Collection, the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce Collection, and the Tampa Photo Supply Collection (the latter includes work by professional photographers Rose Rutigliano Weekley and Joseph Scolaro primarily in Tampa and Hillsborough County from approximately 1947-1990). HCPLC—along with the University of South Florida—also has links to Tampa’s famed Burgert Brothers Photographic Collection. hcplc.org
• Tampa’s had a fire department for 130 years now, and this rare all-brick building— The Tampa Firefighters Museum, which served as Tampa Fire Department HQ until 1978—in downtown traces its history. 720 E Zack St. Wednesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. by appointment. $5 donation requested. tampafirefightersmuseum.org
THIS IS MY CONFESSION: Tampa’s Sacred Heart Catholic Church is the oldest Catholic church on Florida’s West Coast.
MARCUS E JONES/SHUTTERSTOCK
Fly guy
Rodney Kite-Powell defends Tampa’s flag, and more.
By Ray Roa
Rodney Kite-Powell is always quick to give others credit, and he did that last month at a gathering of the city’s most-engaged citizens who coalesce early every Friday morning for Cafe Con Tampa.
Talking about Archives Awareness Week, Kite Powell—Director of the Touchton Map Library and Florida Center for Cartographic Education at the Tampa Bay History Center—thanked City Clerk Shirley Foxx-Knowles and Mayor Jane Castor for significantly growing the series of events celebrating the city’s birthday. He also heaped praise on Jennifer Dietz, Archives and Records Manager, who organizes the festivities, which kick off this weekend.
The birthday that the city seal recognizes as July 15, 1887 is actually Tampa’s second birthday The City of Tampa was first incorporated in December of 1855 so we’re actually quite a bit older than that date. “That was just 17 years after the end of the second Seminole War. Fort Brooke was still a military fort, and this little town of Tampa had begun growing. The north end of that fort in the 1830s was finally big enough—and by big enough there had 500 people—to be its own city,” Kite-Powell added.
LOCAL NEWS
City of Tampa Archives Awareness Week
Sunday-Next Saturday, July 13-19 tampa.gov/aaw
But Kite-Powell might also be a human archive, or walking encyclopedia, of Tampa knowledge, so he naturally dove into a few things any self-respecting Tampeño should know before walking into their city’s party. Here are some takeaways from that June 6 talk—including why we should stan the flag.
One of Tampa’s mayors—John T. Lesley, a Confederate soldier—ran on a platform to abolish the city In the wake of the Civil War, Confederate soldiers like him were disenfranchised as the 15th Amendment gave the right to vote to former male slaves.
“Leslie thought, well, if there is no city of Tampa, then we can’t be taken over by all these carpetbaggers and all these other people we don’t want running our city,” Kite-Powell said. “And so he ran for office. That was his one promise, and he was elected. “We don’t really know how
he abolished the City of Tampa, whether he didn’t rechartered something—we don’t know exactly the mechanism—but he was successful, and the city ceased to exist.”
Rodney Kite-Powell likes the city’s official flag It was designed in the 1930s, meaning it’s almost a century old.
“It was designed in a way to be, using our terms of today, ‘inclusive,’” he added, explaining how the colorful, busy, banner celebrates our city’s heritage.
Designed by F. Grant Whitney, who worked as an engineer at Tampa Electric, the colors and lines all have meanings. The red, white, blue and stars rep the United States—and reference both the United Kingdom and Cuba. Yellow and red represent Spain while the green, yellow and red cover Italy. Red diagonal lines acknowledge the state flag of Florida. Native Americans are recognized, too.
transplants from other cities are always trying to get rid of it, but Kite-Powell said it’s ours for better or worse, good or bad.
“I think we have some things we have to kind of embrace, and I think the flag is one of those things that we need to embrace,” he said.
Tampa’s Latin heritage is a common thread that’s present in the city’s long history Tampa historian and former editor of Cigar CIty Magazine Manny Leto asked Kite-Powell how locals can explain the city’s identity to visitors. Leto (who is giving his own history talk on Tampa this week, more on p. XX) got a great answer.
“I think we have some things we have to kind of embrace.”
Tampa natives, he said, often give up their identity for newcomers. Besides segregation, the city has always been very accommodating. “Accommodating to newcomers, to developments, letting people come in and kind of put their imprint on us,” Kite-Powell explained.
And if you turn the flag 90-degrees, there is a “T” to represent “Tampa,” complete with 16 stars for the 16 wards that existed at the time of its design. Turn the flag back, and there’s an “H” for “Hillsborough County.” Tip the flag about 45 degrees, and you see an “F” for “Florida.”
“It really tries to represent the city as best it can,” he added. Sure, it’s not Chicago’s flag, and
But Tampa’s history, unlike other places in Florida, does go back way before air conditioning and Disney—all the way back to the 1500s when Spanish explorers came here. Yes, Sicilians came later, but the Spanish roots are a great place to start.
“That goes to architecture, foodways, dance and so many other things that are cultural touchstones,” he said.
DEEP CUTS: Tampa’s flag has lots of hidden meaning.
Hot dog
Crowbar owner Tom DeGeorge will run in crowded special election for Tampa City Council.
By Ray Roa
Tampa’s special election for the vacant District 5 city council seat got a little meatier over the holiday weekend. On Wednesday, July 3, at the 19th edition of his venue’s infamous Hot Dog Party, Crowbar owner Tom DeGeorge told partygoers he was throwing his hat into the race for a seat left vacant after the passing of first term councilwoman and Tampa native Gwen Henderson.
“I am entering this race to be a fighter and a voice for the people that make up the heart and soul of District 5,” DeGeorge told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay in a text message ahead of the announcement. “Too often, the boots on the ground doing the work in our communities have been left marginalized and unheard. I have lived my Tampa dream doing what I love for close to 25 years—I’m going to make sure everyone here can have their dream too. I want to be a force for change.”
DeGeorge is not alone in the race for the District 5 seat either. Ten others have filed applications to run for the seat including Ariel Amirah Danley, daughter of the late Councilwoman Henderson, the aforementioned Gudes who held the seat before Henderson, Bishop Thomas Scott (a former Hillsborough County Commissioner) and fellow Ybor City business owner Ash Dudney.
ELECTIONS
The special election ends on Sept. 9, with early voting running Sept. 4-7. The deadline to register to vote is Aug. 11. Anyone who wants to vote by mail must ask the Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections for a mail ballot. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, a runoff election will be held Oct. 28. Only registered voters who live in Tampa’s District 5—which stretches west-to-east from Tampa to parts of the end of Broadway Avenue and northsouth between parts of Riverhills to Harbour Island—can vote in the election.
Tampa City Council District 5 special election
Election Day, Tuesday, Sept. 9; Early voting, Sept. 4-7; Voter registration deadline, Aug. 11 votehillsborough.gov
Gudes has already earned the endorsement of State Rep. Dianne Hart, but won’t necessarily have an easy path to getting his old job back. He was elected in 2019, but only served one term after claims that he created a toxic workplace through caustic, inappropriate, language and behavior resurfaced during a particularly fractious time between Tampa Mayor Jane Castor’s office and city council. He denied those allegations, but it was the late Gwen Henderson’s sister—who was Gudes’ aide—who was at the center of that controversy.
