There are quite a few Indian restaurants in New Tampa, but one thing is for certain — none of the Indian restaurants in our area also served American breakfast — until now.
The Kabob Café & Grill, located at 18101 Highwoods Preserve Pkwy. (in the same location that also has been Sukhothai and a couple of other restaurants) recently added Breakfast Kitchen & More, which serves American breakfast every day (except for Mondays, when the restaurant is closed) from 7 a.m.-11:30 a.m. On Saturdays and Sundays, the Kabob Café & Grill offers a lunch buffet with a large variety of Indian (predominantly North Indian/Pakistani) items. The buffet begins at 11:30 and the restaurant’s full Indian menu is available every day for lunch and dinner (it stays open until 8:30).
While that may seem a little confusing, owners Javed and Rabia Mubin hope you will come try Chef Keith’s tasty breakfast items, including the bacon, egg & cheese croissant sandwich (left) and Protein Power Bowl (top photo). Please note that because Kabob Café’s entire menu is Halal, the bacon on the bacon, egg & cheese is beef (not pork) bacon, which I don’t believe I’d ever had before, but Jannah and I agreed it tasted very much like pork bacon. The chicken in photographer Charmaine George’s Power Bowl combined egg whites, grilled chicken, spinach, feta cheese and avocado, which also was quite tasty. The Breakfast Kitchen also serves waffles, French toast, oatmeal and Greek yogurt bowls, omelets, Benedicts, breakfast wraps and more.
We also sampled the buffet, which has many Indian favorites, like Tandoor oven-baked chicken and Naan breads, as well as chicken biryani (above right photo) and butter chicken, as well as some items I’d never tried before, like goat qourma (or korma), tender beef nihari (which tastes a lot like my mom’s brisket/pot roast, but slightly spicy), and vegetarian dishes like palak paneer (curry with spinach, cheese, tomato & creamy sauce), channa masala (chick peas with spices, tomatoes & onion) and halwa, which is a sweetened semolina flour mixture that can be a side dish or dessert. Speaking of dessert, the banana pudding with vanilla wafers was my favorite, but there’s also Gulab Jaman (deep-fried dough soaked in rose-flavored sugar syrup), Rubri Kheer (Indian-style rice pudding) and more.
For more info about Kabob Café & Grill, which has a 4.9-star (out of 5) overall Google rating on 900+ reviews, and Breakfast Kitchen & More, visit KabobCafeGrill.com or call (813) 405-8740. — GN
When you’ve known someone for more than a quarter of a century, you might think you “really” know them, but sometimes, you might be wrong to make that assumption.
Case in point: I first met my friend “Steve” (left) when he first opened his Bagels Plus in a former (but already closed before he bought the building) Bruegger’s Bagels location on E. Fletcher Ave., less than a half-mile west of Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd., way back in 1998.
I also thought I remembered Steve telling me that he bought an H&H Bagels location in New York not long after it was revealed that Kramer, the kooky character on the hit NBC-TV show “Seinfeld,” had been on strike for years from the original H&H Bagels in Manhattan.
Well, it took a kitchen fire and the shop being closed for five months — Bagels Plus finally reopened at the end of March — for me to find out just how wrong I was on both counts.
First, although everybody still calls him Steve, my friend the bagel maker’s real name is Monsieur (yes, like “Mister” in French) Aziz.
Second, Steve never owned an H&H location, “They were my competitors when I had my first Bagels Plus in Roslyn, Long Island.”
One thing I did not get wrong, however, was that Steve did bring the ability to make true New York-style bagels with him when he moved to Florida — “to get away from the snow” — even though most New Yawkas say that there are no “real” bagels in Florida because we can’t duplicate the water in the Empire State.
Steve showed me the five special water filters he has in Bagels Plus to reduce the “hardness” of the water here, even though New York is one of the few cities in the U.S. that doesn’t filter its water because of its natural “softness” and purity.
But, he attributes the authenticity of his bagels to the way he makes them. “We use wheat flour and some vegetable flour, yeast and water to make our bagels,” he says. “That’s it. We don’t add oil, salt, malt, sugar or any of the other things you don’t need that other people use to make bagels.”
Photographer Charmaine George and I watched Steve make a batch of bagels and we agreed that he did not use any of the ingredients he mentioned that other people do use.
He says that one of the most important things is that “real New York” bagels have to be kettle-boiled before they are baked.
