Two Rivers Planning To Add A Third Brewery To The Wesley Chapel Area?

Growth in and around Wesley Chapel can feel a little scary/unwanted at times, as new roads, new rooftops and new developments seem to continue to pop up in the local landscape almost overnight. 

But, alongside that rapid change comes something exciting — a glimpse of what our community might look like in the future. 

One of the latest ideas quietly floating around in development plans could bring something many local residents already enjoy — a new brewery. If the concept comes to life, it would mark what would effectively become the third brewery serving Wesley Chapel and the nearby surrounding area. 

Local craft beer fans already know the two that helped put our area on the map: Florida Avenue Brewing Co. on S.R. 56 and Double Branch Artisanal Ales at The Grove. 

Now, plans emerging from the massive Two Rivers development — located just east of Morris Bridge Rd. in Zephyrhills, but looking very much like an extension of Wesley Chapel — hint that another brewery could eventually join the local lineup. 

The potential site of the new brewery is inside the Two Rivers community, specifically in the Two Rivers West section (see map). 

According to conceptual plans (see rendering above), the brewery would be located roughly a quarter of a mile behind a proposed Publix on S.R. 56, and just off the roundabout that leads residents to an upcoming resort-style private club known as “The Landing.” 

But, the brewery itself might only be part of the story. The concept appears within a planned village-style retail district called Hawthorn Village (labeled “SITE” on the map), which is being developed by Two Rivers developer the Eisenhower Property Group. 

Leasing materials from Colliers describe the village center as a 42,000-square-foot hub for specialty restaurants and boutique retail. 

At the heart of the project would be an outdoor event lawn designed to host community gatherings, holiday celebrations and al fresco dining. The hypothetical brewery concept even suggests it could share space with a coffee shop and restaurant on the same property, creating more of a social hub than just another place to grab a pint. 

In many ways, that’s the bigger story. 

Village-style centers like this are becoming a defining feature of many modern master-planned communities. Instead of long commercial strips, these smaller walkable hubs are designed to bring neighbors together for food, entertainment, and local events. 

Two Rivers itself is being planned with 13 distinct villages and a long list of lifestyle amenities, including the aforementioned The Landing private social club, a Pasco K-8 school, the Peak Surf Park, a proposed golf course on the Hillsborough side of Two Rivers, plus miles of scenic nature trails, kids’ play areas and resort-style pools. 

If Hawthorn Village does eventually land a brewery, it would certainly be a welcome addition for many residents. 

But, more important is that it signals the continued evolution of our area — from a quiet suburban crossroads into a place building its own identity, gathering spaces and community traditions. While many long-time local residents aren’t happy about this transformation, it is happening. 

And, if that new identity happens to include a few good local beers along the way, many neighbors probably won’t complain. 

The Wesley Chapel Theater Group Presents Musical Parody ‘ICON: Auditions’

Special to the Neighborhood News 

Do you love singing competitions like “American Idol,” “The Voice” and “Star Search?” Then don’t miss the Wesley Chapel Theater Group’s upcoming production of “ICON: Auditions,” a laugh-out-loud musical parody show that brings the drama, talent and chaos of televised competitions to the local stage — Saturday & Sunday, March 28-29, at the Zephyrhills Lions Club. 

Inspired by the golden age of reality singing competitions, “ICON: Auditions” playfully captures everything we secretly love: unforgettable auditions, emotional back stories, shocking talent (and lack thereof ), a twist ending and, of course, the over-the-top drama. 

At the center are three distinct judges (above): a fame-seeking Soundcloud rapper, a former child star chasing love and a brutally honest critic who isn’t afraid to shatter anyone’s dream. Facing them are twelve colorful contestants, each vying to become the next big pop icon. From shy crooners to bold divas, and from comeback hopefuls to hilariously questionable auditioners, the stage is filled with big personalities and even bigger performances. 

And, here’s the twist: this isn’t just a show you watch — it’s a show you control. 

As the competition narrows, the audience votes live to decide which three finalists advance and ultimately earn ICON status. Each performance becomes a one-of-a-kind experience shaped by the crowd, making every show uniquely unpredictable. 

The musical features recognizable radio hits spanning genres and generations, making it a crowd-pleaser for teens, adults and families alike. Whether you enjoy powerhouse ballads, pop anthems, or feel-good classics, there’s something in “ICON: Auditions” that will have you tapping your feet, dancing and maybe even singing along. 

