When Ihab Elyafe first moved from his native Syria to Dallas, TX, seven or so years ago, he worked for several years for Enterprise Rent-A-Car before moving to Tampa to be closer to family. He got some experience working for a number of restaurants locally but always felt he was missing something — a restaurant that served food with the unique flavors of his homeland.
Ihab and his partner Samer El Dahala began scouting locations more than a year ago and ultimately found a 2,800-sq.-ft. space on E. Fowler Ave. across from University Mall. They opened Champa Chicken earlier this year and for Ihab, it’s obvious that the restaurant is a true labor of love.
“I wanted to open a restaurant that focused mainly on the different kinds of chicken I grew up on in Syria,” he says. “And I wanted it to be a casual restaurant with great prices for food that you might expect to find in a fine-dining establishment.”
The Syrian-spiced fried chicken at Champa Chicken, located on E. Fowler Ave, across from University Mall. Champa Chicken co-owner Ihab Elyafe. (All photos on these pages by Charmaine George)
If you already enjoy Middle Eastern or Mediterranean-style food, you’ll feel right at home at Champa Chicken. Even if you’re not already a fan, if you’re in the mood for chicken with different flavors than what you might normally be used to, Ihab, his wife Sherry and their daughter Sara serve always fresh, delicious chicken several different ways.
The fried chicken shown at the top of this page has a delicate, nicely spiced coating and is pressure cooked until it is super-crisp on the outside and juicy and tender inside. Individual pieces of the fried chicken are available, as well as two-, four- and eight-piece meals served with a side of crispy fries or creamy cole slaw and a fountain drink.
Champa Chicken also offers fall-off-the-bone-tender baked chicken with a savory red pepper sauce, and a variety of rotisserie-grilled chicken options, including rosemary, lemon garlic and spicy grilled. All of these are sold as half or full chickens with a huge side of uniquely spiced rice or cole slaw. Ihab recommends the authentic Mediterranean garlic sauce for dipping with any of the chicken options.
Is that not enough options for you? There also are three-, four-, five- and ten-piece crispy chicken tender options (served with fries or slaw with a fountain drink), as well as six- and 12-piece fried hot or mild Buffalo-style, fried garlic parmesan and grilled lemon garlic or spicy wings available. Photographer Charmaine George enjoyed the mild Buffalo wings and I definitely savored the flavor of the garlic parmesan wings.
Ihab says that a couple of sandwich options are coming soon, including a chicken tawook (kebabs marinated in yogurt, citrus, garlic and spices) and yes, even a Philly-style cheesesteak sandwich, both served on hoagie-style bread.
“I know that not everyone loves chicken as much as I do,” Ihab says. “We may even add more non-chicken options in the future, too.”
For Starters…
Although the varieties of chicken are definitely the stars of the show at Champa Chicken, there also are some other options on the menu.
Starters include truly homemade, super-creamy hummus, freshly-made Mediterranean-style and Caesar salads (the Caesar is available with grilled chicken, too) and some of the best fried mozzarella sticks I’ve had in years, served with a differently spiced, thick tomato dipping sauce.
“The fries and the mozzarella sticks are the only items that start out frozen,” Ihab says, pointing to the small freezer at the front of the kitchen. “Everything else here starts out fresh and we marinate all of the chicken ourselves.”
Ihab also is rightfully proud of how clean his restaurant is — and he’s willing to take anyone who asks on a tour of the kitchen to prove it. He says it is all part of how much he loves his food — and his customers.
“I don’t know why anyone would want to eat at a dirty restaurant,” he says. “I want you to know that when you eat at Champa Chicken, our restaurant will be clean and your food will always be fresh.”
He adds, “When your number one ingredient is love, it shows in everything you do. “I love our food and how it is made. I think if you come in and see how we take care of our restaurant, our food and our customers, you will definitely want to come back.”
I almost forgot to mention, because I haven’t yet sampled either one of them, that Champa Chicken also serves a rustic triple berry tart and chocolate lava cake for dessert. In addition to a soda fountain with Pepsi products, there’s also a machine serving a variety of iced tea flavors, including a super-tasty Yumberry Pomegranate.
Champa Chicken is located at 2311 E. Fowler Ave. and is open every day (except it is closed on Wednesday) from 11 a.m.-9 p.m. For more information, call (813) 443-4200 or visit ChampaChicken.com.