“And, you need the right kind of kettle,” he says. “The kettle isn’t a very expensive piece of equipment, but you really need it to make the bagels correctly.”
Whatever Steve and his happy crew have been doing to them, there’s no doubt in most local bagel lovers’ minds that Bagels Plus had the closest-to-New-York bagels anywhere near New Tampa or Wesley Chapel prior to the fire that caused Steve to not only shut his doors but basically rebuild the interior of his shop from scratch.
“The fire ended up being a blessing,” he says. “Because when the fire inspectors came to take a look afterwards, they said that one of the support beams in the front of the store (now replaced) was ready to fall down. Without the fire, we would never have known about it.”
Steve, who also previously owned a men’s clothing store in Manhattan, also had opened a similar men’s store in the Target-anchored University Plaza behind what is now his bagel shop.
“I was thinking about moving the clothing store to this building, but when I heard that it had already been a bagel shop, I made the owners an offer on the spot.” And the rest is history.
Oh, Those Bacon, Egg & Cheeses!
Although both of my sons now live in Lakewood Ranch, when I told them Bagels Plus reopened right before my most recent visit to them, they both insisted that I bring them Steve’s famous bacon, egg & cheese (BEC) bagel sandwiches.
“I’ve tried to make a bacon, egg and cheese like Bagels Plus at home,” my older son Jared — who wants to open a Bagels Plus franchise near him — told me. “I just can’t get the eggs the way they make them.”
Truth be told, many New York bagel shops make their bacon (or sausage or ham), egg and cheese sandwiches with fried eggs — and Bagels Plus will make yours with a fried egg, if you prefer — but anyone who works the grill at Steve’s shop knows how to pour just the right amount of the already-cracked real eggs onto the hot flattop griddle and fold those eggs into the perfect size to just stick out on all sides of the bagel.
And, if you like your bacon crispy like I do — I know there are people who prefer their bacon “wet,” which I try to not hold against them — there is always a ready supply of perfectly crisp bacon waiting to be placed in generous amounts atop your eggs. And then, a single thick slice of yellow American cheese is gently placed atop that combo, which melts the cheese just enough.
Steve’s BEC makers, led by his manager Trista, also are happy to add salt & pepper or, for folks like me, to “scoop out” your bagel before assembling your sandwich. That not only gets rid of about 1/3 of the bagel’s calories, it also allows it to toast up extra crispy, especially when it is put through the conveyor belt toaster twice. The only time they won’t put it through the toaster is when your bagel has just come out of the oven.
Bagels Plus also offers a large variety of cream cheese options — from regular and light plain to bacon scallion, light strawberry and a salmon cream cheese that is made with real smoked salmon. You also can get a generous portion of sliced smoked salmon with your choice of cream cheese on your favorite bagel (left photo). There’s also a variety of fresh salads (tuna, egg and chicken), roasted turkey and Black Forest ham available, plus freshly baked croissants, muffins, black-&-white cookies, delicious apple or strawberry turnovers (photo below), almond horns and cinnamon rolls.
And yes, Steve still pretends to pocket new customers’ credit cards and throw an empty coffee cup at them to make them think it’s full. He’s a character, but it’s hard to dislike a guy who has been keeping it New York real for 27 years!
Bagels Plus (2706 E. Fletcher Ave.) is open Mon.-Sat., 6 a.m.-4 p.m., and 7 a.m.-3 p.m. on Sun. For more info or to pre-order bulk bagels (because they do often run out), call (813) 999-1216.
Editor’s Note – The original version of this story appeared in our Apr. 15 Wesley Chapel issue, which went to press before Metro Development Group and the Pasco County Planning Department staff held a presentation for the Pasco Board of County Commissioners (BCC) at the BCC’s regular meeting on Apr. 9.
The purpose of that presentation was to update the commissioners on the progress of both the 7,800-acre Connected City (CC) development — which Metro calls “The First Smart Gigabit Community in the U.S.” — and the adjacent Villages of Pasadena Hills (VOPH) planning area.
And, despite what some critics are claiming, Metro principal Kartik Goyani says that CC, which was approved as a Pilot Program for the entire state and by Pasco in 2015 and began development with Metro’s Epperson community in 2017 — is only in year eight of a 50-year plan and, in his estimation, the CC development is proceeding according to plan.
Goyani provided an overview of the overall CC project — how it came to be, Metro’s part in it and the progress of the project itself — for the commissioners.