The Wesley Chapel Theater Group continues its tradition of showcasing incredible local talent while creating unforgettable community experiences, and “ICON: Auditions” may be its boldest concept yet. From performers and directors to stage crew and volunteers, the show represents months of dedication and collaboration. It’s a testament to the thriving arts scene right here in Wesley Chapel. 

Performances will be at the Zephyrhills Lions Club (5827 Dean Dairy Rd.), on Saturday, March 28, 7 p.m., and Sunday, March 29, 2:30 p.m. Tickets cost $20 and can be purchased at WesleyChapelTheaterGroup.org. 

For more info, scan the QR code on the ad below or visit WesleyChapelTheaterGroup.org. 

The Search For Wesley Chapel’s Favorite Fried Chicken Is Over! Well, Sort Of!

So, which is our readers’ favorite fried chick- lace in the Wesley Chapel area?

The answer I have for you is certainly not definitive, although the nine judges yours truly picked from amongst nearly 50 of our readers in both of our distribution areas definitely were in agreement on their favorites…well, mostly anyway.

Picking those nine judges was not an easy task. Of the 50 people who volunteered, I originally planned to only have five judges. But then, I thought, what would happen if more than one of the people we picked ended up not being able to be there for all three rounds? I decided that having at least a couple more couldn’t hurt — it would even allow us to employ Olympic-style scoring, if necessary (it wasn’t), where we could throw out the high and the low and just use the other seven scores for each restaurant.

At any rate, the nine people selected, from left to right in the top left photo, were: Bill Johnston (aka Colonel Sanders himself!) and his wife Suzanne Reno of Quail Hollow, Aaron “Dion” Rocha of New River Township, Cindy Cooley of Tampa Palms, Dion’s wife Suzanne Rocha, the father-daughter duo of Joshua & Zoe Paine of Heritage Isles and the son-&-father team of Karson (the self-proclaimed & costumed “King Chicken Wing” and Jason Centeno of Live Oak Preserve (and yes, a certain editor is in there, too).

All three rounds of judging were a blast for yours truly, the judges and even for Jannah, whose unenviable job it was to go and pick up the chicken from each of the restaurants, cut each tender into bite-sized pieces and plate them for me to bring to the judges.

I originally thought we were going to split the number of places into one group of 5 for Round 1 and one group of 6 for Round 2, but after Round 1, I realized that one Wesley Chapel chicken place (Wing Stop) had recently added tenders to its menu, so Round 2 ended up having the Mild and Spicy chicken tenders from seven places.

A few other things I have to mention:

  1. Because we bought and had to bring the chicken from multiple places to one central location, the judges knew beforehand that none of the chicken would ever be as hot or as moist as it would be at each of the actual restaurants.
  2. None of the chicken was served with sauces for fear that the judges would figure out whose chicken was whose too easily. But again, it also kept each place’s chicken from tasting its best.
  3. I have to thank president & CEO Hope Kennedy and office administrator Darlene Hill of the North Tampa Bay Chamber for allowing us to use the board room in the Chamber’s beautiful, new office in The Shops at Wiregrass for all three rounds of the contest.
  4. I also have to thank our photographer/ videographer Charmaine George for not only shooting still pictures, but also videotaping all of the proceedings. Although we are announcing the winners in this issue, we also will show video highlights from all three rounds as the premiere episode of our “Neighborhood Newsmakers” podcast. Look for updates about that first podcast on our “Neighborhood News” Facebook page.
  5. Yours truly didn’t sample all of the chicken nor did I try to influence the judges in any way.

Here’s how the judging went for the first two nds of the contest, as each chicken tender was judged based on its Crispness, Moistness, Seasoning (for Mild) and Heat (for Spicy), but only the Overall score given for each restaurant counted:

Round 1 (July 23) —There were five Mild but only four spicy chicken tenders in this round, because Raising Cane’s is the only one of the 12 total restaurants that doesn’t sell spicy tenders.

The Mild tenders were from PDQ, Chicken Guy, Zaxby’s, Raising Cane’s and Dave’s Hot Chicken. The favorite of these five was Chicken Guy, with PDQ second (both of which advanced to the Finals) and Raising Cane’s third, with Zaxby’s fourth and Dave’s fifth.

On the Spicy side this round, Zaxby’s was the clear-cut winner by average score, but Chicken Guy was the #1 choice of more of the judges, so both advanced to the Finals, with PDQ and Dave’s not advancing.

