NT/WC Reader Survey Results: Best Steak, Burger, BBQ and Bakery
NT/WC Reader Survey Results: Best Italian, Mexican, Chinese and Thai
NT/WC Reader Survey Results: Best Restaurant
Stonewood Tops List
Operating partner Dave Rathbun (photo) says he is often amused when he sees people trying to leave his popular Stonewood Grill & Tavern after a meal, only to bump into a neighbor or someone they know and delaying their exit.
Those moments, as much as any other, are when Rathbun can smile and truly appreciate the success of his restaurant.
“We tried to create a culture where it feels like the ‘Cheers’ of New Tampa,’’ Rathbun says.
And indeed, for Rathbun, it is a place where everybody seems to know his name, because they keep coming back.
The friendly and welcoming atmosphere, the familiarity between the customers and Rathbun and his carefully selected staff (the folks he says “bring the place to life”), and a menu and bar area that almost never fail to deliver one of the best dining and imbibing experiences around are why, once again, Stonewood Grill & Tavern is the Neighborhood News “Best Restaurant in New Tampa & Wesley Chapel,” as voted on by our readers, for a second straight year.
Stonewood, a Tampa Palms staple since opening in September 2002, beat out Bonefish Grill and newcomer Noble Crust — the reader’s top pick for best new business (see list, on pg. 50) — which are both located in Wesley Chapel, for the top spot.
“It’s just an honor to have people vote for you,” Rathbun says. “I’m humbled by every vote.”
Despite a not-so-great location — Stonewood is tucked behind a 7-Eleven and McDonald’s on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd., just north of Commerce Park Blvd. — it has thrived as an upscale family restaurant because, well, Rathbun is kind of like family. He has lived in North Tampa for more than 20 years, including Richmond Place the last 16 years. He knows most of his customers, and their kids, and where those kids go to school.
“It’s wonderful to work in the community where you live,” he says.
Stonewood, a small chain which has 10 locations statewide, is best known for its steaks and seafood. Rathbun says the restaurant receives all of its steaks from only three different plants in Iowa, and “it’s all Midwestern beef, aged for 28 days, then hand cut to our specs and cooked the way you want them.”
The restaurant has popular main dishes like delightful short ribs with butternut squash ravioli, hearty grilled rosemary and garlic lamb loin chops, tender oven-baked herb-encrusted grouper and cedar plank roasted salmon in an apricot mustard jalapeño glaze, to name a few.
Or, you can hunker down at Stonewood’s popular bar and order tavern wings or oak grilled shrimp or anything else from the full lunch or dinner menu.
“One of my customers once told me, ‘You know, I can come in here and have a real nice dinner and a bottle of wine with my wife and celebrate an event, or I can come in with my guys and have a burger and a beer at the bar and watch a basketball game,’” Rathbun says. “They love the flexibility.”
A new and improved lunch menu, plus weekday specials which can be ordered at the bar or at your table, also help keep people coming back.
For example, on Tuesdays, Stonewood offers specials on craft beer and craft burgers (see photo). Wine Down Wednesday features half-off discounts on almost a dozen wines, and Thursday is Stoli Martini night.
“We offer something for everyone, and I really like that I’ve been able make so many relationships with my customers over the years,” Rathbun says. “I’m glad so many people enjoy it.”
Stonewood Grill & Tavern is located at 17050 Palm Pointe Dr., Tampa Palms. For info, call (813) 978-0388 or visit StonewoodGrill.com.
Bus Rapid Transit Would Include Wesley Chapel
Any hopes for a light rail line connecting the Tampa Bay area have now taken a backseat, as local officials seem ready to embrace a 41-mile Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system from Wesley Chapel to St. Petersburg.
That was the recommendation of Jacobs Engineering, which conducted a $1.5-million study funded by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) on Jan. 19, when the study was presented to the Tampa Bay Transportation Management Area (TMA) Leadership Group in Tampa.
The proposed route would run along I-275 from Wesley Chapel to the University of South Florida, through downtown Tampa and the Westshore and Tampa International Airport areas and over the Howard Frankland Bridge into downtown St. Petersburg.
While the debate over fixing the transportation woes in Tampa Bay has raged for more than a decade, including two highly-publicized failed attempts at a light rail voter referendum in 2014 and 2016, BRT is seen as a quicker and cheaper option and a potential jump start to the development of a much-needed and elusive transportation system to help ease the area’s overcrowded roads.