“I’m here to represent everyone who’s part of the Connected City planning area,” Goyani said as he began his presentation. “Your staff said to me, ‘Why did we even create the [CC]? Well, that was 10 years back, so maybe it’s time to go back and see what was the goal and was it a good idea all along? I don’t have all the answers, so I’m going to do my best to walk you through the journey we went on…and the thinking behind it.” He also said that the need for the presentation to the BCC started, “with the chatter online” (more on this below).
How It All Got Started
Goyani first showed the boundaries of the Connected City planning area (see map). The orange lines on the map, which Metro provided to me for my original version of this story, indicate the boundaries of what is called CC, of which only the western boundary follows a specific roadway — I-75.
The northern boundary extends to a little north of S.R. 52 in San Antonio, with several important commercial developments and yet another (as yet unnanounced) AdventHealth hospital to be located in this northernmost section. (Note-Goyani told me when I interviewed him for the original version of this story that AdventHealth has owned that property since 2019 or 2020.)
“But, it wasn’t the S.R. 52 we drive on today,” Goyani told the commissioners. “It wasn’t the four-lane divided highway. It was two lanes, undivided and it kind of jogged, [and that part is now] C.R. 52.”
Curley Rd. forms most of the CC’s eastern border, although a portion of it extends east of Curley — between Elam Rd. to the north and just north of the eastern portion of Overpass Rd. to the south. It is worth noting that the Watergrass community, which includes property both north and south of that eastern extension of Overpass Rd., is not part of CC.
And, speaking of Overpass Rd., everything north of it from I-75 to the entrance of Epperson is within the CC boundary, but that boundary also extends south of Overpass to include all of the Epperson development, but not the pre-existing Palm Cove or Bridgewater communities.
Goyani also reminded the commissioners that there was no exit off I-75 at Overpass Rd. when CC first started and Curley Rd. was just two lanes. “And, at that time, the discussion kept coming up, mostly led by the then-county administrator (Michele Baker), based on an Urban Land Institute (ULI) study that the county had commissioned during the last downturn in 2008, which was, ‘We need jobs in Pasco County,’ which at that time, was a bedroom community (for Tampa), with ULI estimates of 70,000 cars heading south every day — and something needed to change.”
He added, however, “There was only one problem at that time. We only owned 900 acres in Epperson (with 3,000 residences), and 2,000 acres in Mirada (with 4,500 residences), which is only about 40% of the land and 20% of the planned residences in [CC}. And, just to set the stage — we had our entitlements and approvals already. We could have just built a regular community, with the cookie-cutter housing which none of you like. Or, we could change.”
He then noted that the “Connected City” name is just a placeholder, but the idea was, “Why don’t we create a new town from the internet up that becomes an economic engine that attracts the jobs and gets the healthcare and the fiber connectivity. And, the $14 billion [transportation] funding shortfall that everyone is talking about…maybe ask those private guys to pay up a little bit more than what they were paying in impact fees. Great idea, but no one is going to come to this area unless we put it on the national and international map.”
And, Goyani said, “Everyone we met with said, ‘Why do something only for two projects — meaning the land we had?’ Let’s do something bigger, which is what led to creating this 7,800-acre ‘Special Planning Area.’ The county had laid the foundation for this type of area, having already approved a long-term plan for [VOPH} to the east of [CC].”
In other words, Goyani said that although Metro’s intent, when the CC pilot program was approved by the state in 2015, was to have the CC connected by both high-speed internet and walkways and multimodal transportation opportunities, the developer’s primary focus was the internet.
“From a fundamental standpoint,” he said, “counties and developers usually focus on the physical infrastructure — roads, water lines, waste water, electrical, because you can’t have a community without those — but no one else was working on the digital infrastructure. That’s how this story ended up evolving.”
As for CC’s physical infrastructure, Goyani said that when CC began development, no other developers were interested in improving S.R. 52 or creating an Overpass Rd. interchange off I-75. “But, by bringing [CC] to Pasco, S.R. 52 is now vastly improved and the Overpass Rd. intersection is open, meaning that the physical infrastructure for [CC] is now in place. That is a big reason why we have been able to attract so many employment centers to this development.”
Regarding parks and trails, Goyani told the BCC, “I can only speak to the parks and trails that we do in our communities. But, we worked with [county] staff to create the 50-year master plan with the goal being that people [other developers in CC] are going to carry this thinking forward and hopefully make it better.”