Attorney Elizabeth Devolder (center) and her team at the Law Firm of Elizabeth Devolder, located just off the Bruce B. Downs Blvd. exit off I-75. (Photo provided by Elizabeth Devolder)
Attorney Elizabeth Devolder says that, these days, she’s seeing a lot of families who have suffered through the pandemic — and even the stress of having to prepare for Hurricane Ian — and are thinking about what would happen if they or someone they love were to pass away or become incapacitated.
The Law Office of Elizabeth Devolder, which Devolder launched in January 2021, is ready to help. The boutique firm is located in the Tampa Palms Professional Center, just off the Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. exit of I-75 in Tampa Palms.
Devolder earned her Juris Doctor (J.D.) law degree at the Tampa campus of the Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Riverview in 2016, after a successful career in advertising and sales management. She had previously earned a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in Corporate Communications from the College of Charleston, SC, in 1997. For five years, Elizabeth worked jointly with her ex-husband Bryan Devolder at their Devolder Law Firm.
Associate attorney Rachael Alexander was previously a case manager, working closely with Elizabeth while going to law school and helping her found the new firm.
In her new firm, Devolder — with support from Rachael and a growing staff, including a legal assistant and case manager — continues to handle estate planning and probate matters, and Devolder’s clients say she is both smart and compassionate.
When Christine Smith’s husband died four years ago, she says she hired Devolder to help her.
“It was really overwhelming,” Smith explains, “but she asked me things gently and slowly and spent so much time with me at one of the worst times of my life.”
Smith says Devolder’s compassion is only half of the reason she is so pleased with her experience with the firm.
“She’s also probably the smartest person I’ve ever met in real life,” says Christine Smith. “She’s really sharp.”
Elizabeth Devolder
After working out her own estate plan, Smith brought her young adult son in, too, to set up documents that would allow her to make medical decisions for him if he were to ever become temporarily or permanently incapacitated. Devolder recommends a number of documents — such as a Power of Attorney and others that may apply to your unique situation — for everyone, so that someone you choose has the authority to care for you if something unexpected happens.
Christine then introduced her 91-year-old father to Elizabeth, who handled his documents, as well. “We’re multigenerational clients,” she says.
Devolder says she helps many families like Christine’s, who are experiencing the crunch of what she calls the “sandwich generation,” where children are becoming adults but still need a lot of support from their parents, while their older parents also are becoming increasingly needy.
“You have a lot of people depending on you,” Devolder says.
Another multigenerational client is JoAnne Tucker, a Hunter’s Green resident who first hired Devolder to help her handle her brother’s estate when he began showing signs of dementia and ultimately passed away.
“The entire process can be so confusing,” Tucker says. “But, sitting down with Elizabeth was very comfortable. She and Rachael always answered all of my questions — no matter how many times I asked — and helped me to be confident that I had all of the information I needed and knew exactly what to do next.”
Later, Tucker went back to Devolder to prepare her own documents. Then, her mother and sister worked with Elizabeth, as well.
Devolder says you shouldn’t do what you heard your neighbor did, or take a friend’s generic advice.
“My job is to take what I know about the law and apply it to a specific set of facts,” Devolder explains, “because the documents you might need depends upon the makeup of your family — such as how many kids you have, if your family is blended, if there is conflict in the family, and the makeup of your assets.”
Devolder says that the entire Baby Boomer generation will be age 65 by 2030, and that 75 percent of people over age 65 will need some type of long-term care. She says she can help you plan for that care to help your family avoid spending too much of its resources on that care.
While many people don’t want to think about the possible need for long-term care — which is required when someone needs help bathing, feeding, dressing or going to the bathroom — Devolder says that now is the time to start planning for it.
“When it was time for your kids to go to college, you didn’t first start looking at colleges the week before they were supposed to start classes,” she says. “The time to plan for that is well in advance. It’s the same with long-term care.”
Attorney Elizabeth Devolder is pictured here with her grandfather Harry Constantine Demosthenes and great aunt Electra Demosthenes Kageorge (both now deceased). Elizabeth’s new business venture, The Legacy Studio, will be a video studio located inside her law firm that will help families capture and preserve the stories of their older generations.
The Legacy Studio
Devolder’s desire to help families goes beyond just preserving their financial assets and planning for the future. She says she has a passion to help people protect their entire respective legacies, including their memories.
To that end, she is opening up a second business located inside the law office that will allow families to preserve their older generation’s most precious recollections.