“I think that’s what the citizens want — we need a solution now,” said Hope Allen, the CEO of the North Tampa Bay (formerly Greater Wesley Chapel) Chamber of Commerce.
A 9-mile CSX rail between USF and downtown Tampa also was considered as an option by Jacobs Engineering, but those construction costs were roughly $600 million, with $9-$12 million in annual operating costs, and would take 10 years to build.
That’s more costly and time-consuming than BRT, which has estimated costs of around $400 million for a project that would be ready in five years, with $5-$7 million in annual operating costs.
“This is not the ultimate end game for transit in the Tampa Bay region, nothing even close to that,” said FDOT District 7 Secretary David Gwynn. “What this would hopefully be is a first step that could start to generate transit ridership, that would be able to get federal money started into the process and build ridership. Hopefully over time, those other elements, whether they are bus, rail or some form of technology that evolves, can be built upon this project.”
BRT systems in other cities and countries are considered much higher quality than your typical bus routes, and are defined by their dedicated lanes, which avoid congestion and make for faster travel.
In Tampa Bay, the BRT route would have a dedicated lane for a majority of the route, although that lane may be only a reinforced shoulder in certain parts, or toll lanes planned for the new Howard Frankland Bridge. In some areas, a dedicated lane will need to be constructed. But, by converting many of the existing lanes into BRT-dedicated lanes, as opposed to building a rail line to cover the entire 41 miles, would reduce the cost of the project by $2 billion.
And, BRT utilizes sleeker, more modern-looking buses equipped with WiFi, making it a more palatable choice for those who have previously ridden on regular HARTline buses.
“Can we not use the word bus?,” asked Kathryn Starkey, Pasco’s District 3 county commissioner. “We need a sexy, cool, futuristic name.”
The three-county BRT line recommended by Jacobs Engineering would have 17 intermodal stations, which would serve as transportation hubs, and have been shown to spur growth in the urban areas where they are placed. The proposal shows stations in Wesley Chapel at S.R. 54 and I-75, as well as one at S.R. 56 and Wesley Chapel Blvd.
Allen said she was pleased with the reception BRT has received, and that Wesley Chapel was included. Allen says thousands of residents in Wesley Chapel and Pasco County leave for work in Tampa and St. Petersburg every day.
“For them,” she says, “this is pretty appealing.”
Three New Hotels Add Heat To Wesley Chapel’s Business Climate
For years, Pasco County has grappled with attracting tourists and giving them a place to stay.
Florida Hospital Center Ice (FHCI) and a planned RADD Sports Wiregrass Ranch Sports Complex, as well as the Tampa Premium Outlets (TPO), the Shops at Wiregrass mall, the massive “connected city” project and dozens of local restaurants will help take care of attracting visitors.
In a few months, a long-standing problem of finding beds for all of those visitors’ heads will be solved as well.
During the months of June and July, Wesley Chapel expects to see three new hotels open along the burgeoning S.R. 56 corridor, joining the Holiday Inn & Suites that opened last year next to FHCI (and the Hampton Inn & Suites, which has been open for many years).
“The two industries (tourism and hospitality) go hand in hand,” says Hope Allen, the CEO of the North Tampa Bay (formerly Greater Wesley Chapel) Chamber of Commerce. “It’s almost like you can’t have one without the other.”
Barring any weather delays, a six-story, 125-room Hilton Garden Inn on Silver Maple Pkwy., across S.R. 56 from FHCI, is scheduled to open in June, a 92-room Fairfield Inn & Suites is expected to open in June or July a few miles to the east (in the Wiregrass Ranch development), and the six-story, 132-room Hyatt Place Hotel & Convention Center will open in July at the Cypress Creek Town Center across from TPO.
The newest hotels have all been planned since late 2015.
Impact Properties is building the Hyatt Place, and recently hosted a “topping off” event to show off its progress. Impact just began building the $24-million hotel last summer. The Hyatt Place will share the north side of S.R. 56 with a host of new restaurants and retailers (see story on page 6).
The conference center addition fills another area need, says District 2 Pasco County commissioner Mike Moore. “This is going to be a great development all around,” Moore said during the Hyatt Place event. “When you talk about a convention center, that has been something that has been a big need in Pasco County, especially on the east side. You won’t have a problem keeping it full.”
