Nibbles & Bytes

Kate Spade Opens In TPO!

“We are now at 100-percent occupancy,” Tampa Premium Outlets (TPO) general manager Stacey Nance told me at the July 20 ribbon cutting event for the new Kate Spade store (photo) in TPO. “How many malls can say that?”

In addition to Kate Spade (see below), Nance says the remaining three slots at the outlet mall also are all now taken — True Religion Designer Jeans & Clothing, Salt Life and the Man Cave Store, which has been a hit at other Simon malls with billiards tables, Harley Davidson gear, Mr. Beer and more.

But, there’s no doubt that a lot of people — dozens were on hand during or shortly after the store’s ribbon cutting to check out the deals — are excited about the high-end handbags, wallets, clothing and accessories at Kate Spade, the store chain that the late designer Kate Brosnahan and her husband Andy Spade (the brother of actor/comedian David Spade) created as Kate Spade New York in 1993, combining her first name and his surname. The couple had sold all of their interest in the brand to Nieman Marcus by 2006, which then sold it to Liz Claiborne that same year.

Of course, Kate was found dead in her apartment on June 5 of this year, by her own hand, leaving a note for her daughter Frances.

“We signed this lease in December,” Nance, an admitted fan of the brand, said. “And we’re really excited that Kate Spade is open.”

Get Ready For The Hyatt Place!
“We know there’s not enough hotel rooms in Wesley Chapel right now,” says Karen Martin, the director of sales for the new 132-room Hyatt Place hotel on the north side of S.R. 56, next to Bahama Breeze, which had its “soft” opening on July 31. “But, it’s about to get a lot more fun out here.”

Martin says that although the six-story hotel just opened, “My phone’s been ringing off the hook for weeks, especially with people booking rooms for tournaments at the hockey rink (Florida Hospital Center Ice, located just east of I-75 on S.R. 56, while the Hyatt Place is just west of the interstate).

Although Martin says the new Hyatt Place doesn’t have full Hyatt resort amenities, it does have a Gallery restaurant and bar, a separate breakfast area, an outdoor swimming pool, nice fitness and business centers and meeting spaces with built-in audio/visual features.

The adjacent Sierra Conference Center has a really nice ballroom that Martin says can seat about 350 people with tables in a banquet setup and can be subdivided into three smaller ballrooms, which can each seat at least 250 people each in a theatre-style seating set-up. Martin says she also loves the conference center’s adjacent break-out and outdoor seating areas.

“But, to really get a feel for whether or not we should be hosting your event,” she says, “you should come out and take a tour. We’re all really excited to be open.”

She adds that the hotel hopes to host an upcoming “Final Friday” networking event for the North Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce and is planning “a big Grand Opening event sometime in November.”

The Hyatt Place Wesley Chapel is located at 26000 Sierra Center Blvd. For more information, call (813) 803-5600 or visit HyattPlace.com.

We’ll have updates about the Hilton Garden Inn & Residence Inn hotels coming soon to S.R. 56 in our next issue.

Here & There, This & That…

‱ I can’t even tell you how excited my taste buds are now that Taste of New Tampa & Wesley Chapel favorite Nothing Bundt Cakes has opened across from Noble Crust in the Shops at Wiregrass mall. Whether you love red velvet or dark chocolate cake with extra creamy white icing, or the decadent white chocolate raspberry bundt cake, Nothing Bundt Cakes will have you salivating for more.

Check out a free sample when you visit and please tell the staff that you read all about them in the New Tampa Neighborhood News!

‱ I also was sad to hear, despite owner Ramses Garcia’s best efforts to negotiate a new lease with his landlord, that Las Palmas Spanish CafĂ©, the Latin/Cuban favorite located behind Kobe Steakhouse in the Pebble Creek Collection on Bruce B. Downs Blvd. (a mile south of County Line Rd.), had closed.
Garcia had been talking to me for several months about how hard it had been for the businesses in the plaza to stay afloat, with the Bruce B. Downs widening construction still ongoing in front of the plaza, but he was still hoping to work things out less than two weeks before he announced the closing on Facebook. Will Garcia reopen in another location? We’ll keep you posted!

‱ Meanwhile, congratulations go out to my friends Travis and Fiona Monday, the owners of Fit 4 Life Personal Training & Physical Therapy Studio (17419 Bridge Hill Ct. in Tampa Palms), who celebrated the studio’s 22nd year in business with another great Martini Party, catered by the nearby Stonewood Grill & Tavern, on July 20.

 

After 22 Years, Fit 4 Life Personal Training & Physical Therapy Is Still Thriving

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: I have not only known Travis Monday (a fellow University of Florida alum) for as long as he has been in business here in Tampa — which is 17 years (this month) of the 22 years he has owned and operated Fit 4 Life Personal Training & Physical Therapy — I’ve been working out at his New Tampa studio. In other words, if you think I’m out of shape, feel free to blame him.

Just kidding, Travis. Imagine instead what I would look like if I hadn’t been visiting Fit 4 Life at least two days a week most every week since 2001.