The sexual harassment lawsuit against Gudes, who served 26 years with Tampa Police Department, was dismissed after the City of Tampa agreed to a settlement with Henderson’s sister. The city also paid Gudes $45,000 to cover his legal fees.
“I want to be a force for change.”
District 5 currently includes just under 44,000 active registered voters, according to the supervisor of elections. In the 2023 election, the District 5 race saw Henderson defeat embattled incumbent Orlando Gudes by just 81 votes.
DeGeorge, who lives a short walk from Crowbar, has never held elected office before but is no stranger to getting things done. In the wake of the pandemic, he found himself helping lead the then-nascent National Independent Venue Association as it successfully lobbied congress for the $15 billion “Save Our Stages Act” that helped save the country’s live music industry. He worked in conjunction with 40 indie venue owners to get the legislation over the finish line, and saw his face on the pages of the New York Times, Billboard, Rolling Stone and other publications as part of the effort.
The rest of the applications came from Audette Bruce (a pastor at Revive Church), Realtor Juawana Colbert (of “Selling Tampa” fame), perennial candidate Elvis Piggott, President of the Jackson Heights Neighborhood Association Fran Tate, military veteran Melony Letitia Williams, and Director of the Tampa Heights Junior Civic Association Naya Almaz Young.
The special city council election in the City of Tampa’s District 5 is happening because there are more than 15 months left on the late Gwen Henderson’s term as city councilwoman. Tampa City Charter (Section 10.01. - Miscellaneous— Elections and Vacancies, Section 4) says that the Supervisor of Election will run a special election. Technically, candidates must be given at least five business days to qualify for the special election.
“...but there shall be a period of at least thirty (30) days in which to allow candidates to circulate qualifying petitions. The special election shall be held on the forth [sic] Tuesday
following the date of the deadline for qualifying,” the charter adds.
Just over a year ago, Tampa City Council members voted to give themselves a raise from $54,000 to $75,000. At the time, Henderson pointed out that the bump would give an average person the opportunity to service their city without getting a second or third job. “If you looked at it from if this was a full-time job, can a person afford to live in the city that they’re actually governing,” she added during a workshop on June 27, 2024.
To officially qualify for the special election ballot, according to the city charter, applicants must pay a qualifying fee equal to 5% of the salary (roughly $375) or submit petition signatures from 0.25% of the population of District 5.
Full disclosure: DeGeorge served as this reporter’s boss for a short time between 20042005 when he worked as a security guard at DeGeorge’s Masquerade nightclub in Ybor City.
SADDLE UP: Tom DeGeorge, pictured on July 3, 2025 at Crowbar in Ybor City, is no stranger to getting things done.
DAVE DECKER
HAPPY HOUR AT AMSO
Monday - Friday, 4pm-7pm Saturday 3pm-6pm
$4, $5 & $6 Liquor, Beer & Wine
$8 Hand-Cra ed Cocktails
“Ybor’s gesture won his employees’ confidence, and Cigar City survived.”
RESTAURANTS RECIPES DINING GUIDES
Salud and happy days
A history of Tampa in 10 meals.
By Andrew T. Huse
If food defines culture, then what kind of city is Tampa? The answer can be found in these 10 notable meals, which together offer a taste of the city’s charmingly crazy history.
Editor’s note: When celebrating Tampa via the kitchen table, a guy who wrote a book about the Cuban sandwich is probably your go-to source. Luckily, that author—Andy Huse, an archivist in Special Collections on the Tampa campus at the University of South Florida Libraries—wrote “A history of Tampa in 10 Meals” for Creative Loafing Tampa Bay way back in 2008. I stumbled upon the piece in 2022 while researching Huse’s latest book “The Cuban Sandwich: A History in Layers,” which he co-authored with Bárbara C. Cruz, Professor of Social Science Education at USF, and Jeff Houck, former Food Editor at Tampa Tribune.
All of the meals here are fascinating for their historic significance, and while some may be somewhat expected (oysters at the old Tampa Bay Hotel, Christmas at MacDill Field), others are hilarious (a hot meal at the airport) and downright jaw-dropping (integration at the Woolworth lunch counter, the fact that downtown Tampa’s University Club didn’t admit women until the late-’80s). We hope you enjoy revisiting this vintage CL content as much as we did.—Ray Roa
Fort Brooke festivities,
1824
United States soldiers and a band of Seminole Indians gathered at remote Fort Brooke to celebrate Independence Day in 1824. And boy, did they celebrate: The participants raised glasses of liquor in countless toasts to the accompaniment of 21-gun salutes. More than a decade of peace followed the festivities, but the fellowship of old proved elusive. The Second Seminole War began in 1835 and decimated Florida’s struggling Indians. Today, Fort Brooke is memorialized with the mighty Fort Brooke Parking Facility.
Ybor City’s first Christmas Eve, 1886
Having just moved his factories to Tampa, cigar factory owner Vicente Martinez Ybor feared his restive workers would slip back to Key West or Cuba for the holidays and never return. So he and his wife acted fast: They invited workers and their families for a Christmas Eve (or Noche Buena) feast at his mansion amid the swamps and
sand. There was a Christmas surprise: As a sign of gratitude, Ybor divided the profits between his workers, $6,000 in all, or about a month’s wages per worker. Ybor’s gesture won his employees’ confidence, and Cigar City survived to delight and vex generations of Tampans and tourists.
Tampa Bay Hotel opens, 1891
When tycoon Henry Plant brought his railroad to Tampa in 1884, he found a pathetic hardscrabble town of 700 people. But in the years after the railroad connection, Tampa’s elite clamored for Plant to open a luxury hotel in his latest terminus. On Feb. 5, 1891, Plant’s Tampa Bay Hotel opened with a grand ball. At 9 that evening, the capacity crowd enjoyed an
war when journalists and generals commiserated from the veranda’s rocking chairs. The kitchen served up lavish meals with menus written entirely in mangled French. But with a short tourist season of just four months, the hotel never really flourished. The old Tampa Bay Hotel is now home to the University of Tampa and the Henry Plant museum.
Jose Marti poisoned, 1893
Jose Marti—poet, politician and martyr of Cuban independence—visited Tampa on about 17 occasions. He gave enthralling speeches, raised funds for the Cuban insurrection against Spain and almost got himself killed here in 1893. One night, Spanish secret agents bribed Marti’s bodyguards and poisoned his drink (some say tea, others insist it was gin). When the would-be Spanish assassins were discovered, they begged an ill Marti for forgiveness, which he gave. Marti
of the striking Marti sculpture kicked off a proud Ybor tradition of statue desecration and theft.