She says the idea came to her when a client told her he thought he knew the stories his grandmother told, but after she passed away, they were lost. Then, the client’s mother also passed away, and he realized her stories were lost, as well. He told Elizabeth he wanted to write his own stories down for future generations, so that those precious memories would be preserved.
The idea of preserving people’s memories resonated with Devolder, but she realized that technology allows us to do much better than just writing things down.
“How you tell the story is part of the story,” she says, adding that video is the ideal medium for preserving these legacies. So, she created The Legacy Studio to provide that opportunity for not only her legal clients, but for anyone who wants to preserve their precious memories.
She says her clients have welcomed the idea and that the studio website will be up and running soon at www.LeaveYourLegacyStudio.com, although Devolder says she doesn’t yet have a scheduled grand opening date.
She is hoping The Legacy Studio will bring families together, and allow grandparents and parents to leave their stories as a legacy for their children.
The Law Office of Elizabeth Devolder is located at 5383 Primrose Lake Cir., Suite C, in the Tampa Palms Professional Center. It is open Monday-Friday, 8:30 a.m.–6 p.m. For more info or to make an appointment, call (813) 319-4550, or visit ElizabethDevolder.com.
The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) recently announced that, for the first time, all of the lanes at the Diverging Diamond Interchange (DDI) at S.R. 56 and Exit 275 of I-75 are now open.
According to FDOT, a fourth westbound land on S.R. 56 was opened on Oct. 31, along with a third left turn lane from the northbound I-275/I-75 exit ramp onto westbound S.R. 56.
Work is still continuing on the interchange as crews put the final touches on the $33.6-million project, so FDOT continues to urge caution for travelers making their way through the new intersection. Other than some clean-up items the DDI is considered complete.
The project began construction in Jan. 2019, far ahead of its original schedule, and despite the first construction company being dismissed from the project (and later going out of business), the new company, Superior Construction Company Southeast, LLC, has managed to exceed expectations for finishing the job before year’s end.— JCC
The new rescue truck at Fire Station No. 21 will help those in major motor vehicle accidents who need more assistance than a typical rescue vehicle can provide. (Photo: Tampa Fire Rescue)
While City of Tampa Fire Rescue (TFR) Chief Barbara Tripp wrestles with ways to improve fire rescue response times in New Tampa, our area has received its first-ever “mini-heavy” rescue (MHR) truck.
The MHR truck, which is similar to the heavy rescue fire rescue trucks but is smaller and designed for technical rescues, will run out of TFR Fire Station No. 21, the Cross Creek Blvd. station closest to Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd.
The new truck, part of the department’s special operations division, will work in concert with the larger fire rescue trucks and will be manned by Tampa Fire Rescue (TFR) firefighters who are trained in urban search and rescue.
“That apparatus basically has more technical tools to assist with major incidents, such as a major vehicle accident that people need to be extricated from,” says TFR spokesperson Vivian Shedd. “Think of it as a giant tool box, with lots of things you don’t normally use. But, when you need it, you are glad you have it because it makes the rescue go that much faster.”
The truck is equipped with the Jaws of Life, cutters and spreaders “and other tools for rope rescues and things of that nature” that aren’t on every fire rescue truck, Shedd adds.
Because the truck is for specialty rescues that don’t happen as often, it doesn’t specifically address the recent reports about fire rescue times in New Tampa. However, it is an important addition for Station No. 21, considering that the area is heavily reliant on major traffic areas like I-75 and BBD that are prone to major accidents.
An accident requiring the life-saving services of an MHR truck would have to typically wait 15-20 minutes, or more (depending upon the time of day), for one to arrive from downtown Tampa.
“This is why we saw the need and brought it over to New Tampa,” Shedd says. “People in those kind of accidents don’t have time to wait.”
Tampa City Councilman Luis Viera, who represents North and New Tampa in District 7, has been an advocate for more help at New Tampa’s four fire stations, and says the MHR truck is a great addition.
“This vehicle came after a lot of lobbying from me and our friends in Tampa Firefighters Local 754,” Viera says. “I appreciate them and so does New Tampa. Fire Rescue response times are a huge issue for me for New Tampa. This investment addresses this. We got this vehicle funded this past year and I got another $1,000,000 in the budget for response times this year.”
Viera says he hopes to see even more assistance in the future to help reduce rescue times in New Tampa, which rank among the worst in Tampa. Shedd says that the problem is high on Chief Tripp’s to-do list.