But, let’s start with a little history.

Travis, a former UPS driver who is certified as a personal trainer by the American Council on Exercise (ACE), as well as in SuperSlow training, first opened Fit 4 Life in Wausau, WI, in 1996, at the tender age of 22. After five successful years of operating his personal training studio in his home state, Travis sold that practice and opened Fit 4 Life in Tampa Palms in 2001, although that was at a different location than where he has been for at least the last dozen or so years, in the Tampa Palms Professional Center, just south of the Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. exit (#270) off I-75. He started adding licensed Physical Therapists (PTs) shortly after opening that first, 2,500-sq.-ft. Tampa Palms studio.

He moved from that location to the former Model & Visitor Center in front of Hunter’s Green off Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. in New Tampa before opening the current studio.

In fact, Travis met his wife Fiona when he first hired her as a PT for Fit 4 Life. Today, they have two young daughters, Molly and Madison, and continue to be the driving personal training and PT forces behind this dynamic, 4,500-sq.-ft. studio.

MedX Equipment

When Travis first opened in Wisconsin, he had only six pieces of circuit training equipment, all of which were MedX machines, which Travis says are the best out there for using the SuperSlow training method. Because Fit 4 Life is a personal training studio and not a “gym” or “health club,” every training client works one-on-one with one of Travis’ outstanding trainers every time he or she visits the studio. Instead of throwing up as much weight as you can using momentum to get through reps, your trainer will force you to move the weight in each rep of each exercise as slowly as possible, ten seconds in each direction of the exercise.

Today, Fit 4 Life not only has 18 pieces of MedX equipment (you usually only use 5 or 6 of the machines each visit), one of them is a computer-driven neck and one is a lower back (lumbar extension) PT machine; both allow Fiona and her fellow licensed PTs to track your progress. If you have neck or low back pain (or both) and haven’t gotten the relief you hoped for from your previous PTs, you owe it to yourself to give these machines a try at Fit 4 Life.

“There’s no doubt that since the economic downturn in our area in 2008, we’ve seen much faster growth of our physical therapy clients than we have personal training,” Travis says. “Even so, we have helped more than 6,000 training clients lose tens of thousands of pounds of fat. We’re up to 3,000 people we’ve helped with their low back and neck pain and have a 95-percent success rate, and an 88-percent success rate with surgical candidates.”

He adds, “We are the only clinic in the area that truly does one-on-one physical therapy. We don’t just get you out of pain, we are 100-percent committed to finding the underlying problem and solving it and we have expanded to help all PT needs, from shoulders, necks, hips, knees, etc. because of our high success rate. And, more than 350 doctors have sent us PT clients, but you don’t need a prescription to come here for therapy.”

For more information, to set a personal training or physical therapy appointment, or to RSVP for the Client Appreciation Martini Party, call (813) 907-7879. You also can stop in anytime the studio (located at 17419 Bridge Hill Ct.) is open and sign up for the party at the front desk. See the ad on pg. 29 of this issue for two complimentary personal training sessions, or visit Fit4LifeTampa.com to find out more.

Wesley Chapel Rotarians Celebrate Another Great Year With A Special Sendoff!

Belated congratulations to my friend, and now past president of the Rotary Club of Wesley Chapel, for an outstanding year at the helm of our area’s largest Rotary Club, which meets Wednesdays at noon at the Lexington Oaks Golf Club clubhouse.

Kent passed his president’s gavel over to new president David Gainer on June 15, at the club’s annual awards banquet and installation of new officers. Ross presided over the club’s many service projects, which included not only another successful Duck Fest, but also the start of a new tradition, the Hats & Horses Kentucky Derby party, during his tenure.

At the banquet, Ross gave away many service awards (including one to my fiancĂ©e Jannah McDonald) and welcomed inspirational guest speaker Tiffany Ervin, the self-proclaimed “Rotary Greek.” His very deserving Rotarian of the Year was future stand-up comedy star Jodie Sullivan.

At Kent’s final meeting as the club’s president on June 27, everyone in attendance honored him by wearing his signature vest and a mask of his likeness. Great stuff! — GN

Bahama Breeze Island Grille Opens With Caribbean Fare & Flair

OK, you long-time readers know I don’t get too excited about too many of our seemingly neverending supply of new chain restaurants opening here in Wesley Chapel.

But, this one’s different. I genuinely love the new Bahama Breeze Island Grille, which opened on July 16 on the north side of S.R. 56, between the soon-to-open Hyatt Place hotel and Chuy’s Tex-Mex.

And, it’s not just because general manager Jeannie LaFever is so awesome. It’s always great to meet nice, energetic people who obviously love what they do, but we’re talking about a restaurant here. No matter how nice the management, wait staff and bartenders may be, if the food isn’t great, at least one local publisher would not be a frequent customer.