The Free Love Banquet, mid-1880s
Sometime around 1885, one of Tampa’s most notorious meals took place: the Free Love Society’s lusty banquet. The host was Frederick Leontiff Weightnovel, a self-proclaimed doctor from Russia who had concocted his own brand of hair tonic. A tall, flamboyant long-haired hedonist, Weightnovel treated “feminine complaints” from his office downtown in the remnants of Fort Brooke. He was known to abort unwanted pregnancies.
HISTORY
opera. Then Mayor Herman Glogowski led a grand procession to the dining room for a reception and dancing. At 11, a buffet offered oysters, fish, cold roasts, salad and desserts. The party didn’t wind down until 1 a.m.; the guests slept on couches and chairs in the lobby, as the bedrooms had not yet been furnished.
The Tampa Bay Hotel frequently made headlines, especially during the Spanish-American
recovered at the home of Paulina Pedroso (on Eighth Avenue and 13th Street), a sympathetic Afro-Cuban. In 1895, Marti landed in Cuba to join the insurrection, where he promptly died in battle. He left a great literary canon and a newborn nation behind.
A later owner of the Pedroso home deeded the land to the Cuban government in the 1950s, and it became Marti Park. Years later, the vandalizing
Tampa’s own Rasputin held his Free Love Society banquet at the Old Habana Hotel in Ybor City. Thirty of Tampa’s most eligible (and incorrigible) bachelors arrived on horseback, clad in colorful costumes and sashes. Multiple aphrodisiac-laden courses of food greeted them inside, served by African-American women naked from head to toe. Even the anarchists of Ybor City reacted with outrage.
Weightnovel and his Free Love society got a free ride to jail that night, and it would not be his last. After a young woman died in his care in1902, police arrested him again. His two trials riveted the city, until the ill doctor was sentenced to hard labor in a prison camp. Ever defiant, he poisoned himself rather than submit to the sentence. Today, Tampa celebrates debauchery and poisons itself on days named after a fictitious pirate. Weightnovel may not be the pirate Jose Gaspar, but at least he’s real.
Strike Street soup, 1920
Unlike most Floridians, the immigrants of Ybor City and West Tampa were not sheepish about unionizing and making demands of their employers. Unions managed to score a few victories in the early years, but they did not continue. When the cigar industry originally settled in Tampa, it did so with the knowledge that the city had agreed to lend its police force to the factory owners when labor troubles arose. During the strike of 1920, determined workers endured for 10 months outside the factories. The Tampa Tribune, at the time a zealous anti-labor advocate, raised the specter of “over-paid and corn-fed agitators [who] intend to absolutely annihilate the cigar industry in this city.” Labor newspaper El International fired back, saying that the pampered factory owners “Don’t know the anarchist-breeding effect of hunger on the continued on page 32
NOCHE BUENA: Vicente Martinez Ybor gave workers one hell of a gift in 1886.
victim ... champagne and caviar have always been at their service.”
In 1920, the producers stood firm against the strike, and employed the police and vigilantes to ransack the soup kitchens. They threw the food into the manure-laden streets. The destruction of soup kitchens dealt the union a deadly blow. Before long, even the most fanatical strikers began to cave. The strike ended in February 1921 with $12 million in wages lost. The unions never fully recovered from the debacle.
Christmas dinner, MacDill Field, 1941
Tampa was already home to important military installations when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The war led to construction of three air bases around the city: Drew Field, MacDill Air Force Base and Henderson Field, the remains of which lie beside the University of South Florida and the Yuengling Brewery (Mel’s Hot Dogs is its last remaining building).
The armed forces tried to make Christmas as pleasant as possible for recruits. The three airfields held a huge holiday feast for servicemen and their guests with white tablecloths and Christmas trees. The soldiers returned to the mess twice that day “on a basis of catch as catch can, no holds barred,” the Tribune observed. But the meal was marred by bad war news all over the world, and the holiday meals to follow would be less extravagant. Two years later, the commissaries cut the Christmas dinner luxuries found on the 1941 menu, such as ham, tomatoes, nuts, buttered peas, even pumpkin pie and lemonade. The ongoing war justified unprecedented military spending, especially in the southern U.S. Tampa has benefited from military spending ever since.
modern” steakhouse. In a publicity stunt for the dedication, airlines flew ingredients to the restaurant from all over the hemisphere: fruit from Puerto Rico, avocado from Cuba, turtle from the Caymans and lobster from Canada. If the menu looked lavish, the guests were not always comfortable. The dining room’s air conditioner failed, forcing the suited dignitaries to wipe their brows with cloth napkins.
Lunch counter integration, 1960
HISTORY
The heavy meal of steak, potatoes, fried chicken, onion rings and lobster must have seemed regrettable once the men joined a crowd of spectators on the tarmac in the insufferable summer heat. For the next five hours, important people gave predictable speeches. Finally, the Air Force band from MacDill played the national
Sit-ins by black college students began in Greensboro, North Carolina early in 1960. Disgusted by segregation practices that allowed them to spend money in stores like Woolworth’s and Kress but excluded them from the lunch counters, young African-Americans took action. Soon, activists crowded into lunch counters across the country and demanded to be served. Tampa’s NAACP Youth Council began sit-ins early in February. After only three days, local merchants sued for peace, promising to come to an agreement behind the scenes.
It took some strong voices of reason, such as those of Robert Saunders (Tampa NAACP field secretary), Rev. A. Leon Lowry (who once
“Now that was a frightening experience,” he recalled years later. “I was too nervous to even eat. It was early in the morning, with bacon, coffee, and just as I started to butter my toast, two white guys came up, and they said, ‘Look what we have here, a nigger at the lunch counter.’ Other people were there; two or three got up and left. But I’d say at least 10 remained.”
Fort paid his bill and left a full plate of food behind. A cooperative police officer made sure that he left safely. It may not have been a very pleasant meal, but it paved the way for future generations.
The University Club admits women, 1988
The invite-only University Club, perched high above Tampa in a downtown skyscraper, served up a fine gumbo. But the city’s own “He Man Woman Haters” club had one major problem: women kept getting invited to dine there, but club rules denied them entry. Then, in 1974, the club turned away County Commissioner Betty Castor. She left with dignity and dished the story to a hungry press. The story traveled as far as The New Yorker. Members claimed that women’s high-pitched voices were too loud for gentlemanly dining. If corporate ladder-climbing women wanted to attend power lunches, they were told to go someplace else— Malio’s Steakhouse, perhaps.
anthem while the flag was raised.
