Hana Sushi & Grill is the latest Asian restaurant to open in New Tampa.
Unlike all of the (mostly) chain restaurants that continue to enter Wesley Chapel’s restaurant scene, New Tampa continues to be a hub for great locally-owned Asian eateries, with more on the way.
We told you in October that Kobé Japanese Steakhouse was moving from in front of the Pebble Creek Collection to the former location of Romano’s Macaroni Grill, Señor T’s and Vuelo at 17641 Bruce B Downs (BBD) Blvd., and it did indeed close the old location on Nov. 22, in anticipation of its move. We don’t yet have word as to when the new Kobé will open, but it could be before the end of this year, or early next year, at the latest.
Meanwhile, Aroi Thai-Tsuyu, which had been located at 20685 BBD in the Live Oak Preserve area for a couple of years (the same restaurant also has had other names), has closed and been replaced by Hana Sushi & Grill. You can check out the menu at HanaSushiGrillTampa.com.
And finally, Gu Wei Noodles & Grill, which opened in 2020 in the former location of Sukkho-thai on Highwoods Preserve Pkwy. (across from the AMC Highwoods 20 movie theater), is “temporarily closed for updating the concept.” — GN
Oronzo Has A New Midtown Tampa Location, A New GM In New Tampa & Some Yummy New Menu Items!
Even though its original location opened in The Walk at Highwoods Preserve plaza during the pandemic in the summer of 2020, the original location of Oronzo Honest Italian has been successful enough that owner Dan Bavaro decided to open a second location of his fast-casual, from-scratch Italian concept restaurant in the new Midtown Tampa development off I-75 at N. Dale Mabry Hwy.
Bavaro certainly is no stranger to success in the restaurant business. He also has opened four popular locations of Bavaro’s Pizza Napoletana & Pastaria (including St. Pete, Sarasota, on Franklin St. in Tampa and at Tampa International Airport), but Oronzo’s may be Bavaro’s most ambitious concept to date — one that he co-founded with the company that owns The Melting Pot restaurant.
“You’re getting Bavaro’s old-world, from-scratch Italian cuisine combined with The Melting Pot, which is know for experiences and customer service and we kind of merged those two together to create Oronzo,” Dan told Charley Belcher on a recent Fox 13 News feature about the new Midtown location.
Named for his grandfather Oronzo Bavaro, who emigrated to Brooklyn, NY, from Italy, Oronzo Honest Italian is New Tampa’s only place for actual homemade pastas (which you can watch being made in the open kitchen), plus flatbreads and burrito-style sandwiches made from piadina bread (which Bavaro says dates back to the 1800s) from the eastern Italian town of Rimini, located on the Adriatic Sea.
Whatever its roots may be, Oronzo features modern takes on not only many of the recipes created by Dan’s grandmother Angela Bavaro, but also on how to order, create, serve and enjoy made-from-scratch, fast-casual Italian cuisine.
Favorites Old & New!
We featured Oronzo around the same time last year in these pages, but there are several new menu items that have been added, as has new general manager Simon Luckett, who had been with Oronzo for less than two months when we interviewed him for this story.
“It’s a great place, with delicious food and happy customers,” Simon says (no pun intended). “Everything has been really great so far.”
As for the new dishes, one of my favorites is the healthy new Protein Bowl, which features a delicious base of farro and brown rice, with celery, onion, grilled chicken, soppresata pork, roasted mushrooms, garlic, heirloom tomatoes, roasted bell peppers, feta cheese and homemade pesto dressing. So good!
The grilled chicken pesto with fresh zucchini noodles (top left) is a favorite of our editor’s at Oronzo Honest Italian in Highwoods Preserve. We love the cracker-crisp crust of Oronzo’s American flatbread (top, middle), but artisan-style pizzas will be soon be available, too. Oronzo’s Protein Bowl (top right) is one of several delicious new menu items. The new GM at Oronzo’s New Tampa location is Simon Luckett (bottom right). (Photos by Charmaine George)
Another savory (albeit less healthy) new dish is the meatball (or chicken) parm Italian burrito, with homemade spaghetti, your choice of sauce, fresh mozzarella and parmesan wrapped in homemade piadina bread. Not only are they super-tasty, it’s also fun to watch them being made!
The new dish I was shocked that I enjoyed was the pasta and Impossible Bolognese (left) with gluten-free rotini pasta. Photographer Charmaine George and I agreed that the Impossible meat substitute looked and tasted like ground beef and you can choose your favorite pasta to go with it.
