CITY Furniture is under construction on a nearly-9-acre site next to Chicken Guy & the Floor & Decor store on the north side of S.R. 56. The Home2 Suites hotel is planned, but is not yet under construction next to the Hyatt Place hotel. (NN map is not to scale & only shows approximate locations)
We first told you back in 2023 that CITY Furniture was planning to build a 120,000-sq.-ft. showroom on a 400,000-sq.-ft. (8.92-acre) parcel valued at $3.774 million, across S.R. 56 from the Tampa Premium Outlets, near the Floor & Decor store (see map).
Well, the site work for CITY Furniture recently began (photo below; the Silversaw Apartments are in the background) and Maitland, FL-based Miller Construction Co., is doing the construction. We’ll keep you posted as CITY Furniture gets closer to completion and its opening.
To the east of the latest furniture store planned to open in the Wesley Chapel area will be the Home2 Suites by Hilton – Wesley Chapel hotel that will be developed by Impact Properties, the same group that built and still owns the nearly adjacent Hyatt Place Tampa Wesley Chapel hotel.
Although we don’t know when the construction of the 103-room, five-story, 66,913-sq.-ft. Home2 Suites is expected to begin, the last update we received said it was expected to open sometime in 2026.
An interesting thing about the hotel is that it will be constructed on only a two-acre site (less than 1/4 the size of the CITY Furniture site), valued at $1.112 million. — GN, with research by Joel Provenzano
Wednesday, September 24, 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. – North Tampa Bay Chamber Economic Development Briefing. At Pasco Hernando State College, Porter Campus (2727 Mansfield Blvd., Conference Center, 3rd Floor). Tampa’s Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital has been providing care to the children of the greater Tampa Bay area for almost 100 years. In order to bring expert care closer to home for many children, for the first time, a brand new pediatric acute care hospital will open in Wesley Chapel. Join the Chamber for an intriguing discussion about a myriad of topics with our panel members: Justin Olsen, COO & Joseph Perno, M.D., VP of Medical Affairs – at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital; Teresa Campbell, architect & principal in charge, HKS Architects; and Bryan Durkin, operations manager, Robins & Morton. The cost to attend this event is $25.
Congratulations to owners Moudy Shublaq and Didi Abdulnabi of the new Wondergrounds Play Café, which has been open for about a month next to Smoothie King in the small strip plaza in front of the Super Target at 1041 Bruce B. Downs Blvd. (at County Line Rd.).
Photo Source: Facebook/Jasmin Rico
“We wanted to create a secure place for kids (ages 6 & under) to play indoors where their parents can enjoy delicious coffee and tea (and other beverages) and a comfortable place to sit and watch their kids,” Moudy says. “We’ve already had great support from the local community.”
Wondergrounds also offers a delicious variety of rotating, locally baked cakes and pastries, although Moudy says, “We will always have the rainbow cake (lower left in the photo below).”
The unique play area, which offers extra-wide spaces for parents who want to join their kids, also offers a colorful “village” area (below) with different small buildings and a fire truck.
Wondergrounds (open 9 a.m.-7 p.m. every day) has a party room, membership plans and single-day pricing on weekdays and weekends (please note that reservations are required for non-member weekend play) — with grip socks on sale for just $3. For more info, call (813) 575-7529 or visit WondergroundsPlayCafe.com. — GN
It’s no secret that Zukku-San Sushi Bar & Grill, located in the small strip plaza next to the Hyatt Place hotel across S.R. 56 from the Tampa Premium Outlets has been among my favorite restaurants in Wesley Chapel — including my #1 fave for 2024! — since the day it first opened back in late 2020.
So, what could make Zukku-San even better? How about the most unique and delicious weekend brunch in “The Chap?”
Co-owner and executive chef Gia Tran was proud to introduce us to the new weekend brunch menu items on the first day brunch was offered — two weeks before we went to press with this issue. Gia and his partner Ferdian Jap now own five fast-casual Zukku Sushi places in four states (including at Tampa’s Armature Works), three Ato Burritos & Bowls (including in The KRATE at The Grove), Astro Ice Cream (also on Sierra Center Blvd.) and have another Zukku-San opening soon in Orlando.
Gia (left) told us that he’s been “cooking up” the ideas for almost all of the items on the opening brunch menu (which he said will be expanded) “for a couple of years,” but just couldn’t seem to pull the trigger on getting it started.