And, although some current CC residents (see below) say it’s not enough, Goyani showed the BCC photos of golf carts, jogging paths and tot lots for kids. He also noted that the Wesley Chapel District Park already existed at that time just to the south of CC and the county had set aside land for its 300-acre “Superpark” in VOPH, just east of CC.
“The Board made the great decision at that time to take all of the funds for parks in [CC} and put it towards the Superpark to create a truly regional destination.”
He also said that the average home in CC pays $4,687 in additional impact fees for infrastructure, schools and technology, and those fees have raised “a total of more than $30 million in additional impact fees to date.”
The Commercial Pieces
Goyani also mentioned, both to me and at the Apr. 9 meeting, that, “Back when we first started planning [CC ] in 2013, we looked at the amount of new commercial construction for all of Pasco County and I believe the total amount from east to west at that time was only 300,000 sq. ft.
“So, as we started laying out the goals for our 50-year plan. Our goal was to see at least 3 million sq. ft. of commercial over the 50-year plan for the Connected City,” Goyani said. “But, as we started talking, we felt that was too small of a goal, so why not plan to do something — in one small area — that’s 50 times what the entire county does in one year? That’s how we ended up with a goal of 12.8 million square feet. “
He also said that last year, Metro commissioned a study by PFM Financial Advisors LLC out of Orlando, which showed that Pasco is now “the fastest growing commercial corridor in Florida. There is now 36+ million sq. ft. of non-residential uses in different stages, which is more than any other county in the state of Florida, and I’m like, ‘Wow, that is exciting. Maybe we’re onto something here. If I were to bet, I’d say we’re going to run out of commercial entitlements throughout the Connected City because I think more is still going to happen, based on the plans.”
Another major commercial project within CC is the Double Branch/Pasco Town Center, a 965-acre mixed-use project just east of I-75 at S.R. 52 that is already under development and will include up to 4.5 million sq. ft. of industrial space at its build-out. Phase 1 of that project, which is expected to begin delivering finished buildings later this year, includes three industrial buildings totalling nearly 500,000 sq. ft. There also are plans for 1 million sq. ft. of office space, a 1.6.-million-sq.-ft. distribution center and a 400,000-sq.-ft. “cross-dock facility,” which is a logistics hub designed for the rapid transfer of goods to minimize storage time. Double Branch is being developed by Columnar Investments, which also is planning to have 500,000 sq. ft. of retail uses, 3,500 residential units and 200 acres of parks and trails.
Some of the other privately owned portions of CC also have commercial entitlements (or are asking for them from the county), such as the Abbey Crossings/Park 52 Logistics piece that will bring 500,000 sq. ft. of light industrial uses to north of S.R. 52 and neighborhood commercial and a hotel to south of 52.
Health Care & Education
I’ll admit that the non-residential CC numbers shocked me. They include not only the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital that just broke ground in the Wildcat-Bailes property in CC’s southwest corner (see separate story on pg. 8), but also the not-yet-announced AdventHealth hospital just north of S.R. 52, as well as a large BayCare medical office complex that will not only help staff the expandable BayCare Wesley Chapel Hospital a few miles south of CC, but also focus on wellness to help people in CC live healthier and longer.
Also located on the outskirts of CC is the Kirkland Ranch Academy of Innovation, which started in 2022 with a high school and now also has grades K-8. Two years earlier, Innovation Preparatory Academy (aka InPrep), a charter school, opened for the 2020-21 school year and Prodigy at Epperson Early Learning Center is now open south of the CC border just south of InPrep.
Goyani ended his presentation to the BCC citing the following figures:
“The 2065 (50-year) goal for residences in CC was 37,345, with more than 19,000 (51%) already built. The non-residential goal was 12.8 million sq. ft., and nearly 12 million of that (93.5%) has already been approved. There also is another 1.7 million sq. ft. of commercial in areas adjacent to CC.”
County Staff’s Presentation
The county’s presentation on Apr. 9 started with William Vermillion of the Planning & Economic Growth department. Vermillion, who oversees MPUDs in Pasco, said that a recent study by the county found that there are still 44% of the single-family detached home entitlements left in the Connected City.
“Even though you were told a couple of years ago that there were no more single-family entitlements left,” Vermillion said, “there actually are still about 4,400 remaining [of the 10,583 SF homes originally approved for CC]. We also have about 50% of the multi-family, which includes townhomes and garden-style homes for the higher density areas. We also still have roughly 37% of our commercial left and 75% of the office. Industrial entitlements are shown as 0% remaining because of the Double Branch development, which originally opted out of [CC] because they wanted more industrial entitlements than what was originally contemplated. And, we have roughly 26% of the land remaining.”