And, while you also can still get a variety of delicious cracker-crisp flatbread-style pizzas made with Oronzo’s homemade piadina bread (like the American with pepperoni and San Marzano tomatoes pictured on the previous page), also new to the Oronzo menu — but only available at the Midtown Tampa location at our press time — are artisan pizzas with a more traditional crust. Simon says (oops, I did it again) that the artisan pizzas also should be available in New Tampa soon.
But, our favorite menu items at Oronzo still include the amazing zucchini noodles (Jannah loves them with grilled chicken and homemade pesto, but you can also order it “meatless,” with pomodoro (red), spicy arrabiata, crema (white) or butter and extra virgin olive oil. If you’re not a fan of zucchini noodles (but I think you should try them before you decide), you can get your choice of sauces with Oronzo’s homemade spaghetti, imported Pastaficio DiMartino penne or the gluten-free rotini, and you can add homemade meatballs (which also are available as an appetizer), heirloom tomatoes, roasted mushrooms, and bell peppers.
Oronzo also features a nice selection of fresh salads and soups (Jannah loves the tomato basil soup).
For dessert, try the new Nutella piatto (right)or my long-time favorite cannoli crisps, with the cannoli cream on the side as a dip. There’s also Italian wedding cookies and a variety six pack of French-style macarons.
Oronzo also features a kids menu, plus white and red wines, Peroni Italian beer on draught, espresso drinks, a Coca-Cola soda fountain and the tasty Oronziata (a house-made blood orange beverage) and bottled versions of the red sauces for retail sale.
Oronzo Honest Italian (18027 Highwoods Preserve Pkwy.) is open 11 a.m.-8 p.m. weekdays (9 p.m. on Fri. & Sat.). For info, visit Oronzo.com or call (813) 730-0100.
When you visit Lüfka Refillables Zero Waste Store on S.R. 56 in Wesley Chapel, you’ll meet co-owner Gail Sickler, herbalist Megan Davis and co-owner Danielle Howard. (Photos by Charmaine George)
Lüfka Refillables Zero Waste Store, a new store specializing in natural, chemical-free, refillable, zero-waste products, is more than just a business for owner Danielle Howard.
It’s a way of life.
After growing up with a number of maladies, Danielle says she set out on a journey to find a way to live cleanly. That led to her owning two Salt Room businesses — one in Wesley Chapel and the other at the Sarah Vande Berg Tennis & Wellness Center in Zephyrhills — and now Lüfka Refillables Zero Waste Store, which is located on S.R. 56 in Wesley Chapel, a few doors down from Capital Tacos.
While Danielle says The Salt Room Wesley Chapel and the Salt Room at SVB specialize in halotherapy, which involves breathing salty air in order to help respiratory conditions like asthma, bronchitis and allergies, Lüfka Refillables Zero Waste Store takes a more expansive approach to the benefits and solutions of keeping one’s body and home environment clean.
“I can help them from the inside out,” Danielle says. “Lüfka helps their cleaning, and their laundry, and all the stuff they put on their bodies. This is for people who want to make a difference and are also conscious of what those chemicals are doing.”
Whether it’s better choices for toothpaste, hand-crafted soaps, deodorant or laundry detergent, skin and after-shave lotions and even cleaning sprays, she says, Lüfka offers the healthiest options made with the best ingredients.
And, while they can help make you healthier, they help the environment as well. Most Lüfka products come in glass containers, and you are encouraged to bring them back to have them refilled. Customers also are encouraged to bring containers of their own.
It’s no accident that when you first walk in the store, a table of both air and body sprays is one of the first things you see. Room deodorants are one of the biggest offenders when it comes to containing hazardous toxins, so Danielle and her co-owner and mom Gail Sickler are quick to point out safer alternatives that aren’t afraid to show exactly what they are made of to customers.
The five glass jugs of spray deodorants — Autumn Wood, Vanilla Bean Spice, Cranberry Orange Spice, Pumpkin Apple Butter, and Lavender & Tonka — all have labels listing all of their ingredients.
“This is the perfect example of our products,” Gail says. “You can use them to spray the room you are in, spray bedding if you are having guests over or, if you like it, you can use it as your body spray for the day. Just spray and walk through and it can land on your skin and doesn’t hurt anything because there’s nothing in there to hurt you.”
While perhaps more expensive than what you would get at a major store, Danielle says the products are worth every penny.