Tampa International Airport terminal dedicated, 1952
During the war, Drew Field was home to bomber pilots in training. In 1946, the old base became Tampa International Airport. In 1952, the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority spent $1 million on a new terminal, an unprecedented expense at the time. On a sweltering August day, 300 dignitaries crowded into Bartke’s Restaurant, the terminal’s “ultra
JULY 10-16, 2025 | cltampabay.com
Then three small propeller planes landed and taxied nearby. Tony Pizzo, a local liquor dealer and historian, emerged from one of the planes dressed like a dictator of a banana republic. Posing as the “mayor” of Ybor City, El Jefe kissed the hands of ladies in the crowd, while his cohorts gave away loaves of Cuban bread. He apologized for his tardiness, and joked that menacing UFOs had thrown him off course. He then presented Mayor Curtis Hixon with the key to Ybor City, and everyone had a good laugh.
taught MLK) and Clarence Fort (head of the Youth Council), to hold back the young activists from further action for the next six months. The negotiations helped spare Tampa from the racial violence that occurred in other places, keeping the city attractive to tourists. On Sept. 14, Tampa’s first day of integrated dining occurred when about 150 NAACP members dined at 18 lunch counters. They visited in groups of two on the off hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Among them was Clarence Fort. His dining partner did not show up for the historic event, forcing him to eat alone.
But by the mid-1980s, women had risen in America’s corporate boardrooms, law offices and medical practices. Soon, professional associations could no longer book their powwows in the lofty University Club. A Supreme Court decision had forcibly integrated the Rotary Club nationwide after banning gender discrimination in clubs where business is conducted. Even the American Bar Association suggested that lawyers spurn discriminatory clubs. The controversy in Tampa continued until the University Club held a meeting and conducted a secret vote in 1988. The membership consented to allow women to join the club and dine there. The genie was out of the bottle. Soon women and minorities joined the club. Did women win much? Sure, they won begrudging respect from a few stubborn men. Now the members-only club discriminates in less obvious ways. What are the odds they would welcome an applicant who makes minimum wage?
WOOL-WORTH IT: Tampa’s first day of integrated dining happened in September 1960.
“I’m not a developer trying to take advantage of the land.”
MOVIES THEATER ART CULTURE
Testing, testing
Tampa
architect wants to discuss a different approach to historic overlays.
By Ray Roa
In a lot of ways, Tobin Green’s romance with Hyde Park started 30 minutes east in Brandon, where his mom ran Debi Duemig’s Nails at Last. A few times during his childhood, when the shop did well, mom brought her kids to get a nice set of clothes before the school year.
The fantasy film “Willow” starring Val Kilmer lived somewhere in his brain at the time, and Green remembers getting off on the Willow Avenue exit of the Crosstown Expressway. Brandon was never a cultural mecca of the Bay area, and Green’s single mom didn’t get a lot of opportunities to take her kids someplace with history. This was a time when Cactus Club was a center of social life in Hyde Park Village, and guys walked around in Structure carpenter jeans. Nearby were historic homes not just near the village but in surrounding pockets like Spanishtown Creek. The warm memories of being with his family in that neighborhood never left—but Green knew he would never make enough money to live there.
That was until years and years later when he and wife Bianca were randomly driving around and found themselves at an empty lot on the corner of S Orleans Avenue and W Azeele Street.
“We find this random little pocket that is completely not nice, right? Rundown homes, abandoned homes. It was kind of like this bizarro world, and for one we were like, ‘Where are we? How does this exist in Hyde Park?’,” Green told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. “And for two, we thought ‘We might be able to afford this little corner property with nothing on it.’”
So they made an offer. Others, including developers looking to build duplexes, did, too, and the home buying tango ensued. But red tape is hard to navigate, and eventually, Green convinced the seller to just let him get the sale and process over the finish line.
“I’m not a developer trying to take advantage of the land. I want to live here. So if you take my offer,we will make the closing date contingent on getting it through the variance. I’ll walk it through myself, pay for that process and deal with it,’” he said about his argument. “We want to live here.”
Here, as it turns out, was one of Tampa’s forgotten Black neighborhoods, Dobyville. Named for long-time resident Richard Doby,
the historic boundaries of Dobyville are roughly “North Willow (at Fig Street), south to Swann, west to South Albany, north to Kennedy, east to Rome, north to Fig, and back east to North Willow,” according to the Tampa Tribune. The same report cited a 1927 study which found that approximately 10% percent of Black Tampeños called Dobyville home during the 1920s.
Much of the neighborhood’s history, from its schools, restaurants and Mt. Zion AME Church, are all now just memories, replaced by residential construction and the expressway that cut through the neighborhood in the ‘70s. Save for a few historic structures and restored homes, Dobyville’s historic nature can be hard to see today.
When Green paid $125,000 for a lot in 2013, and another $125,000 for the one next to it a year
neighborhood is why Green—who holds a master’s in architecture & community design—took his time designing the home that now sits at 400 S Orleans Ave.
Green had no roadblocks building his house or the nearby Strata Barn townhome because there were no restrictions at the time.
Still, there is nothing arbitrary in the space dubbed “400 Sola.” It is modern in every way and stands in contrast to the dwellings around it. The foyer was designed around one of his favorite pieces of art, “Party Store” by the Tampa artist BASK (whose touch is also on the exterior).
work of students in a tropical architecture course taught at the University of South Florida by Michael Halflants.
Halflants—an Associate Professor at USF’s School of Architecture and a principal at Halflants + Pichette Architects with offices in Tampa and Sarasota—taught Green over 20 years ago. This summer, he brought his former student in to help as his latest pupils spent six weeks designing single-family homes suited for tropical climes.
LOCAL NEWS
A 14-foot-window in the entryway was drafted so that anyone inside could admire the oak tree on the edge of the lot.
Now Green wants to talk about how allowing for more modern architecture within the City of Tampa’s historic overlays can ensure that neighborhoods aren’t overrun with bad, lazy, and cheap architecture.
BARN-ING QUESTION: An aerial of Aadmixx’s ‘Strata Barn’ in Tampa, Florida.
later, he didn’t know the history of Dobyville— but it was literally outside his door (the historic home of Richard Doby is literally 200 feet away). And he dove in, getting to know neighbors who’d lived across the street for generations. Soon, Green, who founded his company Aadmixx (stylized in all-caps) shortly after moving in, came to feel a lot of the resentment about how the city had treated such a special place.
His reverence and admiration of the
The City of Tampa says its overlay districts are meant “to allow for the application of specific regulations” in distinct geographic areas that warrant special consideration “due to a unique situation or practical difficulties resulting from the historic development pattern.”
Green’s conversation started tonight last month at Hyde House Public Studio where he gave a presentation on modern residential architecture in historic Hyde Park and showcased
The work in front of a jury was part of a design challenge for the students who were tasked with developing hyper-realistic digital models representing the historically significant architectural aesthetic of Hyde Park.
“The goal is to plug each students design into the model to produce high level renderings that will exemplify how modern leaning residential design can (and should) be welcomed to coexist within the historical context of the neighborhood (specifically here in Dobyville where history has left a lot of unfortunate lots in disrepair),” Green wrote in a social media post about the event. “Good design, regardless of its era, can indeed live in beautiful harmony when it’s done with passion and integrity.”
“The reason people have such a scared view of modern architecture is because there’s a lot of bad examples of it,” Green said.
Even with a budget just under $1 million, the fees between builders and architects all working on drawings, construction and more start to add up. “That’s another $100,000-$120,000, that is hard to swallow, understandably, for custom design,” he added.
