Jimmy John’s Hosts A North Tampa Bay Chamber Ribbon-Cutting 

Although this second Wesley Chapel location (at 5478 Post Oak Blvd., off Wesley Chapel Blvd.) has been open for more than six months, Jimmy John’s hosted a North Tampa Bay Chamber ribbon-cutting event on May 20 to introduce Chamber members to this location, the sandwich chain’s “Freaky Fast” service and, of course, new “Freaky Fresh” toasted sandwich items like the chicken bacon ranch, Ultimate Italian and roast beef & cheddar subs. 

Jimmy John’s franchise owner Eric Edmonds said he was “excited to engage with the local community” at his location and he told the Chamber members in attendance that he is planning to open some additional Jimmy John’s locations, including one at nearby St. Leo University. 

Of course, Eric’s Jimmy John’s is one of more than 2,600 nationwide (including 140+ in Florida). The Jimmy John’s parent company was purchased in 2019 by Atlanta-based Inspire Brands, which also owns Arby’s, Sonic and Buffalo Wild Wings. 

For more info, call (813) 991-7700 or visit JimmyJohns.com. — GN 

Wesley Chapel Nibbles — Rodizio Grill, Papichy’s, Cheesecake Factory & Swig 

Lots of new restaurants are beginning to build and/or are getting ready to open in and around the Wesley Chapel area and we have updates on many of them in this issue. On this page alone, we’ll tell you about the delayed (but finally happening) Grand Opening of the new Rodizio Grill, the first-ever brick-&-mortar location of Pastelitos Papichy’s, as well as the beginning of construction of both The Cheesecake Factory and Swig soda shop. 

Rodizio Grill 

Clearly, the opening of the Wesley Chapel area’s first-ever Brazilian steakhouse is big news for our community, as the announcement on our “Neighborhood News” Facebook page that the opening of Rodizio Grill (2802 Grand Cypress Dr., Lutz, behind Costco and in front of Kohl’s by the Tampa Premium Outlets) was delayed from its originally announced opening date of May 28 to Tuesday, June 10, was viewed (at our press time) by a record-breaking (for us) 327,816 people, with more than 1,000 likes and 109 shares! We’ve had a couple of previous posts that reached more than 200,000 people, but this post — without being boosted — has far surpassed our previous record. In other words, you can expect big crowds at Rodizio Grill as this issue is reaching your mailbox. In the meantime, we have a sneak peek first look inside this beautiful, new restaurant (top photo) on this page. We wish franchisee Charlie Haney and his crew lots of luck. 

For reservations & more info, call (813) 996-3880, visit Rodizio.com or search “Rodizio Grill – Wesley Chapel” on Facebook. 

Pastelitos Papichy’s 

Although the Venezuelan food truck Pastelitos Papichy’s (above left) has been stationed near the LA Fitness and Five Guys Burgers & Fries (just south of County Line Rd.& west of Bruce B. Downs Blvd. in New Tampa) a for some time, a sign recently went up at the Grand Oaks Plaza on the under-construction Wesley Chapel Blvd. in Lutz (above right) announcing that Papichy’s will be opening its first-ever brick-&-mortar location in the space previously occupied by the also-Venezuelan Arepa Mia, which sadly closed at the end of 2024. 

We haven’t yet been able to speak to anyone who could tell us when the new Papichy’s is expected to open, but you can expect a similar selection of Venezuelan-style empanadas, pastelitos (similar to empanadas, but round wheat dough filled with sweet guava or savory meats and cheeses), tequeños (fried cheese) and more. 

For more info, call (813) 576-9970. 

The Cheesecake Factory 

If our post about Rodizio Grill is record-setting, there’s little doubt that if we’re able to break the story of when The Cheesecake Factory will finally open in the parking lot at the Tampa Premium Outlets, that post could double or even quadruple the traffic Rodizio Grill has generated. 

But, while some rumors had Cheesecake Factory opening before the end of this year, that seems pretty ambitious, considering that the area that will one day be home to the full-service restaurant chain and cheesecake bakery (which currently has more than 200 U.S. locations) has only recently been fenced off near the mall’s main entrance. There is some heavy equipment on the site, but the parking lot hasn’t yet been leveled so that the restaurant can actually go vertical. 