“If you do some research on a good, organic, clean, multi-functional spray, you’re looking at anywhere from $20-$40, and people will pay that,” she says. But, if you’re looking primarily for the cheapest stuff — say Glade Spray Air Fresheners that might be BOGO at Publix — Danielle says, “Well, we can’t help you. We can just let you know that this is something completely different.”
How It All Got Started
Lüfka Wesley Chapel is only the third Lüfka Refillables Zero Waste store in the Tampa Bay area.
The concept was originally hatched by Kelly and Parosh Hawaii, who opened the original Lüfka in Seminole Heights in 2019, and a second store in South Tampa in November 2020.
Danielle was turned on to the store by a friend, and immediately fell in love with it. She recommended it to all of her clients at her Salt Rooms. The clients raved about the products, and in turn raved about Danielle, who was helping them at the Salt Rooms, to Kelly and Parosh.
While they had thought of franchising before deciding against it, Kelly and Parosh liked Danielle enough — practically vetting her via all the clients she sent to their store — to suggest she open her own Lüfka store.
“Parosh told me he had been watching me, and saw that I was changing lives, and said he wanted me to open a place in Wesley Chapel,” says Danielle, who just happened to be thinking about opening another retail business at the time. “I started looking for places the second I left there.”
Danielle asked her mother if she wanted to be her partner and, in September, Lüfka Wesley Chapel held its North Tampa Bay Chamber ribbon cutting.
“We love it and it goes with everything we do,” Danielle says. “I really felt like Wesley Chapel needed this.”
What’s In A Name?
So, what is a Lüfka? A wash cloth, which is handmade in the Kurdistan region of Iraq and has been around for thousands of years. Parosh is passionate about sharing ancient handmade Kurdish products with the world, hence the name of the store.
The women who weave the Lüfkas from Babylonian willow bark fibers receive all the proceeds from their sales at Lüfka Refillables Zero Waste Store.
A Lüfka looks like a kitchen mitten, but serves as a wash cloth and can be opened so you can wash your back. Not only does it clean, but it also exfoliates the skin. Danielle says her skin is “as soft as a baby’s butt” when she’s done with hers, and Gail says the same.
Danielle takes the education part of her job seriously. While the average person is likely to think all natural products are more expensive and less effective, Lüfka has hundreds of products that work just as well as their chemical-filled counterparts and are priced competitively, according to Danielle.
You aren’t just choosing with your wallet, however. The laundry detergents at Lüfka, for example, have just a handful of chemical-free ingredients, compared to the 200 or so ingredients, mostly chemicals, in regular detergents.
The same goes for Lüfka’s regular soaps and shampoos, toothpaste, body and facial lotions and deodorant.
“There are so many chemicals that you put on your body for the whole day, and your skin absorbs all of it,” Danielle says. “Everything in here is better for you than what you are probably using, and it’s better for the environment, too.”
For people with autoimmune diseases and sensitive skin and/or sense of smell, the distinction between Lüfka products and those that aren’t chemical- and toxin-free is significant.
While deodorant is the store’s best seller, pet products also are very popular. Pet soap is a big one, due to skin issues, as well as other products, such as food-grade diatomaceous earth, which is a safe alternative to anti-flea products, which are some of the most toxin-filled products on the market.
Gail says local hikers come in to purchase the toxin-free bug spray (which lacks the chemicals that give regular bug spray its stickiness) and there is all-natural sunscreen as well as the ingredients needed (like apple cider vinegar, olive oil and vegetable glycerin) for those who want to make their own cleaners and soaps.
Megan Davis is Lüfka’s herbalist, and can help explain the uses and combinations of the herbs and other ingredients that line one wall of the store — like combining the bladderwrack and sea moss into an apple sauce-like paste that can be consumed and contains 102 trace minerals that your body needs.
However, no one at Lüfka is able to provide medical advice, and they do not sell food, although they might recommend some spirulina or turmeric for your morning smoothie.
Danielle hopes to send customers out on the same journey she is on — to eliminate the chemicals her body is ingesting in regular daily products.
There is some trial and error, she says, and everyone is different. But, for many of the things that ail you, like sores or rashes or just malaise, there might be a healthy option to solve it.
“It can change your life,” Danielle says. “It has definitely changed mine.”
For more information, look up @LüfkaWesleyChapel on Facebook, where you can find specials, candle-making classes and even private shopping events if you’re interested in transitioning to healthier products. Lüfka Refillables Zero Waste Store is located at 27221 S.R. 56. and is open Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on Saturday and it is closed on Sunday and Monday. To find out more, call (813) 596-9376 or visit Lüfka.com.