Impact president Dilip Kanji said he has had his eyes on the Cypress Creek location for years, patiently waiting for the right moment.
“I’ve been looking at Wesley Chapel since 2012,” Kanji says, citing the Cypress Creek Town Center’s permitting woes dating back to 2007. “If you remember, (our interest) goes back to the days when the mall was going to go there, the problems with the wetlands and the Army Corps of Engineers, all that stuff, so we just kept looking. But, Wesley Chapel has arrived, Pasco County has arrived, everyone wants to be here. We had an idea for what we wanted to do; we were just waiting for the right time.”
Kanji said his company also eyed the Shops at Wiregrass mall and Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel areas in Wiregrass, as well as the area near FHCI (where the Holiday Inn Express is today).
“There’s been the potential (for a hotel) in the area, but the place we always wanted to be was on that (the west) side of the interstate,” he said.
A Little History…
Impact Properties was founded in 1981, two years after Kanji, a biochemist at the time, visited San Francisco and stayed at a family-run hotel that he fell in love with. He decided, without the benefit of any business schooling or real estate courses, to enter the business.
“I never stepped in a lab again, and never looked back,” said Kanji, who works closely with brother and VP Nash Kanji, whom he describes as a construction “whiz.” They started with a small motel in Gainesville that Kanji says his attorney at the time joked was known as a “no-tell motel.” Since then, Impact Properties has grown into an award-winning development company, owning and managing more than 25 hotels, and was awarded the key to the City of Tampa by then-Mayor Dick Greco for developing the Hilton Garden Inn in Ybor City, the first hotel to be built in the historic district in more than 100 years.
Impact Properties currently owns a hotel in Gainesville, two in Jacksonville and two in Tampa, including The Westin on Westshore Blvd.
The company also is developing a hotel in Treasure Island, FL, in addition to the Wesley Chapel location, which Kanji says is one of the most coveted areas around.
Speaking Of Hot…
Kanji says people have asked him if he’s building his next hotel in downtown Tampa or St. Petersburg, and when he tells them no, they ask why, because those are the hot areas.
“I don’t even go where it’s already hot,” Kanji says. “We identify an emerging area, growth areas that are going to be hot. And, we get there first.”
He says that was his plan when he built a hotel in Brandon years ago, the first he says to do so on the old I-75 bypass. “The interchange wasn’t even working,” he says. “We identified where Brandon was going — it was the bedroom community of Tampa — and we identified that area as hot. We got there first. There were growing pains. We did not hit our numbers the first year or two. But, we said we will control the market.”
In the case of Wesley Chapel, however, Impact Properties will be entering a market that is already considered hot, and growing crowded quickly — landowner Bob Sierra said at the “topping” event that if the Hyatt Place is successful, Kanji has an option to build a second in the Cypress Creek Town center.
In addition to the three hotels set to open this summer, the RADD Sports Wiregrass Ranch Sports Complex – which could open in spring of 2019 — will have a 120-room Marriott-branded Residence Inn on site, and the Brightwork Crossing development north of S.R. 54/56 and west of C.R. 54/Wesley Chapel Blvd. has stated plans in 2016 to build an unnamed hotel with up to 150 rooms on that site.
Also, plans were filed with the county in August for a proposed, also-unnamed 160,000-sq.-ft. hotel to be located behind the Walgreens at the S.R. 54 and Bruce B. Downs Blvd. intersection.
A report in 2016 by consultants analyzing the potential for a sports complex in Wesley Chapel pointed out the lack of hotel rooms in the area. And, while it still made a sizable economic impact (estimated at $3-million a year), it has been believed that one of the main beneficiaries of the DICK’s National Lacrosse Championships held at Wesley Chapel District Park the last several years were nearby Hillsborough County hotels, such as those in New Tampa, which took in 60-75 percent of the tournament’s teams and visitors.
While saturation may become an issue, the new hotels are anticipated to help the county’s tourism efforts and fill tax coffers. The county approved doubling its tourist tax, or bed tax, from 2 to 4 percent last year.
“What you’re seeing in Pasco County is quality,” Moore said. “There is a lot of time and effort put into these projects. We’ll be getting rooms filled, heads in beds…and we appreciate the help. It helps us grow, and helps us bring in additional profits to the county.”