Round 2 (July 30) — Chick-fil-A and Slim Chickens finished solidly as #s 1 and 2 (in that order) to advance to the Mild Finals, and they were followed by Popeye’s,Wing Stop,Chick’n Fun, Hangry Joe’s and Sweet Krunch, in that order.

The same seven restaurants competed for Favorite Spicy, with Chick-fil-A and Slim Chickens again finishing in the top two spots, followed (in order) by Chick’n Fun, Popeye’s,Wing Stop, Hangry Joe’s & Sweet Krunch.

Finals (Aug. 4) — The judges were never told which four Mild and which four Spicy tenders advanced to the Finals, but several recognized PDQ & Chick-fil-A from the first two rounds and one judge identified Chicken Guy from Round 1.

For the Finals, each judge was asked to put the four Finalists in each category from their overall #1 Favorite down to #4.

For Favorite Mild Tenders, PDQand Chick-fil-A finished in a flat-footed tie for first place, with each receiving 3 first-place, 3 second-place and 3 third-place votes. But, since five of the judges had PDQ finishing higher than Chick-fil-A, PDQ won for Favorite Mild Tenders. Chick-fil-A was second and Chicken Guy finished third (with 2 first-place votes), and Slim Chickens was fourth, with only 1 first-place vote.

The judges agreed that the four Mild Finalists were their four favorites from the first two rounds.

For Favorite Spicy Tenders, Chick-fil-A and Slim Chickens each had 3 first-place votes, but Chick-fil-A also had 4 second-place votes to Slim Chickens’ 1, so Chick-fil-A was named the Favorite Spicy Tenders winner, followed by Slim Chickens. Zaxby’s just beat out Chicken Guy to finish third.

Looking Back

The contest was certainly not scientific and I know it really doesn’t “prove” anything. I’m also quite certain that many, if not most, of our readers will disagree with the results.

But, what it did accomplish was to bring together a diverse group of our readers for a fun and interesting cause and there’s no doubt that these nine previous strangers — two couples, two father-&-child combos and one not-partnered judge — all became friends and took their “jobs” very seriously, but not too seriously.

There were comments like, “I can’t taste the chicken,” “Dill pickle undertones,” “Only one I didn’t finish,” “Needs sauce,” “Tastes like Publix” and “Heavy vinegar flavor” — and a lot of laughs.

All nine judges also want to try judging the Best Steaks, Best Fries, Best Burgers and a couple that I might actually try to put together — Best Pizza and Best Tacos, but I probably will have to select a whole new crew of judges next time.

Look for the podcast on our Facebook page!

The Search For Wesley Chapel’s Favorite Fried Chicken Has Begun! 

So, which is our readers’ favorite fried chicken place in the Wesley Chapel area? 

We’re still nowhere close to the answer to that question, but as the publisher and editor of the Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News, I’m proud to say that after months of effort and roughly 50 total volunteers who said they wanted to be judges, the contest is at least under way. Round 1 was completed on July 23 and Round 2 is taking place on July 30, or the Wednesday after this issue was printed. The Grand Finale, where our nine judges will finally get to pick their favorite mild and spicy chicken, hopefully will be completed before school goes back in session on August 11. 

Picking the nine judges was not an easy task. Of the 50 people who volunteered, I originally planned to only have five judges. But then, I thought, what would happen if more than one of the people we picked ended up not being able to be there for Rounds 2 and 3? I decided that a couple more couldn’t hurt — it would even allow us to employ Olympic-style scoring where we could throw out the high and the low and just use the other seven scores for each restaurant, if I wanted. 

At any rate, the nine people selected, from left to right in the top left photo, were: Bill Johnston (aka Colonel Sanders himself!) and his wife Suzanne Reno of Quail Hollow, Aaron “Dion” Rocha of New River Township, Cindy Cooley of Tampa Palms, Dion’s wife Suzanne Rocha, the father-daughter duo of Joshua & Zoe Paine of Heritage Isles and the son-&-father team of Karson (the self-proclaimed & costumed “King Chicken Wing” and Jason Centeno of Live Oak Preserve (and yes, a certain editor is in there, too). 

The first round was a blast for yours truly, the judges and even for Jannah, whose unenviable job it was to go and pick up the chicken from the first five restaurants. I thought we were going to split the number of places into one group of 5 and one group of 6, but I forgot to include one chicken place that recently added tenders to its menu, so Round 2 will now have the mild and spicy chicken tenders from seven places being sampled. A few other things I have to mention: 

1) Because we are bringing the chicken from multiple locations to one central location, the judges know that none of the chicken will be as hot or as moist as it would be at each of the places. 