Dist. 2 Comm. Seth Weightman told me that although he was shocked the staff had been giving the commissioners the wrong figures, he didn’t believe the “mistake was intentional on anyone’s part. We’ve had a lot of turnover in our staff. But no, I would not have voted for the conversions from single-family to multi-family in Connected City had I known the correct figures.” He remembered saying that one of the conversions he voted for, “felt like chewing on a mouthful of sandspurs.”
Vermillion also showed an SPA (Special Planning Area) checklist for CC with green check marks next to the items that are proceeding according to the CC’s comprehensive plan and red dashes for those that aren’t, in each zone.
“We can see that the North Innovation Zone is accomplishing what was set out in the comprehensive plan,” Vermillion said, “including commercial, retail and single-family detached, hotels, medical and civic uses.”
Moving on to the South Innovation SPA Zone, Vermillion said, “The dash mark next to the high-density multi-family in that zone is only speaking to the fact that the comprehensive plan for [CC] doesn’t directly prescribe what, in fact, high-density multi-family is. There is already multi-family approved in MPUDs within the South Innovation Zone. However, because the [CC] comprehensive plan doesn’t prescribe the density range for that high-density, we felt it was worth noting that to the Board.”
As for the Community Hub SPA zone, Vermillion said, “There are two red dash marks, the first being for cultural. It’s worth noting that, in both the Tall Timbers MPUD that’s going to be coming before you next month and in the Kenton Rd. MPUD, there are conditions of approval which encourage public art that can serve that focus that’s spoken to by the Community Hub. And, that dash by “Civic” uses, while there are no currently approved civic uses within the Community Hub zone, just to the south, within Watergrass, we did allocate a 7-acre library site which can accommodate those residents for that civic use.”
And finally, Vermillion said that in the two highest density and intensity SPA zones — the Business Core and Urban Core zones — the [CC] comp plan is being met and “Mr. Kartik did a great job of addressing all of the non-residential land uses within these two SPA zones.”
Vermillion also noted a county study from 2023 of the volume of traffic on S.R. 52. “That explosion happened once we finally started having development within [CC], post-Covid, from 2020 until now, but despite that spike, no road [in CC] exceeds the current [volume] threshold acceptable by the county. In other words, the infrastructure is keeping up with the number of entitlements that are being approved within [CC].”
As for CC’s current Park Service Areas, Vermillion said if you combine “all of the parks in [CC], there are 115 acres of neighborhood parks already built, not inclusive of the VOPH Superpark or the Wesley Chapel District Park.”
But, Weightman noted that the 240-acre VOPH Superpark, “isn’t going to be as ‘super’ as we anticipated. We’re going to fall short on a few areas of uses, and, with the age of the people moving to the area growing younger, I really feel we need to revisit the diverting [of CC] funds to the VOPH Superpark. With the District Park already at capacity, we need to find a way to have a similar style park within [CC] and whether we reallocate funds from the shortfall that the Superpark is going to have, or we restructure the way that funding mechanism works, I think it needs to be done because [CC] is here today. The youth and their parents are demanding that we have field space now for a variety of sports. The people are here now, so the 40 acres we have in the site we [Pasco] already own…that footprint needs to be doubled and we need to figure out the funding between VOPH and CC because something needs to happen sooner than later in the [CC} corridor.”
Pasco Parks Dept director Keith Wiley then responded that Comm. Weightman was correct.
“And, the question is,” Wiley said, “Where should we locate the other park facilities in [CC]? We’d have to ‘swap’ projects in order to have a district park, since a community park doesn’t really get it done. We’d have to decide which of the 21 capital projects identified need to be removed.”
Board Chair & Dist. 3 Comm. Kathryn Starkey said she would like Wiley to look into using the site Pasco owns near the future Town Center Hub, either for a land swap or to build a District Park on property that had originally been slated for a utilities maintenance area.
Wiley added, however, that the county’s Master Parks Plan was done more than a decade ago and could be updated, “rather quickly” to see if there are locations within CC that could accommodate a District Park.
Dist. 1 Comm. Ron Oakley, whose district includes CC, cautioned, however, that the entire county needs more ball fields, not just the [CC], “and we can’t build more parks without having the money to maintain them.”