“I knew I wanted to include some ingredients that you almost never find at an Asian restaurant,” Gia told yours truly, photographer Charmaine George and Charmaine’s boyfriend Brendan. “Have you ever had fried eggs, ube waffles or bacon at an Asian place?”
The answer was clearly “no” from all of us, and I’ll be honest that I wasn’t 100% sure I was going to love all of the new items — until I actually tried them. Of course, the only things I couldn’t try were the new “Bird’s Nest” sushi roll (right photo) and the “Zukku- San Signature Mary” (one of the two drinks above) because both included fried shrimp.
But, Charmaine and Brendan both raved about them, especially the Bird’s Nest, which combines tempura shrimp, salmon and cucumber, topped with avocado and real crab (not “krab”), plus a poached egg, scallions, masago, eel sauce, spicy mayo and sesame seeds.
Meanwhile, the Signature Mary has Haku Japanese vodka, wasabi paste, soy sauce and Bloody Mary mix, with Sichuan peppercorn bitters, garnished with a California roll, tempura shrimp, pickled ginger and celery, with a black-&- white sesame seed rim. There’s also an option to add sriracha to this Mary “for extra spice.”
But, all of us honestly went bonkers for all of the other choices. The other brunch sushi roll was a Quail Roll (left photo), which combined tamago, cucumber and avocado, topped with two sunny-side-up quail eggs (shockingly tasty), plus bacon (yes, bacon!), scallions, “lava aioli,” eel sauce and Japanese togarashi spice. I don’t know if I’ve ever had that last ingredient before, but the entire sushi roll was just soooo tasty.
I’ve also never really been a big fan of Eggs Benedict, so the new Crispy Rice Benedict (right photo) was something of a revelation, with its crispy rice topped with (again, real) snow crab, poached egg and a never-heard-of miso brown butter Hollandaise sauce that Gia said stays blended longer than most Hollandaise sauces because of the miso. We all agreed we had never tasted anything like it.
But wait, there’s more! I know we just hosted the first-ever Wesley Chapel fried chicken tender contest, but there is a new contender in town, as Zukku-San’s Ube Waffle & Fried Chicken combo (top right photo) is a combination of three thick slabs of the crispiest (and yet, still juicy) panko-fried chicken served with three of the only waffles I’ve ever had made from ube — also known as the vibrant purple yam (sweet potato) originally used primarily in The Philippines. The waffles also are topped with a generous dollop of creamy ube butter and served with a sake cup of ginger maple syrup. If you’re the kind of person who tries the fried-chicken-&-waffles at every place that serves them and don’t think this is among the best you’ve ever had, feel free to let me know what you didn’t love about it.
Gia said that his pastry chef Alex Winchester (above left photo) went through “like ten different waffle irons” before finding the one that would give his ube waffles the proper texture and crunch.
The final brunch “entrée, which Gia called “kind of a throwaway addition because I felt we needed at least one more entrée,” is no “throwaway” to yours truly, as the “Sunrise Fried Rice” (above right) is Zukku-San’s nutty & savory chicken fried rice (already among my whole family’s favorites), which has big chunks of chicken, peas, carrots, onion and garlic and tops it with a sunny-side-up (chicken) egg. Does the fried rice “need” the egg? Maybe not. But is it still a winner? You bet!
What About Dessert?
We all were honestly too stuffed to want to even order dessert, but Gia insisted we try Alex’s new mango & passion fruit sponge cake (left), which isn’t even on the dessert menu yet, but it was excellent and the whipped tropical icing is addictive. And yes, we still found a way to polish it off — are you surprised?
Also on the brunch dessert menu — all of which I have to start sampling on my next visit — include an ube cheesecake, a ginger yuzu (citrus) creme brulée and a banana hazelnut opera cake.
I also enjoyed my lychee mimosa (at left in top left photo) enough to not need a shot of my usual Ballyhoo Irish whiskey (found only at Zukku-San locally) with my meal. Other Brunch beverages include an Asian Mary, a Sake Mimosa and a Green Tea Umeshu Martini. Try these for yourself and let me know what you think.
And yes, if these brunch items somehow don’t do it for you (but my opinion is that you’d have to be crazy, or a vegetarian, to not at least try some or all of them), Zukku-San’s full menu is still available during the weekend brunch hours — which are every Saturday & Sunday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.