2) None of the chicken was served with sauces for fear that the judges would figure out whose chicken was whose too easily. But again, it also keeps each place’s chicken from tasting its best. 

3) I have to thank president & CEO Hope Kennedy and office administrator Darlene Hill of the North Tampa Bay Chamber for allowing us to use the board room in the Chamber’s beautiful, new office in The Shops at Wiregrass for all of the rounds of the contest. 

4) I also have to thank our photographer/videographer Charmaine George for not only shooting still pictures, but also videotaping all of the proceedings. When we’re ready to announce the winning restaurants, we will do so as the premiere episode of our “Neighborhood Newsmakers” podcast. Look for updates about that event on our “Neighborhood News” Facebook page. 

5) Yours truly didn’t sample all of the chicken nor did I try to influence the judges in any way.

‘Arsenic & Old Lace’ Attracted A Crowd For The Wesley Chapel Theater Group 

I remember seeing part (but not all) of the 1944 movie classic “Arsenic & Old Lace,” starring Cary Grant and directed by the great Frank Capra, one day during my teenage years as I flipped through my 13 channels before the days of cable TV. From what I could remember, I thought the movie, adapted from the 1939 play by Joseph Kesselring, was a “cute, but dark” comedy. 

So, seeing the Wesley Chapel Theater Group (WCTG)’s performance of “Arsenic & Old Lace” at the Zephyrhills Lions Club on Apr. 26 was basically like seeing it for the first time. Directed by Colleen DeFelice (who told the audience she had played one of the lead roles, Aunt Abby, 13 years before), WCTG’s “Arsenic” was a fun, if understandably dated, macabre comedy about some murderous — and sometimes hilarious — family members. 

The play starred Alex Peña in the Grant role of Mortimer Brewster, who loves but doesn’t seem to want to marry his cheeky, somewhat pushy girlfriend Elaine (performed to perfection by Aliza Rivera). Mortimer is a theatre critic who lives in Brooklyn with his seemingly sweet spinster aunts Abby (played by Danielle Warren) and Martha (Jennifer Peña), while Elaine lives with her father, Rev. Dr. Harper, across a graveyard from Mortimer, his aunts and his brother Teddy (Chad Allen). Teddy believes he is actually former U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt — and everyone who visits the Brewster house plays along because Teddy is a little craz…let’s just say “out there.” 

“Arsenic” takes its first sinister turn when Mortimer finds a dead body in the house and Abby and Martha admit that there are eleven more dead bodies buried in the basement — all lonely, older men who drank their homemade elderberry wine laced with arsenic, strychnine “and just a pinch of cyanide.” Teddy has been digging the men’s graves in the basement, thinking they are locks for his Panama Canal, and believing that the men died of yellow fever. 

But, it turns out that Mortimer’s long lost brother Jonathan (David Sparano), “who looks like Boris Karloff” (and was actually portrayed by Karloff during the stage play’s five-year run on Broadway, and by Raymond Massey in the movie), also is a murderer. Jonathan has traveled the world with Dr. Einstein (James Hernandez), a plastic surgeon who changes Jonathan’s face after every murder. The two have brought along a dead body of their own to dispose of at the Brewster home and Jonathan plans to murder Mortimer (and maybe his aunts and Teddy, too) to replace his brother in the house when he also discovers his aunts’ most recent victim, thinking Mortimer was the killer. 

But, Officer O’Hara (Arturo Delacruz) shows up to pitch his own play idea to Mortimer, which throws a monkey wrench into Jonathan’s plans. Jonathan ends up being arrested, Mortimer signs the papers committing Teddy to a sanitarium and Abby and Martha agree to join Teddy (convinced by Mortimer to keep them from being prosecuted for the murders). Mortimer and Elaine can finally live happily ever after, when Abby and Martha tell Mortimer that he was actually adopted and not related by blood to his murderous family. Still with me? 

WCTG’s “Arsenic & Old Lace” was funnier than the plot actually sounds and was well-received, with some out-loud laughs from the sold-out crowds of maybe 100 people at each performance. 

The next WCTG performances will be “A Night of One Acts,” also at the Zephyrhills Lions Club, the weekend of July 12-13. 

WCTG, which does not have a permanent home of its own, would love to find one in Wesley Chapel and will definitely need to raise more money to be able to afford one. 

To make a donation, volunteer to join the group or for tickets to “A Night of One Acts,” visit WesleyChapelTheaterGroup.org. — GNÂ