“Because of that, people hire baseline draftsmen with no architectural degree or training and just ask for a floor plan for whatever the latest buzzword is,” Green noted. “And now that modern has caught on, 90% of what you see around this town is modern bullshit, it sucks—I call it ‘developer modern.’’”
Green just wants to open the conversation around how the city should move forward with design that he’s dubbed, “urban progressive.”
Whether or not the city will go with him on that idea of progress, remains to be seen.
Tampa Councilman Bill Carlson, whose District 4 includes Dobyville, has worked with the community to create an overlay that would protect the historic nature of Dobyville, and he acknowledges Green’s good ideas on how to
continued on page 37
explorers... Spaniards emigrated to the United centuries? “Invisible Immigrants. exhibition that has been touring Tampa Bay History Center. Using and archives, the exhibition tells American saga of immigration.
No todos eran conquistadores ni exploradores...
¿Sabías que a finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX decenas de miles
españoles de clase obrera emigraron a Estados Unidos? “Emigrantes invisibles. Españoles en
(1868 - 1945)”, una asombrosa exposición que ha
cinco años, por fin desembarca en el Tampa Bay History Center. Utilizando imágenes y documentos de archivos y álbumes familiares, la exposición narra
participantes desconocidos en
Uncover the hidden
integrate tasteful modern buildings in historic communities throughout Tampa. The two have had ongoing conversations to just listen to each other. “He’s a great designer, a big visionary. The question is, ‘Where would it be best to put those kinds of houses?” Carlson told CL.
While Green has argued for preserving what is truly both historical and significant in the neighborhood, he says that modern residential architecture— when executed with an honest design process, quality materials and genuine integrity—can coexist beautifully with historic homes.
that a house’s born-on date makes it worth preserving. “There are a lot of houses that have that born on date, but they have awful, awful renovations that have been done to them over the decades,” he said.
Still, bringing that change to Dobyville will be an uphill battle.
“I don’t think Dobyville should be the laboratory,” Patrick Cimino told CL about Green’s ideas.
LOCAL NEWS
“The people in the people in Dobyville, and the families of the people that lived there, would have to weigh in on what would happen in Dobyville,” Carlson added. “But his other overall idea of building tasteful modern homes is a good one, because we need more of that somewhere in the city.”
Linda Saul-Sena, who served as a Tampa City Councilwoman (including stint as chairwoman) on and off in the ‘90s and early-2000s, is more explicit and told CL that the appropriate way is to build within the existing overlay guidelines when it comes to setbacks, materials and more. The small size of Dobyville, she said, makes it easy to say “No thank you” to the idea of tweaking the rules.
Cimino, a past VicePresident of Historic Hyde Park Neighborhood Association, has not always seen eye-to-eye with Green, but loves the fact that he exists in a town where developers seem to be royalty. “It’s nice having somebody who thinks creatively,” Cimino said, complimenting what Green’s done at 400 Sola.
“I support people like him, even though I don’t agree with him sometimes,” Cimino added. “He has a lot of good intention and ideas—and he doesn’t want to pave paradise.”
“I don’t think Dobyville should be the laboratory.”
And at the end of the day, that’s what Green hopes to start talking about with anyone who’ll listen—saving the paradise that is Tampa.
UPCOMING EVENTS
THURSDAY, JULY 10 | 7-9 PM
SOUND IN YOUR EYES
LISTENING SESSION AT THE MFA WITH THE HONOURABLE ELIZABETH A. BAKER
Join us for a truly unforgettable evening featuring The Honourable Elizabeth A. Baker, new renaissance artist and visionary, performing selections from the MFA’s original album— compositions inspired directly by the work of Nina Yankowitz. This intimate concert will be the only time these arrangements are performed live and in the presence of the very artworks that sparked their creation. Experience the powerful dialogue between sound and sight in a setting where music and visual art collide.
SUNDAY, JULY 13 | 1-2 PM
MARLY MUSIC
REBECCA PENNEYS PIANO FESTIVAL: INTERNATIONAL AWARD-WINNING PIANISTS IN CONCERT
“Build it somewhere else in town where there’s not a delicate historic fabric that you want to reinforce,” Saul-Sena (a CL columnist, in full disclosure), added.
Green told CL that he agrees with historic preservation on a lot of lines, but doesn’t believe
“Preserve the old stuff that’s worth preserving. Save what’s truly significant. That which has indeed stood the test of time and still resembles itself as it stood in its prime. That’s important,” Green wrote in an unpublished blog post.
Progress is not as simple as the reckless cliche, “out with the old, in with the new,” Green wrote.
“Historical significance should be preserved,” he added. “But how we define it needs to be revisited, redefined, and revived.”
Rebecca Penneys Piano Festival is pleased to present 40 exceptional collegiate piano talents from around the world in concert throughout Tampa Bay. These stellar young artists were chosen from an astounding 245 applications from 25 countries and 93 schools. Each concert features a few carefully selected students performing a variety of pieces that represent treasures of the classical piano repertoire.
