Sports & Game Day Tampa

Tampa Heights · food hall

Armature Works is a 1910 streetcar barn on the Hillsborough River in Tampa Heights, rebuilt into the Heights Public Market with close to twenty independent food counters under one roof. Above the market are private event rooms and Rooftop 220, which looks back at the downtown skyline. The lawn outside it runs down to the Riverwalk, and Creative Loafing lists it as a kid stop for the giant chess boards and the family events it runs through the week. Chill Bros keeps an ice cream counter inside.

West Tampa

Cigar City Brewing is named for Ybor City's cigar industry and has brewed on West Spruce Street since 2009. Its own site calls the Spruce Street brewery and taproom 'CCB's home base since batch number one', and says the beers are 'steeped in the unique culture and history of Tampa'. Jai Alai IPA, the beer it is best known for, takes its name from the Basque game the Ybor and West Tampa social clubs played. The taproom pours exclusive draft beer inside the working brewery and has its own food menu.

West Tampa · cuban, spanish

La Teresita has been cooking Cuban food on West Columbus Drive in West Tampa for more than fifty years, run by the Capdevila family, who give their name to a page of the site and to the Capdevila Group. The kitchen opens at six in the morning, which is a West Tampa habit rather than a restaurant trend, and the site describes 'delicious homemade Cuban and Spanish dishes'. Alongside the restaurant the family runs a ballroom and a catering operation used for quinces, weddings and parties.

Tampa Heights · $$ · caribbean, new american, tapas

M.Bird is the rooftop lounge over Armature Works, four floors up from the food hall, with the Hillsborough River on one side and the downtown skyline on the other. The room is done in an art deco key and the kitchen sends out shareable plates, listed on its own site as Caribbean, American and small plates, alongside tropical cocktails. DJs work the deck and the space takes groups and private events.

University Area · german, swabian, deli, brewpub

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

Hyde Park · new american, coffee, tea

The building went up in 1891 across the street from Henry B. Plant's Tampa Bay Hotel, held an arcade of local shops from the 1920s, then sat empty for decades until the century-old brickwork was restored. Brother and sister Blake Casper and Allison Adams reopened it as Oxford Exchange on September 24, 2012, and Casper's line for how it started is that it started with a bookstore and an office. Under one roof now are the restaurant, the bookstore and shop, a coffee bar, the TeBella Tea Bar, a champagne bar, the Commerce Club membership workspace, and the OE Studio and podcast room. The design takes its cue from the old London clubs and shops, and the stated intent was a place to belong.