Westshore Pizza (Lambright)
3742 W. Lambright StreetOur trip was coming to end. We had just a couple more days in Tampa and finding someplace to eat was getting exhausting. I’m not one to give up and just start hitting drive-thrus so I told my co-worker I had a few more tricks up my sleeve.
We were in Tampa the week leading up to Super Bowl LV….and our remote workspace was pretty close to Raymond James Stadium. I knew Saturday night before the game was going to be difficult to get around so I suggested we grab a pizza on our way to the jobsite and get enough that we could make both lunch and dinner out of it.
The night before, our colleagues in town from Indianapolis took their evening break and went to a pizzeria not too far from the job site. They just did slices but came back and kind of raved about it. That was a good enough endorsement for me.
We picked Westshore Pizzeria on Lambright Street just east of Dale Mabry Highway in the unincorporated area of Egypt Lake-Leto. The stand alone pizza place sits off the road in a commercialized area near a busy intersection.
Read more…Waffle House (Wesley Chapel)
5421 Village Market I don’t go to the south without going to Waffle House. It’s like a rule or something.
We did a couple of Waffle House trips late at night last year on our trip to Miami but this year was different. COVID kept us out of the restaurants for the most part and Waffle House’s aren’t very big to begin with.
While we were working a lot in downtown Tampa, our hotel was actually about a half hour north of the city in Wesley Chapel. It would be closer to 1:30 by the time we got back to the hotel every night and even then, there were nights I still had some work that needed to be done before we got back at it the next morning.
Friday night was finally the night I didn’t have much to do when we got back. I was kind of hungry and didn’t want to leave without getting my Waffle House fix.
The Waffle House closest to our hotel was the one in the Village Market Shopping center right off I-75 and Wesley Chapel Boulevard. This is a pretty commercialized area of town with several chain and not chain restaurants and some big box store shopping. The Waffle House sits near the front of the parking lot and is easy to see from the road before you turn at the light to get into the plaza.
Read more…Wing House (Tampa Stadium)
3712 Columbus DriveSpending eight days away from home, in a hotel, working 14+ hour days can take a toll. By our sixth day in Tampa, we were looking forward to the flight home and a return to not figuring out what our one meal for the day was going to be.
We had two work sites while we were in Tampa. We had office space downtown near the Hillsborough River and we had a remote work site not too far from Raymond James Stadium where the Buccaneers play. We spent our mornings in the office and the evenings at the remote.
Our break was around 3:00 when we were moving from one worksite to the next. A lot of days, we grabbed something on the way. Dale Mabry Highway has a lot of chains and it was quick and easy to grab something on the way to the remote worksite.
Early in the week I noticed a Wing Place not too far off our route from one site to the next. I put off ordering there until Friday for some reason. When Co-Worker got done with his morning assignments, I asked if today was a good day for wings. He said yes, I put in an order, and we headed to the second part of our day on site.
Wing House is a chain of 22 wing restaurants in Florida. The one we stopped at is the one near Raymond James Stadium on Columbus Drive between Himes Avenue and Dale Mabry Highway in the Northeast Macfarlane Park neighborhood of Tampa. The restaurant is a two story sports bar that looks out over Columbus Drive. You can see Raymond James Stadium in the distance and the New York Yankees training complex directly across the street.
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.
Read more…Wawa (Wellswood)
1760 W. Hillsborough AvenueFinding something to eat late at night seems to be getting harder. Even the chain casual dining places are closing by 1 AM which made finding something to eat after our shift during the week in Tampa really hard.
I’ve never had a problem with gas station food. I get chicken from the Shell station in downtown Kalamazoo at least once a week and I love the pizza from the Speedy Cafe’s.
We kind of slummed dinner on Wednesday night and had Subway. We didn’t have a lot of time and that was something quick and easy. It’s not really filling though and by the time we started heading back to the hotel at 1 AM, I was hungry and needed something to eat before I went to bed.
I stopped at a Wawa on Tuesday night to grab some drinks for the morning. I had heard of Wawa but had never actually been in one. I wasn’t hungry Tuesday night so I got my drinks and that was it but I noticed they had a food option similar in style to Speedway’s Speedy Cafe. We had to pass that Wawa again on Wednesday night so I stopped again but this time added some food to my drink purchase.
We stopped at the Wawa on West Hillsborough Street near Mendenhall Drive in the Wellswood area of Tampa. The gas station/convenience store is really large and is a really popular stop even after midnight.
Read more…Butcher N’ Barbeque
1910 N. Ola AvenueSurprise! I was hungry for BBQ.
Our second full day in Tampa wasn’t quite as long as the first. We still worked over 14 hours but got to sleep in a little bit. By doing so, we missed the free breakfast at the hotel so both of us were pretty hungry when lunch time rolled around.
Co-worker had a few more responsibilities on this trip than I did so while he was doing his thing, I was looking up BBQ places for lunch. I didn’t ask him if he wanted BBQ. I just assumed everyone likes BBQ.
I picked Butcher N’ Barbeque on North Ola Avenue in the Ridgewood Park area of Tampa north of downtown along the Hillsborough River. The restaurant is part of the Heights Public Market which is described as “A food lovers dream.”