Three Day Pass - $317.44, Free to attend virtually CreatologyYbor
Saturday, July 12, 2025 • 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Saturday Stop-in | Wines of Portugal @ Chateau Cellars
2009 North 22nd Street Tampa
Tickets - $30.66 bit.ly/WinesofPortugalYbor
Saturday, July 12, 2025 • 4:00 PM -11:30 PM
12th Annual 710 Dab Day Festival @ 2010 N Avenida Republica de Cuba
2010 North Avenida Republica de Cuba Tampa
Tickets from $$34.71 bit.ly/710Ybor
Saturday, July 12, 2025 • 10:45 AM -1:00 PM
Hive Flow Free Yoga @ Ybor Hive
1802 East 3rd Avenue Tampa Free with RSVP bit.ly/HiveFreeYoga
Thursday, July 17, 2025 • 8:00 PM - 1:00 AM
TAMPA All White Rooftop Affair @ 1920 Ybor
1920 East 7th Avenue, Tampa
Tickets from $40.76 bit.ly/TO BE DETERMINED
Saturday, July 19, 2025 • 2:00 PM - 8:00 PM
THE BLUau Day Party @ 1920 Ybor
1920 East 7th Avenue, Tampa
Tickets from $15.98 bit.ly/BLUauParty
Saturday, July 19, 2025 • 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM
Latina Legacies: Brunch, Book, and Film
Premiere with Dr. Sarah McNamara
@ Centro Asturiano de Tampa
1913 North Nebraska Avenue Tampa Open to the Public bit.ly/LatinLegaciesYbor
Sunday, July 20, 2025 • 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM
Chicken Yoga with Yoga Loft Tampa and Ybor Misfits @ Hotel Haya
1412 East 7th Avenue Tampa
$14.64 General Admission bit.ly/ChickenYoga
Sunday, July 20, 2025 • 3:00 pM - 6:00 PM
Kaftan Summer Soiree Bar Crawl
@ Showbar Ybor
1613 East 7th Avenue Tampa
$23.18 General Admission bit.ly/KaftanSummerSoiree
Saturday, July 26, 2025 • 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
SPARKLE & SIP EARRING WORKSHOP
@ Ybor City Society Wine Bar
1600 East 7th Avenue Tampa
$53.61 General Admission
bit.ly/SparkleAndSip
LARA - Apothecary Bar & Bazaar 1919 E 7th Ave, Tampa tampalara.com
Trellis at Buchman - Gastropub 1910 E 7th Ave #103, Tampa trellis.pub
Chateau Cellars 2009 N 22nd St, Tampa chateaucellars.com
Try Out These Restaurants: Where to Live:
Casa Ybor
Casa Ybor offers unique retail spaces, office spaces, and apartment homes for rent or lease in both newly constructed and lovingly restored historic buildings throughout the vibrant National Historic Landmark District of Ybor City near Downtown Tampa, Florida. casaybor.com
La Union Community, connection, and culture come together at La Unión Apartments, where Tampa’s rich history and vibrant future unite. Inspired by the historic social hall once on this site, our Ybor City apartments honor that legacy by fostering bonds among residents, the neighborhood, and the area’s deep-rooted heritage. bit.ly/LaUnionYbor
Tempus Projects 1624 E 7th Ave, 2nd Floor
TEMPUS PROJECTS is dedicated to nurturing established and emerging local, national, and international artists through exhibitions, collaborations, https:// tempus-projects.com
TECO Line Streetcar System
Operates every 15 minutes (every 12 minutes during peak hours; Friday 1 PM to 9 PM, Saturday 1:00 PM to 10 PM, and Sunday 12 PM to 8 PM.) tecolinestreetcar.org
Dysfunctional Grace
1704 1/2 E. 7th Ave, 2nd Floor
The only shop in Ybor where death and dysfunction dance in a graceful ballet. dysfunctionalgrace.shop
By Ray Roa
CL Recommends
THU 10
C Katara w/Animal Prince/DJ Capybara Sometimes, superstars of Florida music come together for a show that makes you feel like you’re living in the country’s best metro for original music. Next Thursday’s a little like that, with a special experimental show happening at the MFA St. Pete, and this one going down less than three miles away. R&B/pop outfit Animal Prince, from Gainesville, is more-or-less an adopted child of the scene, while harp-and-drum outfit Katara has long held it down as one of the tightest, thrilling live acts to come out of the area in the last decade. Chance Reynolds had to drop out of the lineup as this went to print, but multiinstrumentalist Roger Thomas has been added to the bill and will spin under the DJ Capybara moniker. (Suite E Studios, St. Petersburg)
C Sound In Your Eyes Listening Session: The Honourable Elizabeth A. Baker For the better part of a decade now, The Honourable Elizabeth A. Baker has refused to let herself or listeners get comfortable. Her vehicle has been a spaceship of semi-modular and analog synths, MIDI controllers, theremins, and computers, that collides with toy piano, harmonium, handmade instruments and found objects (one time, that meant vibrators). She’s bringing all of it to St. Petersburg’s Museum of Fine Arts for a one-night-only performance of new work inspired by six paintings in the MFA’s new Nina Yankowitz exhibit “In the Out/Out the In.” Like Baker’s, the work of Yankowitz, a multidisciplinary artist, doesn’t just live on the fringes but blows past them. The show is a career retrospective of Yankowitz’s work, and the MFA commissioned Baker to compose and record a new album in conjunction. Recorded at Gainesville’s Pulp Arts, CDs will be available, but this gig is the only chance to hear the work live while surrounded by the very art that inspired it. (Hough Gallery at MFA St. Pete, St. Petersburg)
FRI 11
C Dirty South Fest: Gaijin w/Blunt Force Trauma/Suffering Spirit/ Dephiled/more More than two dozen of the Southeast’s heaviest hardcore acts are in the Bay area this weekend, and it makes sense that a bunch of them—including Port Charlotte slam outfit Gaijin, Orlando grindcore band Blunt Force Trauma and ABBA and Louvin Brothers-loving Suffering Spirit (which just played Skatepark of Tampa last February)—kick off Dirty South Fest at this cathedral of heavy sounds. (Deviant Libation, Tampa)
Greenhouse Listening Bar opening party
There can never be too many places to just chill with no pressure to drink alcohol. The Greenhouse crew officially breaks in its home at Tampa Heights’ Elevation Coffee where zero-proof cocktails, N/A wines and beer, plus coffee from the local roaster will provide a buzz. Organizers, who set up a hi-fi sound system, will play new and old funk as they hope to launch “something special for Tampa’s music lovers.” (Elevation Coffee, Tampa)
C Kristy Lee As a musician, you get to a point where you really don’t give a shit what the critics have to say, because if you put your heart and soul into something, that’s what matters. There are some exceptions though, like how the Indigo Girls’ Emily Saliers called Kristy Lee’s ultra-soulful latest album Olive Tree a tour de force, full of mind-blowing song structure and a “penetrative voice.” Lee (who opened for the ‘Girls in Clearwater last May, and once got some of their lyrics tattooed in Ybor City) tends to present her uplifting material at smaller house concerts when she’s headlining, like at the indie Clearwater room’s weekly gig this Friday. And if that day doesn’t work out for you, her website shows that she’s set to play at Safety Harbor Art and Music Center closer to the end of the year. (Music4Life Living Arts Center, Clearwater)—Josh Bradley
SAT 12
710 Dab Day: Know Good w/Effin/ Sharlitz Web/Zoska/Terminal 6/Badda Skat There’s no kitschy way to celebrate halfway to 4/20, so cannabis enthusiasts just go ahead and celebrate again around July 10 (“710” or “oil” if you flip it upside down). Bass-heavy, kind of livetronic duo Know Good twists knobs and noodles on guitar in the headlining slot of this sure-to-be-sweaty festival. (The Cuban Club, Ybor City)
Dunedin Brewery’s 29th anniversary celebration: The Headtones w/Displace Every weekend feels a little like a special occasion on Douglas Avenue thanks to the good vibes at Dunedin Brewery. Formally, this gig at the seaside city’s live music stronghold, marks the 29th anniversary of Florida’s oldest microbrewery—and it’ll be soundtracked by funky jam scene favorite The Headtones and homegrown rock band Displace. (Dunedin Brewery, Dunedin)
C Ghost It doesn’t feel like a decade since one of the biggest Swedish metal bands of all time brought its “Black to the Future” tour to The Ritz Ybor, conveniently exactly ten days before Marty McFly and Dr. Emmett Brown were supposed to land in the future. Inevitably, the Nameless Ghouls have now accumulated over 10 billion streams, and their latest album Skelatá hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 earlier this year. The group’s return to Tampa—which comes after Hurricane Idalia got a gig at the old Gary