Known for its Caribbean fare and flair, Bahama Breeze is a chain eatery that delivers on its promise of great island-inspired food and drinks in a tropical setting with live music every night (and all day Saturday and Sunday). And, even though I’ve heard a few locals complain about the early crowds and that the restaurant isn’t located on a body of water and faces a busy roadway (blah blah blah), I’m just glad the food is up to snuff.

“And, even though we’ve been slammed, everything’s been running pretty smoothly so far,” Jeannie says. “People are just really excited we’re here!”

Jeannie’s favorite dishes include the most popular jerk chicken pasta, the true fall-off-the-bone baby back ribs. the beef empanadas, the jerk chicken wings, the coconut shrimp and the braised short rib & oxtail.

To date, I can vouch for two different sauces on your “Market Catch” fresh fish, which has been redfish on both visits for me. On mine and Jannah’s first visit, we thoroughly enjoyed the almond-crusted redfish topped with lemon butter sauce (great mashed potatoes and green beans as the sides), as well as the mango glazed redfish with grilled pineapple salsa shown above right.

On our most recent visit, Jannah went a little less adventurous, with her tasty Cobb salad, but I really loved the chimichurri sauce on the skirt steak churrasco. Skirt steak isn’t as tender as, say, a filet, and Bahama Breeze’s only other steak is an 8-oz. top sirloin (which I may just try on my next visit), but wow, with that sauce and the outstanding yellow rice and black beans served as sides, this is my current favorite dish at “the Breeze.”

Jeannie also wants to make sure that locals dive headlong into Bahama Breeze’s exotic tropic drink menu.

“Our Bahamarita is the bomb,” Jeannie says. “But you can’t go wrong with a mango jalapeño mojito, a Goombay Smash or a pineapple-coconut martini, either.”

Bahama Breeze Island Grille (25830 Sierra Center Blvd.) is open every day for lunch & dinner. For more information, call (813) 949-0779 or visit BahamaBreeze.com. And please, make sure Jeannie and her outstanding staff know you read about them in the Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News!

‘God Said It Was Time For A New Direction’—Hans Geissler

I have only met Hans Geissler of Morningstar Fishermen a few times since I was first introduced to him at a Rotary Club of Wesley Chapel (see story on page 33) meeting back when the club met at the old Ciao! Italian Bistro in the Shops at Wiregrass. But, like most people when they first encounter him, I felt from Day One like we were old friends.

Current Wesley Chapel Rotary Club member Dane Parilo first met Hans back in the early 2000s, when both men helped charter the Rotary Club of San Antonio (FL). Not only have Dane and Hans been close friends ever since then (Dane even got the Wesley Chapel Rotary to make donations to Morningstar), Dane has helped his friend expand Morningstar Fishermen, the incredible faith-based 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization Hans started in 1993, several years before both he and Dane joined the San Antonio Rotary.

Morningstar is amazing because its mission statement expands on an old saying:
“Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to raise fish and grow vegetables and the whole community eats for a lifetime.”

In about a quarter of a century, Morningstar has helped people in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and more than 20 other countries across the globe grow vegetables and raise fish using aquaponics, a form of biomimicry. In places where people so often go hungry because they don’t have the natural resources or knowledge of how to grow their own vegetables by raising their own fish — and by using only 1-3 percent of the water used in traditional agriculture, all with no soil. The roots of the plants are actually fed by the waste generated by the fish, usually tilapia.

Hans, who has created Morningstar’s headquarters on Old Saint Joe Rd. in Dade City, where he has multiple fish tanks served by a system of pipes pumping water, has primarily brought the science of aquaponics to these poor nations — from Haiti to multiple countries in need in Africa, Asia, Europe and Central and South America — by setting up the same self-contained ecosystems large enough to raise fish and fresh vegetables to feed entire communities in need. Today, however, he says he has a different focus, one created by a recent natural disaster at his modest Dade City headquarters.

On July 6, a bolt of lightning struck Morningstar’s power tool shed, where virtually all of the books and records of the nonprofit also were destroyed. A large lawn mower basically blew up and a 23-foot boat next to the burnt building very nearly caught fire, too.

While most people would be devastated by such a loss, especially since Hans had no insurance whatsoever for the building, the Morningstar founder took a different view:
“God said it was time for a change, for a new direction,” Hans told me as we examined the building’s charred remains. “Unfortunately, many of the systems we set up in these other countries to help poor people would end up being taken over by bad people because they could get away with it, often using legal loopholes to do so.”

Because of that, Hans says, Morningstar will now focus on helping the poor and hungry right here in the U.S. “And, instead of building the systems for them and leaving them there, we provide seminars and animated videos showing communities and even individual people how to create the systems themselves and how to fund the start-up costs to buy the needed pipes, fish and vegetables.”

Since the fire, Hans is even more determined to “Help Others Help Themselves” here in the U.S. He can even show anyone how to create a small, working aquaponic system at their own home.

But, to do so, he needs more help than ever. And, I told Hans I wanted to help, even though I don’t have a great track record of raising money for worthy causes.

To find out how you can help, visit MorningstarFishermen.org or call (352) 523-2722 and please tell Hans I sent you.