Swig

This rapidly-growing drive-through “dirty soda” chain featuring seasonal favorites and concoct-your-own sodas, revivers and refreshers, as well as frozen hot chocolate, sugar cookies and pretzel bites, is starting to go vertical just east of PopStroke and west of Academy Sports + Outdoors (photo above), across from the outlet mall. 

Wesley Chapel/Lutz will be only the third Florida location for Swig, a Utah-based company which currently has more than 100 locations in 14 states, with agreements for 500 franchise units and plans for more corporate-owned stores. For more info, visit SwigDrinks.com.

Los Chapos Tacos Opens In The Same Plaza On S.R. 54 As Fazoli’s

Los Chapos Tacos, a small local chain of authentic fast-casual Mexican restaurants that began as a food truck business, has opened its new fourth location at 24799 W. S.R. 54 in Land O’Lakes, in the same small strip retail center as Fazoli’s. 

Unfortunately, I can’t tell you much about the food at the new Los Chapos Tacos because the restaurant cooks all of its food on the same grills and there are a few shrimp options on the menu. 

This kind of bummed me out because there are several unique options on the menu, including Guacamole de Chicharron — slow-braised pork belly finished on the grill with Asian BBQ sauce, served over hand-smashed guacamole with queso fresco, cilantro and chips. I’d also be interested in sampling the elotes appetizer, or Mexican street corn on the cob, with cotija cheese, chipotle aioli, lime and tajin. 

There also are house specialties like the Torta Ahogada or “drowned sandwich,” which is a version of the signature sandwich of Guadalajara, with crunchy-outside sourdough bread filled with shredded “Birria” beef and melted cheese, with a spicy dipping sauce on the side. The same birria beef is available on tacos, and there also are “Surf ‘N’ Turf” tacos with grilled steak and shrimp, corn salsa, avocado and chipotle cream on a grilled flour tortilla. 

Jannah and I just couldn’t leave without at least letting her sample something and she ended up having that birria beef on a tasty grilled quesadilla with melted cheese (top photo). She said it was delicious, but I (heavy sigh) simply had to take her word for it. 

She also tried and enjoyed the lavender sangria (photo right), and Los Chapos Tacos would probably be a place we would frequent fairly often if I could eat the food. My Victoria Mexican beer was ice cold and unlike most fast-casual establishments, the restaurant does have a limited (and cute) full-liquor bar with several different tequilas available (above left photo) to make your favorite margaritas. 

Considering that it has two grills in the kitchen, if they could keep one grill dedicated to non-shrimp orders, people like me could still enjoy it. 

But, as one manager-in-training told me, “Even if we could do that, we’d still need both grills when we get busy.” Truly sad for me. 

Los Chapos Tacos opens for lunch & dinner every day at 11 a.m., except Sun. (when it’s closed). For more info, call (813) 868-3056 or visit LosChaposTacos.com. — GN 

Little Caesars Pizza Opens Next To Jimmy John’s Off Wesley Chapel Blvd. 

As a true New Yawka and lover of real New York pizza, I’ll be honest that I’ve never been a fan of Little Caesars Pizza, which recently opened its second Wesley Chapel location at 5482 Post Oak Blvd.,off Wesley Chapel Blvd., in the same retail strip plaza (photo above) as Jimmy John’s. 

To me, Little Caesars is more about convenience and competitive pricing than it is about deliciousness, but I’ll admit that I enjoyed the new (at least to me) pepperoni “Crazy Puffs¼” (bottom photos) on the menu and I definitely also will try the Cookie Dough Brownie made with M&Ms¼ minis, which the location was out of the day we visited. 

But, Little Caesars does offer specialty pizzas like the “3 Meat Treat¼” (shown above) for just $12.99 (it’s also available in a larger “Detroit-style deep dish” rectangular version for just $15.99). 

The “Hot-N-Ready¼” options are even less expensive, with the “Classic Cheese” and “Classic Pepperoni” both starting at just $7.29, and the “Extramostbestest¼” cheese or pepperoni pizzas starting at just $8.29 each. And, “Stuffed Crazy Crust” pizzas start at just $$13.99. Also available are pretzel crust pizzas (starting at $6.99), breadsticks, Italian cheese bread and more. 

And, with Little Caesars’ new “The Pizza Portal” (right photo), picking up your to-go order is as easy as grabbing an Amazon package at an apartment complex. And yes, DoorDash delivery is available, too. For more info, call (813) 923-0715 or visit LittleCaesars.com. — GN

‘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