Cigar City Brewing (Spruce Street)
3924 W. Spruce StreetWhen I found out I was going to be traveling to Tampa for work, my eyes kind of lit up. There was one place I absolutely had to make time to stop at. A place I’ve sent my sister-in-law several times on her work trips to Florida. A place with really yummy beer.
I had some errands to run while my co-worker was working on something else. We had been in Tampa five days at that point and I had tried to order from Cigar City Brewing twice. I was using the UberEats app for a pick up and both times, it timed out then said the business wasn’t available. I decided to give it one more try on Thursday but even if it didn’t work, I would call in an order. I was running out of time in Tampa to get tasty beer.
To my delight, the app worked on the third day. I put in an order, ran my errands, then headed out to Carver City-Lincoln Gardens neighborhood in West Tampa to pick up lunch for the both of us.
Cigar City Brewing is on West Spruce Street not too far off Dale Mabry Highway. It’s in a really commercialized area and sits behind a Home Depot. There are dozens of chain restaurants in the area just down the street from Raymond James Stadium and George M Steinbrenner Field. The building on Spuce Street is just one of Cigar City’s operations. They also have a taproom at the airport and a taproom downtown. The Spruce Street building is their main center of operation with the public taproom and the brewery operations.
I had put my order in online so when I walked in the building, it was waiting for me at the hostess stand. I could have just grabbed it an left but since I was there, I was going to pick up some beer too.
The restaurant is divided into three spaces. There are two dining room areas separated by the large bar in the middle of the space. There’s also an outdoor area that I had to walk through to get inside. The dining rooms inside are pretty large and pretty open. There’s a false ceiling that hangs down over part of the dining space to make things feel more intimate.
The store area is located to the right of the hostess stand. I went straight for the beer coolers to find beer I couldn’t get in Michigan. It used to be I would beg my sister-in-law to pick up some Jai Alai whenever she traveled to Tampa but with the partnership with Perrin Brewing, I can get Jai Alai in Michigan year round. I picked up a six pack of Space Pope, a four pack of Bubble-O-Meter, and a bottle off Marshal Zhukov’s Imperial Stout. That set me back about another $50….but it was worth it.
It was back to our downtown work space once I got everything I needed. Co-worker had just finished what he was doing and was surprised and very happy to see a box of food waiting for him.
I ordered the Cubano and I couldn’t wait to dig in to this thing. The sandwich is roasted mojo pork, Genoa salami, honey ham, Gruyere, house made pickles, mustard all on a locally made Cuban bread. This sandwich was amazingly good. There was so much meat stuffed between the slices of toasted bread. It kind of played more like a grilled cheese than what I typically think of as a Cuban but I was fine with that. The bread was toasty and buttery, and just barely held up to thick juiciness and girth of the meat stuffed between it. The sandwich came with a side of fresh cut, heavily seasoned fries. The whole meal was just fantastic and held up well to the carry-out container.
There’s always a fear that a place I hype up in my head will turn out to be a disappointment…..but Cigar City did not disappoint in anyway. I wish the pandemic was over and we could have done a couple of flights with our lunch but even doing it this way, I had a great experience. The food was phenomenal and the beer that I drank later that night in my hotel was really tasty. If there’s ever a return trip to Tampa, there will definitely be a return trip to Cigar City Brewing…..and yes, I will still make my sister-in-law buy me beer on her trips.
SW Michigan Dining 