Zukku-San is located at 25916 Sierra Center Blvd. It is open for lunch & dinner every day at 11 a.m. and stays open until 9 p.m. on Sun., 9:30 p.m. on Mon.-Thur., and until 10 p.m. on Fri. & Sat. Reservations are not required (except for larger parties), but are definitely suggested, especially on the weekends. For more information, call (813) 419-1351, visit ZukkuSushi.com. And please, tell Gia and Alex and the entire crew that I sent you!
Former Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn (photo) says that being the mayor of the 49th largest city in the U.S. (by population) is, “the only job I ever wanted.”
Buckhorn admits he was sad when term limits took him out of the job six years ago (when Jane Castor, who is coming up on her two-term-limit herself in 2027, took over), but during an exclusive recent interview with the former mayor, Buckhorn said he is seriously considering another run at the office, which he called, “maybe the worst-kept secret in town.”
Buckhorn first got into government work when he served as the special assistant to then-Tampa Mayor Sandy Freedman during her two terms (1987-95). During that time, he lost a Democratic primary for the District 60 State House seat to Carol Palomino by 554 votes. Then, in 1995, he was elected to the Tampa City Council, where he served two terms under former Mayor Dick Greco (who served as mayor from 1967-74 and again from 1995-2003).
In 2011, Buckhorn won the first of his two terms as mayor when he succeeded Pam Iorio (who also served two terms, from 2003-11), defeating fellow City Council member Rose Ferlita and Greco.
“We have opened a PAC (political action committee), but I haven’t officially filed yet, so I’m not yet officially a candidate,” former Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn told Jannah and me as we enjoyed a delicious lunch at Lima Peruvian Cuisine on Aug. 29. “I probably won’t file until after the first of the year (2026), but it depends on what happens. We’re still 19 months away, so I’m going to use this time to get around and reconnect with people and identify things that have changed since I left office in 2019 — of which there’s a lot. Let’s just say that the reaction so far has been very positive.”
He says that some of the challenges are, “because of our success. We completely reversed a lot of what the city was facing when I came in.
“I was here when we annexed this — from Day One of cutting the ribbons at Tampa Palms and Hunter’s Green. I knew Ken Good and Jim Apthorp (who developed Tampa Palms), so I know the whole history [of the New Tampa area] and what it took for us to get here. This area has become a vibrant, important part of our city.”
“Gary, you were my rabbi, my sensei that I could call and ask what’s going on up here and you’d always know the inside scoop. We were like brothers in arms.” He remembers “being booed when I cut the ribbon on that New Tampa Gateway Bridge in West Meadows,” even though now the people who live on both sides of that bridge now can’t imagine not having it.
Mayor Bob also remembers the 2019 debate between then-City Council candidate Luis Viera and his opponent, Dr. Jim Davison, when I asked them both, as one of the moderators of that debate, what they thought about New Tampa de-annexing from the City of Tampa and annexing into its own city. Viera said he was running for City Council and had no interest in de-annexation, while Davison said he would “have to look into it once elected.”
“That’s what got me involved in that race,” Buckhorn recalls. “When he [Davison] started talking de-annexation, I said I’m all in for Luis and will throw whatever support and weight I can to help him get elected.” Viera won by 65 votes.
Buckhorn was in his last year as mayor when the city broke ground on the expansion of the New Tampa Recreation Center. “And then, Luis got the All-Abilities Park funded after he first got elected,” Buckhorn recalls. “That was his baby, but it also was a big deal for the city. Luis is a good man. His heart is always in the right place.”
Part of the reason he decided to try to get his old job back, he says, is because, “Tampa was on such a trajectory as a city when I left office. We completely reversed the out-migration of our young people, where we had become a ‘donor city’ to places like Charlotte (NC) and Austin (TX). Now, Tampa is a magnet for young talent.”
When former Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn was serving his second term in office, he visited Chiles Elementary in Tampa Palms. (NN file photo from 2016)
He adds, “Now, when you walk around downtown and see what Water Street has become, what that partnership with [Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeff ] Vinik has done there — that’s part of getting us to that next level.”