THU JULY 10–THU JULY 17
amphitheatre axed in 2023—will be a phonefree event, in which you’ll have to lock your devices up in a Yondr pouch, so dust off that internal camera. Maybe they don’t want pictures taken of them pulling a Kiss and taking off those masks (they won’t, but we can hypothesize, right?) (Amalie Arena, Tampa)—JB
Henri Herbert If there’s anything that Jerry Lee Lewis and his piano showed the world, it’s that you don’t have to have a guitar strapped on to make it to stardom. While the ivories may still be a bit of an afterthought when it comes to rock music, Henri Herbert—a Nashvillian-turned-Englishman with over 100 million views on YouTube— strives to resume the ancient art of keeping the piano-based rock subgenre that is boogie-woogie alive. Herbert, whose resume includes sessions with Nas and Bryan Adams respectively, says he’s working on material for an album due out later this year. (Side Door Cabaret at Palladium Theater, St. Petersburg)—JB
C Kingsleyiii (album release) w/Pilot Jonezz/Fesssi K./Johnny Champagne Two months after making a rousing debut with his new group Aliqua, the self-described “super rapper and super producer” hosts the prom party you may have skipped out on in high school. His relatably-titled new album Third Wheeling At Prom promises to feature Kingsley Reeves III at his absolute best, and while details of the record are currently on the down-low, his old buddy Pilot Jonezz will play a set at this release party, which must mean that this isn’t a shindig you want to miss out on. (Crowbar, Ybor City)—JB
C The Offspring w/Jimmy Eat World/ New Found Glory Unlike previous times in the 2020s, there’s neither a Rays post-game concert series or an Innings Fest to look forward to in this miserable year. So if you’re looking to continue getting your healthy dose of baseball in before Jimmy Eat World’s Saturday gig—sandwiched in between seemingly annual gigs from fresh-off-a-newalbum The Offspring and Coral Springs-bred pop-punk heroes New Found Glory—you may be out of luck. That is, unless you can stand a few hours of minor league, hightail it down to Clearwater the night before, and watch the Threshers play the Fort Myers Mighty Mussels. But of course, if you don’t, don’t. (MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre, Tampa)—JB
Rebecca Penneys Piano Festival: 8 Hand Extravaganza The public gets almost a dozen chances to experience the Rebecca Penneys Piano Festival every year, and Saturday finds the long-running celebration staging two shows: one that takes over the University of South Florida’s Barness Recital Hall for an eight-hand concert. (Barness Recital Hall at University of South Florida, Tampa)
SUN 13
Big Time Rush Sure, reunions happened with the boy bands of our parents’ generation, but BTR getting back together may not have been on a lot of bingo cards during the latter days of the pandemic. The Nickelodeon band has promised to perform every song heard on its Monkees-style TV show, and then some. With the boys’ ex-castmates Katelyn Tarver and Stephen Kramer Glickman also on the bill, don’t be shocked if you accidentally overhear some recitations of obscure one-liners you may not remember from when our parents were recovering from the recession. (MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre, Tampa)—JB
TUE 15
C Jessie Reyez w/Raahiim One of Florida’s last major concerts before COVID19 shut things down was the Orlando date of Billie Eilish’s “Where Do We Go?” world tour, which if not for the pandemic axing it after only three dates, would have totally gone down as one of the best-selling tours of all time. The opening act that night was Jessie Reyez, the Canadian singer-songwriter who’s fresh off of her new, third album Paid In Memories . Considering the immense star-powered guest appearances and the lyrics she wrote without extra aid (and not to mention that it’s her first time in town since a 2018 gig at the since-shuttered Ybor City location of Orpheum), it’s no wonder that this St. Pete gig is sold-out. (Jannus Live, St. Petersburg)—JB
An extended version of this listing is at cltampa.com/music.
C
Jessie Reyez
Rod Wave is bringing his birthday party back to his hometown. Last week, ahead of the Fourth of July, the St. Petersburg rapper announced plans to return to the Bay area this summer.
Wave’s homecoming arrives four years after he put the Sunshine City on the map by knocking Justin Bieber off the Billboard 200 in 2021 and as Wave—who’ll turn 27 on Aug. 27—again finds himself in headlines for something other than music.
Wave’s upcoming birthday show is appropriately dubbed “The Introduction To: The Redemption Experience,” but support for the show has yet to be announced.
Tickets to see Rod Wave play Amalie Arena in Tampa on Friday, Aug. 29 are available now and start at $90.70.
See Josh Bradley’s weekly roundup of new concerts coming to Tampa Bay below.—Ray Roa
His lawyer denies any wrongdoing, but Wave, according to ABC News, faces 14 criminal charges, including aggravated assault and firearms violations, following what his lawyer called a break-in at his Georgia residence on April 21. In 2022, St. Pete police pulled over a 2021 Dodge Durango registered to the 22-year-old rapper who was riding in the front passenger seat—that case was dismissed months later.
Twenty One Pilots Saturday, Oct. 11. 8 p.m. Prices TBA. MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre, Tampa
The Band Camino w/Almost Monday Tuesday, Oct. 14. 8 p.m. Prices TBA. Jannus Live, St. Petersburg
I’m 27-year-old Italian guy. I just got out of a situationship with a woman five years older than me. It was a total mess. She wanted everything to revolve around her and be in control of everything because she had bad relationships in the past. She wanted to date other people, but I was always against it. Not because I wanted to control her, but because she literally said she enjoyed “betraying and lying for fun.” We argued a lot about her love of talking about her exes. That was her favorite argument. She thought I was jealous, but I was just annoyed about being constantly compared to guys from her past and those comparisons stung because—spoiler alert— the sex we had wasn’t that great.
SAVAGE LOVE
To make matters worse, she would complain to me during sex that all the men in her life had “performance issues” with her. Sometimes when I couldn’t get hard—mostly because images of her exes were playing in my head—she would have a literal panic attack. And then there was this double standard: She would go on and on about how big this ex’s cock was and how amazing sex with this other ex was, but she didn’t want to hear about any of my past sexual encounters. I told her all of this made me feel bad about myself, but she felt that since we weren’t a “real” couple she didn’t have to take my feelings into consideration.
Every one of her stories was about how she betrayed her exes and messed up these monogamous relationships but somehow she was the victim. I finally told her that I didn’t want to hear another word about her past. She didn’t like that and expected me to apologize for what I had said, but I never did. After that, I left her. Do you think I did the right thing? Am I an asshole for leaving her?—Unpleasant Situationship Ends Disastrously
You’re not an asshole for leaving, USED, but staying as long as you did—well, I don’t wanna call you an idiot (as you’re a reader), but staying with this woman for more than five minutes was a pretty idiotic thing to do.
She bragged about betraying her exes and lying to their faces for fun. She compared you to her exes (unfavorably!) during sex and then had a meltdown when you couldn’t stay hard. She claimed she didn’t owe you consideration or even kindness because you weren’t a “real” couple. (Decent people are kind to their onenight stands.) That’s not the behavior of someone who’s had some bad experiences with previous partners and needs a little extra care and consideration from their current partner. That’s the behavior of an emotionally abusive asshole in victim drag.