Janet Kennedy was active in politics, so she was well aware of the great divide between Democrats and Republicans, not only locally, but throughout this country, and was concerned about how quickly that chasm was growing.
But, it wasn’t until the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that Kennedy, a Grand Hampton resident and chair of field organizing for the Hillsborough Democratic Party, felt the full force of how dire the situation had become.
“It was really after Jan. 6,” Kennedy says. “I was glued to the television set that day, as many people were. I guess I was fundamentally shaken that the political discourse in this country had devolved into an attack on the Capitol.”
First, Kennedy assessed her role, as someone who had been heavily involved in partisan politics. It made her feel a little bit guilty about contributing to the divide.
So, she looked for ways to work towards healing that division and founded a local chapter of Braver Angels, a national group that was created in December 2016.
How Braver Angels Got Started
At that time, with passions still high following Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton — and likely in the wake of contentious Thanksgiving dinners between families across the U.S. — the now-national group assembled 10 Trump supporters and 11 Clinton supporters in South Lebanon, Ohio, with one goal: “To see if Americans could still disagree respectfully — and just maybe, find common ground.”
The group’s conclusion was yes, and the Braver Angels organization has continued to grow ever since, with Alliances (or chapters) in 48 states numbering more than 50,000 members.
Kennedy’s goal is to start a Tampa Bay Alliance. She has started that long process with a few Zoom meetings, and says she has about 45 people — most of them from New Tampa — interested.
Unfortunately, only a few are Republicans, likely not enough if any headway is going to be made at bridging any divides.
“It’s going to be a slow build,” Kennedy admits. “I think people are worn out and exhausted and fearful that, if I go to a meeting like this, someone will try to change my mind or talk me out of my opinion or I’ll be made to feel stupid. But, that’s not what we’re about. We’re here to listen.”
Kennedy has organized workshops and a debate so far in three meetings, with much of the conversations focused on not letting politics come between family members.
She says she took some of the lessons from those meetings and used them to have a discussion with her cousin, who is on the opposite side of the abortion debate.
It went surprisingly well, she says.
“We were able to reach an agreement on some points,” Kennedy says, “and I understand better where she is coming from and she understands a bit better where I’m coming from.”
Kennedy would like it to work like that on other issues that divide the two ends of the political spectrum. She is looking for volunteers to help her get the local Alliance of Braver Angels moving forward.
Although the political landscape, and the chance of both sides working together, seems fairly bleak right now, Kennedy says she would like to think she can make a difference.
“I just know I need to try,” she says.
For more information, visit BraverAngels.org, or to help with the local Alliance, email Janet Kennedy at thejanetkennedy@gmail.com.
It may look like a tunnel for an MRI, but at Life Guard Imaging on Rocky Point, you slide through the Philips Brilliance CT Scanner, which scans your body from your shoulders to the base of your torso. (Photos by Charmaine George)
Beating cancer or heart disease can be an uphill battle.
However, Frankie Maldonado says he can help give you a fighting chance.
The solution, he says — don’t wait until the hill is too large to climb.
At Life Guard Imaging, where Maldonado is the director of operations, you can get out in front of deadly cancers and other diseases by having a body scan that can identify potential problems with your heart, as well as identify early stages of many different cancers that may be lurking.
The upscale facility, located on Rocky Point Dr. in Tampa, specializes in preventive screening in order to find heart disease or cancer early enough that patients and their physicians can take steps to correct it. Otherwise, most find out the hard and sudden way — with a heart attack that can be deadly or with symptoms that may not present themselves until late-stage cancer.
“United States healthcare is set up to be reactionary,” says Maldonado, who opened Life Guard Imaging in August. “We are taught from the time we are (little) to tell me when you have a symptom, and we’ll treat the symptom. That’s bad enough when it’s a cold, the flu or a virus. But, when it’s heart disease or cancer? That’s deadly.”
At Life Guard Imaging, you are scanned from your shoulders to the base of your pelvis. A registered CT Technologist slides you through a low-radiation, high-resolution CT scanner, creating 3D images of your internal organs, which are then examined by a team of Board-certified Doctors of Radiology who can help aid in detecting deadly diseases before it’s too late.
The scans can help detect hundreds of issues, but among the most prominent are lung cancer (which kills more men and women than any other cancer), liver disease (which accounts for 2 million deaths per year) and abnormalities in your chest, abdomen or pelvis. The scans also can serve as a virtual colonoscopy that Life Guard Imaging says is more thorough (and less invasive) than a traditional colonoscopy, although most doctors still recommend traditional colonoscopies, even with the scan.
