Make a Buccaneers or USF game a full day out. Plan a meal in West Tampa, then settle in at a TV stop in Tampa Heights or SoHo.
Make a Lightning game a full evening, with restaurants within a quarter mile of the arena and a hockey bar a few blocks away.
Watch Sun FC pro women's soccer beside the Hillsborough River, then eat or drink at Stones Throw or Armature Works within a quarter mile.
Hattricks is the hockey bar of downtown Tampa, an Irish pub and sports room on South Franklin Street that has been there for years and fills before and after everything at the arena. Its own description is the number one spot for Lightning pregame parties, postgame celebrations, and any concert or event at the arena or the convention center. The posted closing time is honest about how that works: eleven in the morning until as late as three, according to volume.
BellyUp! Tampa / Sports
Sports & Game Day Tampa
Pro and college venues, nearby food and drinks, and places to watch on TV.
3 spots
The Hernandez and Gonzmart family put a Columbia on the ground floor of the Tampa Bay History Center, so the Riverwalk has a table serving the recipes the Ybor City original has run since 1905. The patio is canopy covered and sits on the water in the Water Street neighborhood, beside the downtown arena. The menu is the family's Spanish and Cuban standards, the 1905 Salad, Cuban sandwiches, paella, ropa vieja and croquetas, with flan, churros and guava cheesecake after. Dishes are credited to founder Casimiro Hernandez Sr. and to great-grandmother Carmen Hernandez.
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.
The West Tampa Sandwich Shop calls itself the "Home of the original honey cuban sandwich", and the honey is the local argument: a Cuban sandwich of ham, roast pork, pickles and mustard with honey added, pressed on fresh Cuban bread. It opens at six in the morning and closes at three in the afternoon, six days a week, which is a working West Tampa schedule rather than a restaurant one. It sits on North Armenia Avenue in the middle of West Tampa, the other cigar-era neighbourhood, and it is one of the shops That\u0027s So Tampa puts on its list of the top Cuban sandwiches in the city.
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