Read more…Gonzo’s Sandwich Shop
1902 N. Himes StreetOur first full day in Tampa was a long one. We started our day about 8:30 AM and didn’t get back to our hotel room until almost 2:00 AM. We knew going in days were going to be long and opportunities for meal breaks were going to be short.
We had a decent break around 2:00 and needed to find a Walmart to pick up some cases of pop and water for the week. I found one not too far from downtown near where our remote work site was located. My co-worker ran inside to do the shopping while I sat in the car and looked for someplace to eat.
We were in an area of West Tampa that was pretty commercialized. There were a lot of chain restaurants in the area that we could have picked up lunch from but what fun is that? I found the local sandwich shop tucked in to a strip mall behind the Walmart.
Gonzo’s Sandwich Shop is on N. Himes Street right at the I-275 interchange. The shop is in a small strip mall that can only be accessed from the southbound lanes of Himes Street or from Chestnut Avenue which connects Himes to Dale Mabry Highway.
Read more…New York New York Pizza (Hyde Park)
533 S. Howard AvenueI haven’t traveled in over a year. I haven’t left the state of Michigan in over a year. Even meeting my family, the furthest we’ve gone is New Buffalo. We spent a lot of times at parks this year in Berrien County hanging out with my parents. Christmas took place in early December at the New Buffalo Township Park pavilion.
Back in November, I got a call from work asking me if I was available for a big corporate trip at the end of January. I was hesitant at first but it was a good professional opportunity. J and I talked about it and decided I should go. We both secretly hoped that vaccine rollout would go better than it has and I would at least have the first shot by now (I don’t).
The plan was for a co-worker and I to be in Tampa, Florida eight days. We flew in on a Sunday night and left the following Monday. He and I did the same thing last year but in Miami (bonus points if you can figure out why we were in Florida during those times).
We got in to the Tampa International Airport a little before 5:00 on Sunday night. We were really rushed and had to hit the ground running. We had something we were really try to do before 6:00 in downtown Tampa so we grabbed our bags, our rental car, and headed for the Convention Center.
We didn’t make it by 6:00 so that task had to wait until Monday morning. We weren’t done for the night though. We still had to meet up with some co-workers from around the country at our Tampa office to get computers set up and settled in to our workspace for the week.
Our long travel day finally wrapped up around 9:30. I asked my co-worker if grabbing pizzas was OK as we headed to our hotel in Wesley Chapel. He said that was fine so I found something that was still open and not too far out of our way.
I picked New York New York Pizza on recommendations from some of the guys in our Tampa office. The local chain of pizzerias has 8 locations around Tampa. They also have online ordering so I put in an order for two pizzas and we headed out the door hoping to get to bed before long.
So…..I just mentioned they have eight locations…and I didn’t really pay attention to which one I ordered from. That wouldn’t have been a problem except I didn’t put the same one I ordered from in to my GPS first. We drove to the Ybor City location and after circling the block a few times, co-worker jumped out to go get them. When he got to the window, they said they didn’t have anything in either of our names. Crap…..I took us to the wrong one.
Read more…Round Bread Sandwich Company
7083 S. Westnedge AvenueFinding something to when traveling along South Westnedge in Portage can be difficult if you’re looking for something other than chain fast food or casual dining.
A few weeks ago I had that dilemma. I knew I was going to be on that side of town around lunch time and resigned myself to the fact that I would probably be having Five Guys. I was fine with that but I did a quick Google search for “sandwich” and found something surprising.
Round Bread Sandwich Company just opened up in November and has so far, gone pretty unnoticed online. I’m usually pretty up on new restaurants opening in town and I didn’t find this until the middle of January.
The restaurant is in that awkward little strip mall by the Sam’s Club on South Westnedge behind Texas Roadhouse. It has taken over the space that Kelvin & Co was using for their Portage location. There are some ties to the old business as this new sandwich shop is owned by Chris and Nick Slocum who are partners with Mark Nieuwenhuis (who owns Kelvin & Co.) at Burger Bros.
Read more…Mimi Sarducci’s
203 N. Front StreetAnother day. Another solo road trip to a far away land.
My co-worker and I were working on the same project again but we were doing so separately. I needed to go to Cass County to do something and there was really no reason for him to go with me. He could do what he needed to do in the office in Kalamazoo.
My travels took me to a rural patch of land between Cassapolis and Dowagiac. The GPS took me through Dowagiac so I decided that’s where I should look for lunch.
I was looking for something quick and was having a hard time finding a sandwich shop or something similar. As I was about to give up, I saw a Google listing for a place with no website or menu but it did have some tasty looking pictures attached to it. That’s how I made my lunch decision on this day. Random user photos on a Google listing.
Mimi Sarducci’s is really hard to miss if you’re not looking forward. The small restaurant is on Front Street north of Division and downtown Dowagiac. Front Street is also M-51 so it’s the way in our out of town if you’re coming from the north. I’m pretty sure I passed it on my way in to town and never noticed it.
SW Michigan Dining 