Author’s note: I received a scan — super easy by the way, it only takes five minutes — and while happy it detected no cancer, it did confirm other issues I’ll need to take care of as well as providing a coronary calcium score (almost identical to the one I received from my cardiologist).
Maldonado says your first scan serves as your base, and yearly scans can reveal any dangerous changes (although you’re welcome to come in for just one scan if you choose).
Life Guard Imaging is one of only five places nationwide that offer this type of program, where you can receive a full body scan every year.
“One scan is invaluable,” Maldonado says, “but multiple scans are the ones capturing things (as they change).”
Why does a yearly scan make sense? Maldonado says it is an effective way to detect new diseases.
“It’s just like having a mammogram scan every year,” he says. “The single-most diagnosed cancer in America is breast cancer. And yet, and most people don’t know this, the single most-survived cancer in American is breast cancer. That’s not a coincidence — it’s because of early detection scans, before symptoms appear, before any lump gets massive. It’s about catching it early.”
Frank Maldonado (Director of Operations) and Amy Maldonado (Administrative Director)
Maldonado has spent most of his career in the travel industry, but when a friend introduced him to a job opening at a facility in Atlanta that used the same body scanning technology, he was eager to make the jump.
A Personal Connection
For Maldonado, it also was personal.
His father, Dr. Benjamin J. Maldonado, Jr., was a prominent surgeon in Maryland. In January 1998, he felt there was something wrong in his stomach. He was scanned, but the technology then had gaps in the scans. In one of those gaps, on the backside tail of his pancreas, cancer had settled in.
“They missed it,” Maldonado says, and 10 months later his father was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Just six weeks and a few days after that, he passed away.
“It devastated me,” Maldonado says. “He was my hero.”
Dr. Maldonado’s portrait hangs in the lobby of Life Guard Imaging, a daily reminder to his son that early detection can save lives, as well a world of sadness for those left behind.
While Frankie Maldonado has no medical training himself — he graduated from the University of Maryland in College Park with a degree in television broadcasting — the chance to help save lives and honor his dad’s memory made taking the job at the independent imaging facility in Atlanta in 2017 an easy choice.
“It was the biggest no-brainer of my life, he says. “I said, ‘I want to be a part of this.’ What we were doing in Atlanta literally had to do with how my father lost his life.”
In fact, Maldonado says that, in 2018, one of the patients scanned at the facility was discovered to have early-stage pancreatic cancer, the same cancer that killed his father, but she was able to be saved. In Atlanta, he says he saw thousands of lives that were saved, and he decided to start Life Guard Imaging and bring it to Tampa. He plans to open 1-3 new facilities in Florida and around the country every single year.
“I thought that more people need to know about this,” he says. He is spreading the word through advertising, an appearance on the BloomTV show on WFLA, and we met him at Life Guard Imaging’s booth at a health fair at the Tampa Premium Outlets.
Since Life Guard Imaging opened in August, more than 330 scans have been conducted. Maldonado tells the story of one man who came in with his wife and mother-in-law, who were worried about heart disease in their family. They wanted scans; he did not. However, Maldonado talked him into getting one, and while the ladies each scored a perfect zero on their coronary calcium scan, which measures how much calcified plaque may be in your heart’s arteries, the gentleman’s number was alarmingly high and he was able to get to the doctor to have it checked in time.
Another man, Maldonado says, came in with his wife and his test revealed a calcium score of 900 (anything over 300 is considered high).
The next day, he saw a cardiologist, and discovered that three of his four main arteries had 90-percent blockage. Two weeks ago, he had triple bypass surgery.
“He told us we saved his life,” Maldonado says.
While health insurance doesn’t cover the cost of a scan — which can be pricey if you receive just one but are much cheaper if you choose to receive them yearly — Maldonado hopes to get that changed. He has collected enough data that shows how many lives have been potentially saved and is ready to fight in the hopes that he can change the health narrative and mindset from reactionary to preventive.
“Healthcare is probably never going to switch over but we are going to try,” he says. “This works. It’s an awesome thing, and I’m proud of it.”
Life Guard Imaging is located at 3001 N. Rocky Point Dr., Suite 185. For more info, visit LifeGuardIMaging.com or call (813) 524-1010. If you mention this story or the ad, you will receive a free heart scan and coronary calcium score.