“One thing our fire chief has stressed that is very important to her are response times,” Shedd says. “She is deeply committed to making sure that we are able to respond to any emergency as quickly as possible…there is still more to be done, and we are looking into additional resources (to improve those times.)”
Today marks the 20th anniversary of Wharton High’s only appearance in a State Championship football game, when Southern Cal Hall of Famer and former Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker Richard “Batman” Wood led the Wildcats to within a few points of immortality.
Head coach Richard “Batman” Wood led the Wildcats through an improbable season, ending with a loss in the Class 5A state championship.
Sometimes, when he closes his eyes, Wilbur Joseph says he can still feel the cool air drying the sweat on his forehead, his teammates lined up next to him on the Wharton Stadium goal line, their bodies facing north.
“North,” head coach Richard Wood would say. “That’s where Tallahassee is. That’s where the State Championship game is played. That’s where we’re headed.”
Twenty years later, Joseph still gets chills. “The memory is still fresh,” he says, almost breathless. “Still vivid. Oh…man.”
In 2002, in just its fifth year of existence, the Wharton High football team did what no other Wildcats football team has done since, shocking Tampa Bay with an improbable run, all the way north, to Tallahassee.
In the Class 5A championship game that year at Doak Campbell Stadium, however, the plucky, scrap-iron Wildcats lost to Pompano Beach Ely 22-10, a heart-crushing loss to end a heartwarming season that no one on that team will ever forget.
“I told them, ‘You know, there’s 67 counties in the state of Florida, and here we are, one of the only teams who have made a championship game,” says Wood, a former Tampa Bay Buccaneers star linebacker (1976-84) known as “Batman.” “And we’ve only been around a few years. Schools that have been here, in this state, for maybe 50, 60 years, haven’t been in this game. And, here we are. So, we can be proud. We can be proud that we (can say), ‘Hey, we did it!’”
Wood, now 69 and a defensive coach at Tampa Catholic High for the past decade, says those words probably didn’t mean as much to a team of heartbroken boys fighting back tears as they do today.
“I know it was tough,” Wood says, “because I cried my heart out, too.”
The 2002 Wildcats were, quite simply, special. They didn’t boast a bevy of Division I talent, they weren’t loaded with highly-rated transfers, and not a single player on the roster had even made the honorable mention All-County team the previous season.
But, they were flush with grit and determination, finishing with a 13-2 record.
“That was our first winning season in school history,” says wide receiver Michael Coonce, now an engineer living in Tampa. “Going into the season, we didn’t have any expectations around us. So, we rallied around each other, we took pride in shutting people up. We still talk about it today.”
Up to that point, Wharton’s biggest victories were moral ones for not getting blown out of games. The players were even made fun of in school.
Quarterback Ross Corcoran shows off his scrapbook from the 2002 season.
Quarterback Ross Corcoran, one of four first-team All-County players from that team, says he remembers a teacher cutting a picture out of the sports section showing a disheveled Corcoran after being sacked for the fifth time in a game, and pasting it all over his desk.
But, in 2002, everything changed.
“Once we beat Armwood and Hillsborough that year, everyone jumped on the train,” says Corcoran, adding that people would walk up to him at the Publix on Cross Creek Blvd. to congratulate him after a win. “It was like ‘Friday Night Lights.’”
Corcoran, who no lives in Oldsmar and works in the mortgage industry, returned to Wharton to try his hand at coaching for a few years, but it wasn’t the same.
“I find myself thinking back to that year a lot,” he says. “I don’t want to be all Al Bundy about it, but you know.”
Bundy, the iconic sitcom father from the hit Fox-TV show “Married With Children,” could never stop bragging about scoring four touchdowns in the city championship game for the Polk High Panthers. But, Corcoran would rather talk about his teammates.
Larry Edwards
Tackles Joseph (1st team All-County) and Will Russell and center Jason Novisk (Honorable Mention) bulldozed defenses, while running backs Larry Edwards and Joe Hall (1st team) ran over them and Coonce (HM) ran around them as a top wideout.
The defensive line, anchored by nose tackle Kendric Morris, cleared the way for Edwards to wreak havoc from his linebacker position, where he had 14 sacks, was named Hillsborough County’s Defensive MVP by The Tampa Tribune, and earned a scholarship to the University of North Carolina, where he was named All-ACC.
Senior defensive backs Chris Wilson and Chris Ellick (both 2nd team) were ballhawks in the secondary. Defensively, the Wildcats were “insane,” Corcoran says.