Now, usually when someone sticks around despite their partner being awful, USED, it’s because the sex is amazing or they did something stupid that makes walking away impossibly hard—they married the awful person or scrambled their DNA together with theirs. But in your case, USED, the sex was lousy, she was lousier, and you weren’t married and didn’t have kids. This woman wasn’t even your girlfriend! So, the question you should be asking yourself isn’t, “Am I the asshole for leaving,” but rather, “Why the fuck did I put up with this shit for so long?” You’re gonna need to figure out the answer to that question before you get with/on/in someone else—and you gonna need to promise me you’ll grab your pants and run the next time someone puts down your dick while you’re trying to use it. (Some men like that sort of thing — you’re not one of them.)
Again, you did the right thing by leaving. Now you need to do the hard thing: learn from this experience. Drama is not romance. Traumatic past experiences (real or imaginary) are not Get-Out-of-Human-Decency-free cards. And if someone you’re fucking only has shitty things to say about their exes—if someone is the common denominator in a whole bunch of shitty relationships—then the person you’re fucking is the shitty one.
I’m hoping you can put me in a better headspace about external pressure on my relationship. I’ve got a fantastic partner; we are sharing a life together and we are very happy. The challenge I face is that we own a nightclub where we encounter loads of single people. There’s music, there’s alcohol, there’s dancing—it all sounds fun, I know. Shockingly, I am not worried that my partner has a wandering eye. He’s well known in our little island town and respected here by everyone. But on many occasions, some woman has openly flirted with him, touched him suggestively, looked at him seductively—or worse—right in front of me. He deflects these advances, and he always tells these women that he is mine. My issue is with my anger I have towards these women as I feel they are testing me. I’m doing my best to let it go, even though it still gets to me. I would like to not let my emotions make me their bitch but some of these girls are clearly testing me. What can I say in these situations that is both diplomatic and firm without creating friction?
Peace Not Beast
Are you sure these women are testing you? I mean, if the women who’ve hit on your boyfriend at the club are locals who know you’re together—and they know you’re exclusive—they
may be testing you. But if these women are strangers or tourists, how are they supposed to know the hot guy serving them drinks has a girlfriend?
If we’re talking locals, you shouldn’t worry about being polite or diplomatic—you have every right to blow up—but you don’t wanna drive off regular paying customers either, right? And the alcohol isn’t “there,” PNB. You’re selling alcohol and profiting from it. Since booze is known to lower people’s inhibitions in ways that can impact their judgment, some tolerance for mild boundary violations and party fouls—and flirting with a hot-but-taken guy counts—are a cost of doing business. So, if we’re talking local bitches, I would advise you to stick to withering looks and let your boyfriend continue doing the shutting down.
If they’re tourists… yeah, a tourist isn’t gonna know your boyfriend is taken; a tourist who makes a pass at your boyfriend is only guilty of shooting her shot. And as sex-and-relationship problems go, PNB, “everyone wants to fuck my boyfriend” is a pretty good problem to have. So long as your boyfriend can be trusted not to bang two tourist girls at a time in the walk-in beer cooler—and it sounds like he can be trusted not to do that—I think you should take the high road and the compliment. Laugh and tell the tourist your boyfriend is taken, offer her a shot to toast her great taste in men, and then point her in the direction of someone who might wanna fuck the shit out of her in your beer cooler.
I’m an elder millennial who’s been with a beautiful guy for 15 years. We’ve been open for half of that, starting with DADT but then becoming more transparent very recently. We navigated a few tricky episodes where he suspected emotional infidelity on my part. In hindsight, I was acting out in frustration with the DADT setup. For what it’s worth, the pivot to transparency has done us good. I don’t think we’ve ever felt as confident or secure in our bond as we have in the last few months.
My issue involves another guy: a very young millennial (late twenties) guy I met on Recon fairly early into the “Dom” journey I’ve been on for the last two years. (My husband is staunchly vanilla and enjoys teasing me about my new “hobbies.”) I’ve explored a laundry list of kinks with this boy. We have great sexual chemistry and we’re both pretty intellectually compatible. It’s fair to say I’m a little smitten with him— but it doesn’t feel like a romantic bon and I’ve
never discouraged him from dating other men. Still, I ache a bit when it’s been too long since I’ve seen him last.
This guy just accepted a job offer a few time zones away. I’d like to make the effort to see him once in a while after he moves. Dumping this news on my spouse could upend the amazing vibe we’ve recently established. But it feels like a conversation worth risking. But I feel like I should maybe reach out to the other guy first to see if he’s even interested in staying connected after he moves away. Which of these conversations should come first: the one with the other guy or the one with my husband?—Deliberating Over Move
You’re gay, you’re married and open, and you and your husband both see other people. It’s obviously easier for your vanilla husband to find other partners, DOM, as most gay guys are vanilla and even the kinky ones enjoy vanilla sex from time to time. But it’s harder for you: you not only have to find guys you’re into who are also into you, DOM, you have to find guys who share your kinks—and not just share them, but who are essen- tially the (sub) lids to your (dom) pot. So, while the guys your husband hooks up with are easily replaced, the guys you hook up with are gonna be harder to come by, on, and in.
If your husband knows you’re kinky and wants you to explore your kinks with guys you can trust, he should be able to wrap his head around your desire to stay connected to particular subs that were good-to-great matches, even if it means a little travel. But seeing as you’re only a few months into your transparency era—you’re sharing everything (or almost everything) now—I wouldn’t blame you for avoiding this convo for the time being.
So, start by asking this boy if he wants to keep fucking with you after he moves away. If he’s not interested, you don’t need to have an awkward discussion with your husband about some hypothetical sub you might meet in the future. If this boy does wanna keep fucking with you, then you’re gonna need to talk with your husband about your travel plans.
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Emulate Picabo
Lightning sound, in the comics
Son of Mary, Queen of Scots
November 1955 hit
Red as ___
Greek letter
Inviting sign
December 1965 hit
Does a number
Acrophobe’s concern: abbr.
“What’s ___ position?”
River of shadoofs
Miles from Hollywood
Off-course admission
Commensurate (with)
Sick companion? 62 Caste-system rejector 63 April 1963 hit (by Lou Christie)
Fabled flyer 68 Religious sculpture
“Who’s there?” reply
Proposition vote
“___ anything happen”
Palominos, e.g.
Capek play
Unleavened bread
Tax extension?
Digs of twigs
Sphere intro
Part of A.M.E.: abbr.
Start of a Sondheim song
Wodehouse’s valet
Good loser
___
Karen of Africa, later
View from Neil’s window, 1969 78 Mammals with flexible snouts 81 Bed on board
“___ to you!” 83 Chic modifier
Steinbeck direction
Reduce, in a way
Superman, in a suit
Butterfly catcher
Brazen one
Sylvester’s quest
Experienced (in)
Word heard in “Hey, Good Lookin’ ”
Radio station in an early George Carlin routine, “Wonderful ___”