But, What About…
Prior to the Apr. 9 meeting, I also spoke with Realtor® and CC resident Michael Pultorak, whom we have featured in these pages before. Pultorak created the Facebook group known as the “Pasco Connected City Residents Group (PCCRG).” The group quickly built up to 1,600 members, as he and the group members have consistently appeared at Pasco BCC and Planning Commission meetings to ask questions and/or complain about the way CC is being developed, even though many of the concerns expressed have been about the development plans of some of the CC land owners other than Metro.
Pultorak has already met with four of the five commissioners to discuss his concerns, some of which below do also revolve around Metro’s portions of the development. And, some of these concerns were addressed on Apr. 9, but others were not:
• The open space & recreational areas detailed in the CC Master Plan have been moved to east of Handcart Rd. (outside of the CC boundaries)
• The walking/jogging trails promised to Mirada and Epperson residents were not delivered and the trails were not in the engineering plans nor created in the execution of the development
• The innovative lagoons are private and for-profit amenities
• There are no promised cultural facilities or libraries of any kind yet planned in CC
• Stormwater concerns at the head of the Cypress Creek watershed with upcoming CC development applications
• King Lake (a 263-acre lake and the largest body of water in CC) flooding issues for current CC residents. (Note – Pultorak says that King Lake has been beyond flood stage since Metro began digging the nearby Epperson lagoon)
• Planned roadways within CC that topographical maps show will be under water
• No schools actually located within the CC boundaries (Goyani said that InPrep and Prodigy actually are within the CC boundaries)
• The large park planned to be within CC has been moved to the adjacent VOPH
• Multi-family apartments and townhomes being approved by the Pasco BCC that are in portions of CC that, according to the Master Plan approved by the state, should not be allowed
• The approved plan for the five Special Planning Area (SPA) Zones within CC has not been adhered to by Pasco, especially with regards to approvals for multi-family apartments
“We are not against responsible growth and development,” Pultorak said. “However, developers need to be held accountable to the residents of Pasco County to fulfill the promises they make before they take profits and move on or unexpectedly cause flooding of existing residents and communities. That’s why we formed this group.”
Where It Is Now
Many of the concerns outlined above were presented in our previous story about CC, when the Planning Commission first voted to send the Tall Timbers MPUD on to the BCC for final approval. After giving the nod to Tall Timbers 4-3 on Jan. 9, however, the Planning Commission then voted 6-1 at the same meeting to put a one-year moratorium on all future CC development agreements, site approvals, building permits and zoning changes.
But, since the Planning Commission is only an advisory panel, the final say on both Tall Timbers and any possible CC moratorium still lies with the BCC. Those votes were originally supposed to be held at the BCC meeting on Feb. 11, but the discussions and votes have now been continued twice — first to Mar. 11 and now until the BCC meeting on Tuesday, May 6.
But, while Goyani still can’t speak to what the other CC land owners are doing, his primary response to most of the complaints is that, “We are only still in year eight of a 50-year plan. We knew before we started that it would be hard to make everyone happy with this unique development but we believe — and we are proud — that we are helping to put Pasco County on the map with [CC].”
As part of AdventHealth’s commitment to community-based health care, the hospital company’s AdventHealth Zephyrhills is hosting a FREE “Grand Opening Community Celebration” tomorrow — Sunday, April 27, 1 p.m.-4 p.m. — to unveil the new freestanding Meadow Pointe ER! The event will include food trucks, safety education, giveaways and of course, preview tours of the new ER! For more info, visit MeadowPointeER.com.
Get ready for an evening of laughter and thrills as the Wesley Chapel Theater Group (WCTG) brings the classic comedy “Arsenic & Old Lace” to the stage. This timeless play will be directed by Colleen DeFelice at the Zephyrhills Lions Club (5827 Dean Dairy Rd.) on Saturday, April 26, at 7 p.m., and on Sunday, April 27, at 2 p.m.
First premiered in 1941, “Arsenic & Old Lace” is a farcical dark comedy by Joseph Kesselring revolving around the eccentric Brewster family. The play is filled with witty dialogue, quirky characters and a hilarious plot that will leave audiences laughing from start to finish.
Founded in 2022, the Wesley Chapel Theater Group has quickly become a beloved part of the local arts scene, bringing both new and classic productions to life. With a commitment to fostering creativity and community, the WCTG continues to bring quality entertainment to the region.
Don’t miss out on this unforgettable performance – “Arsenic & Old Lace” promises to be a hit!