“That was a true family,” says then-assistant coach David Mitchell, who later served as the Wharton head coach for more than a decade before retiring in 2020. “Coaches all say that, but this really was. There was really just a little something different about them.”
Wood, who was a defensive assistant while working as the Wharton school resource officer in 1997, took over the program after Dan Acosta was fired two games into the 1998 season. If there ever was a missing piece, it was Wood.
“When principal Mitch Muley offered me the job, I said, ‘Are you serious?,’” Wood recalls. “If I do it, it’s gonna be tough. I’m a Vince Lombardi guy. I was coached by John McKay (at USC). I’m old school.”
It turns out that Muley was serious, and Wood took the job and said, “Give me a few years.” The ‘Cats won two games in each of his first two seasons, then four games in 2001 before Wood was able to set his sights north.
Wood had 31 seniors in 2002, and he said it was just one of those magical combinations that come together, sometimes just once in a lifetime.
“You know, here you are, you have kids from the inner city, and then you have kids that live in the suburbs, and they treated each other like they were brothers,” Wood says. “You could see it all the time. They loved each other. And, all I wanted for them was to help them win.”
And, win they did, opening the season with a 37-6 victory over Robinson. Wharton lost just once, 10-7 to a Chamberlain team that played for the Class 5A State Championship the year before, but won their final six regular season games in dominant fashion.
“They don’t have any weaknesses,” coach Earl Garcia said at the time, prior to his Hillsborough team losing to the Wildcats 21-0 the night Wharton clinched its playoff spot.
After that game, Wood flew to Los Angeles to be inducted into the USC Hall of Fame in a ceremony at the L.A. Coliseum. For some of his players, it was the first time they found out their coach was the only three-time All-American in the storied history of the Trojans. “Coach was a real-life superhero,” Corcoran says. “He just didn’t walk around telling everyone.”
In the Class 5A playoff opener, Wharton had to travel to Melbourne because the ‘Cats were the district runner-up behind Chamberlain. Its season nearly ended 150 miles away, but Corcoran hit wide receiver Jovan Mitchell for a 27-yard touchdown with 8 minutes remaining. A pair of defensive stands secured the 14-13 win.
The next week, Wharton beat Durant 20-14, as Hall and Edwards both went over 100 yards rushing and Edwards scored with 5 minutes left.
After beating Lakeland 27-7 before 4,300 fans at Wharton Stadium, the Wildcats hosted the State Semifinal against Daytona Beach Mainland.
The 30-3 win still remains as the greatest game in Wharton football history.
Corcoran threw for 212 yards — 126 of those and a touchdown to Coonce —Edwards had four sacks and Hall returned a fumble 75 yards for a touchdown.
Wood fought back tears afterwards. He had played on television and in a Rose Bowl and NFL playoff games, but this game hit him like no other.
“This was the greatest game of our lives — the kids’ lives and my life,” he told reporters. “Truly, by far, the greatest.”
The Class 5A State Championship game was not as great. Wharton came out flat against Ely — losing two fumbles, throwing an interception and dropping a touchdown pass on its first five possessions — and fell behind 15-3 at halftime.
“I definitely don’t want to take anything away from them, they had two All American offensive linemen and an All-American running back, but playing in a stadium that big and kind of being out of routine and all the extra stuff around the game took us out of sync,” Coonce says. “It took us a quarter-plus to start playing right.”
Hall capped an 86-yard drive with a TD run on Wharton’s first possession of the second half, to make it 15-10. The three bus loads full of Wharton fans grew louder.
But, despite a strong defensive effort, Ely’s star running back, Tyrone Moss, broke free for a 55-yard TD with four minutes remaining for the winning score and with 210 yards rushing.
Corcoran, Joseph, Coonce and probably every Wildcat on that roster insists to this day that Wharton should have won that game. Take away a few miscues and some bad luck, and Wharton would — and should — have been crowned State champions.
Mitchell remembers coming home from Tallahassee the next day, grabbing the mail and flinging it across the room once he got inside. To this day, he has not watched a replay of the game.
Time, however, heals many wounds.
“That was the highlight of my life,” Joseph says. “I think about it all the time. I still see some of the guys I played with, and we always end up talking about it — the games, the bus rides. That was an amazing feeling. You felt like it was never going to end. It was like living in a fairy tale. In the moment, you don’t realize how significant it is. But, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”