Buckhorn says that connecting Tampa’s “urban core” will hopefully be part of his next administration. “How Water St. Phase 2 will connect to Channelside and then to Gasworx, with what Darryl Shaw is doing in Ybor City. And then finishing the Riverwalk on the west side and connecting Tampa Heights to where Armature Works is at the Hillsborough River. The completion of the original portion of the Riverwalk already transformed our city in ways that you can’t even imagine. I knew that if we started to focus on the waterfront as our best asset, that other things would follow. If you look at the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been invested, we are becoming a livable, walkable, 18-hour-a-day environment that will stretch from downtown to all the way around the urban areas.”
Buckhorn also notes that, “The good thing is that downtown has largely taken on a life of its own. It doesn’t need me pushing that boulder up the hill like it did before. So now, we have the opportunity to really expand our horizons, our view, throughout the rest of the city and really connect all of the dots.”
He adds, however, that, “We’ve got some challenges as the result of that growth — traffic, obviously, is a big issue and always will be our Achilles heel until we can get a dedicated revenue source. And then, there’s issues of infrastructure, like stormwater, road repairs and potholes. But, you can never lose sight of those basics as mayor, because those basics impact people’s lives on a daily basis.”
And, speaking of those basics, he says, “We have to do something about the permitting process in the city, which is in dire need of help. I fixed that process in 2011 when I first got in, but I guess we’re going to have to come back in and sort of re-do it.”
He also notes that it also will be a priority for him to, “Start driving that narrative again to compete on a global basis for corporate relocations and [bringing] jobs, with technology and keeping our young people from moving away again. So, we’ve got some more chapters to write. This city’s really only just beginning to realize its full potential.”
He also says he figured he had, “another two tours left in me. They can’t turn my hair any whiter — that’s already happened — and so, all I can say is ‘Let’s go!’”
What About Light Rail?
“Downtown will always be the heart of any city,” Buckhorn says, “but in order to connect the rest of Tampa to it, we do need light rail. Brightline (the privately-owned, eco-friendly intercity rail system now connecting Miami to Orlando) has been a client of mine (in his job working for Shumaker Advisors, a lobbying and public affairs firm) over the last couple of years, so I’m already kind of neck-deep in it. But, once Brightline comes in, you have to find ways to connect the Brightline station to other things in our city. You can’t, in an urban area, rule out light rail or mass transit. I know that some of our friends at the county think [mass transit] is a UN [United Nations] plot, but it’s important to start connecting where people live to where they work — that’s the next iteration of what our city could look like.”
But, of course, one of the most difficult challenges for Buckhorn will be to connect New Tampa to everything happening in “old” Tampa.
“We’re going to have to go back to a referendum again at some point, for a dedicated transportation revenue stream, because you can’t do these big public works projects without the ability to issue debt. You can’t pay as you go, because you’re never going to have enough money to be able to do it.”
He calls the Florida Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the county’s transportation tax referendum a “pretty political decision. I just hope that people will realize that without a similar referendum, we’re never going to be able to fix this transportation problem. But, it’s never really gotten the focus, the full weight of all of the political players, that it needs to be successful.”
As for what’s needed from the city in New Tampa, Buckhorn is still hopeful to work with Pasco County officials once he gets elected, to finally connect Kinnan St. to Mansfield Blvd. in Meadow Pointe, get some sort of additional emergency medical service for K-Bar Ranch and get the now-being-designed city park in K-Bar built.
As for why Viera has so far been unable to get that additional EMS service for K-Bar, Buckhorn says he doesn’t know, but he speculates that it may be because Viera has, “consistently sided with the [firefighters] union, which puts him at odds with the chief [Tampa Fire Rescue Chief Barbara Tripp], which at times also has put him at odds with the administration. Hopefully, there will be a different way to skin that cat when we get back in office. There needs to be a less contentious relationship between the fire chief and the union because it’s bad now.”
He also says, “There is nothing but opportunity for us. I thought when I left that I was finished. I went out with sky-high poll numbers. It was the only job I ever wanted and I did what I said I was gonna do, and it was time to go home. But, I still wake up just as excited everyday about what we could do and what Tampa could be.”
Buckhorn also wondered if the Hillsborough County portion of Two Rivers — the massive development just east of New Tampa in Hillsborough and Wesley Chapel in Pasco, could be annexed into the city. “Annexation is why New Tampa is part of the city. Maybe it could help us grow again.”
