Speaking of restaurants we liked that had closed, Señor T’s Mexican Grill, which opened in the former location of Romano’s Macaroni Grill on Bruce B. Downs in November 2015 and closed in August of this year, held a two-day Job Fair Sept. 27-28 for people interested in working for a new restaurant, which should open within a few weeks.
According to an on-site manager we spoke to shortly after the well-attended Job Fair, the new restaurant also will be owned by Señor T’s owner Tom Reynolds, but will be called Vuelo’s and both the menu and the concept will be revamped, although it will still be a Mexican restaurant.
We’ll provide more updates as Vuelo’s gets closer to opening.
How many restaurants have come and gone from the dining scene in New Tampa and Wesley Chapel? Too many (and too painful) to count is the easy answer.
So, whenever a new restaurant opens in our distribution areas, one of the first things I find myself asking myself is, “Do I really think this place can make it here?”
Well, in the case of O’Brien’s Irish Pub & Grill — which opened a few months ago in the location in the Wesley Chapel Village Market previously occupied by City Grill (and Winners before that) — I believe the answer is a resounding yes. O’Brien’s, which is more than just an Irish pub, more than just a sports bar and more than just an entertainment venue, is a reasonably priced real restaurant with both traditional sports bar food and some Irish fare you can’t get anywhere else in our area. Unfortunately, even though I’ve now sampled most of O’Brien’s menu, I’m just not happy with the pictures I have of the Irish dishes like the excellent fish & chips (I always order it with red cocktail sauce instead of the tartar sauce that is served with it), the Shepherd’s pie and the bangers (Irish sausage) and mashed potatoes with onions, mushrooms and O’Brien’s Guinness gravy.
One of my favorite dishes is the Murphy’s chicken sandwich, which you can get grilled or blackened. It comes with crisp bacon, melted Swiss, lettuce, tomato and onions, a split-top bun and served with your choice ofhomemade pub chips with Guinness gravy, pub fries or O’Brien’s soon-to-be-famous pub tots — which are the best tater tots I’ve had recently.
Our office orders our tots extra, extra crispy, but you might want to start slowly and just order them extra crispy the first time. Either way, they’re awesome.
I also really enjoy the pub club sandwich, which adds ham to the traditional turkey, bacon and cheese; both the Irish Cobb and traditional Greek salads, the prime rib and pub French dip sandwiches, the Rueben-like Emerald Isle sandwich piled high with your choice of corned beef or turkey with melted swiss, sauerkraut and Thousand Island dressing (I order the dressing on the side), and the flaky fisherman’s sandwich, which I usually order extra blackened (or try grilled or fried).
O’Brien’s also makes great hamburgers, from the no-frills Wesley Chapel burger to the Florentine burger with spinach and artichoke dip, blue cheese crumbles and bacon bits and the new shamrock burger, which is a grilled burger topped with corned beef and Swiss — and many more.
For starters, O’Brien’s has extra-crispy jumbo wings tossed in your choice of many different sauces, from Celtic tiger hot to sweet Thai chili to the new spicy honey sriracha. Also available are Cajun and jerk wings.
There’s also a couple of new starters on the menu, including the crispy Santa Fe chicken rolls, which are servedwith a spicy remoulade dipping sauce.
For dessert, my favorite item is called the “chocolate bombe,” which is an amazing iced chocolate mousse cake. Decadent.
Some History & A Look Ahead
The first local O’Brien’s Irish Pub opened on N. Dale Mabry in Carrollwood 25 years ago, according to Mike Goodwin, who owns and operates the Wesley Chapel location with his brother Randy Goodwin and partners Randy Fairchild and Sean and Liz Lewis. Not really a chain, today there are four locations — each with its own tweaks of the basic menu — in Brandon, Northdale, Wesley Chapel and the Plant City location Mike Goodwin purchased three years ago.
The Wesley Chapel O’Brien’s should be your pro and college football headquarters, with its recently revamped bar area serving a variety of craft beers on draft, and one of my favorite Irish whiskeys — Powers — always on hand (all at lower prices than you’ll find at most other local restaurants, especially at the mall), plus 26 big-screen TVs strategically situated around the place and food and drink specials during every game.
Speaking of specials, O’Brien’s has something different for you just about every day.
On Monday, regular burgers are just $6 and specialty burgers cost $8. Tuesday is Team Trivia night (7:30 p.m.-9:30 p.m.), with 60-cent wings all day, $8.99 Miller Light, Coors Light & Yuengling pitchers. Wednesday is Karaoke Night (starting at 8 p.m.) and Cheap Beer night ($2.50 domestic pints and $1 off imports), plus one kid 12 & under eats free with each adult meal purchased. Thursday is Ladies Night, 10 p.m.-close, where ladies pay only half their bar tab. There’s also $1 off Irish beers (like Smithwick’s) and $3 Fireball shots. And, there’s live music every Friday and Saturday night. Check the board inside O’Brien’s for the upcoming entertainment schedule.
O’Brien’s also is planning a week-long “Half Way to St. Patty’s Day” event the week of September 12-17. Call or stop in for details, but the partners agree it’ll be awesome.
O’Brien’s Irish Pub (5429 Village Market) is open Mon.-Sat., 11 a.m.-2 a.m., and 11 a.m.-midnight on Sun. For info, call 973-9988, or visit OBriensWesleyChapel.com.
Win $200, $100 or $50 In FREE Dining In Our 2016 Survey & Contest!
It’s baaaaack!
Our ever-popular annual Reader Survey & Dining Contest returns and the 2016 edition is another opportunity for you to help yourself to one of three outstanding FREE dining prizes, as well as help our local restaurants find out where our readers enjoy dining out the most in New Tampa & Wesley Chapel.
Just for filling out the entry form in our most recent issue, sending it by mail, fax or email (you can also enter below), you can win $50, $100 or even $200 in absolutely FREE dining at the restaurant of your choice, whether it’s located in New Tampa or Wesley Chapel or not!
Here are the rules to be eligible to win one of our prizes:
You MUST vote for your FIVE favorite restaurants in BOTH New Tampa and Wesley Chapel.
You MUST vote in every category.
Please do not write in or vote for any restaurant more than once in any category, or your votes are disqualified.
Please also do not write in a restaurant located in Wesley Chapel (zip codes 33543, 33544 & 33545) as your favorite in New Tampa (zip code 33647) or vice-versa, or your votes are disqualified.
Only one entry per person will be accepted.
The entry deadline is Friday, October 28, 2016. And, as always, no purchase of any kind is necessary to win any of our contests.
I was saddened to learn that Toast Wine & Café, located in the Oak Ramble Plaza (which still has Acropolis Greek Taverna, Mr. Dunderbak’s, Jersey Mike’s and Takara Sushi & Sake Lounge, among others) had closed, and apparently it’s been more than a month since it happened at our press time.
Toast started out with a group of owners, all of whom lived in New Tampa or Wesley Chapel. It also began as primarily a wine bar with minimal food, but grew into a pretty good restaurant with reasonably priced food, great retail wines by the bottle or glass, coffee and entertainment, all in a cozy, casual setting, is the latest in, unfortunately, too long a list of my favorite mom-&-pop restaurants in our area that is no longer in business.
And, speaking of those mom-&-pop places, help out as many as you can by entering our 2016 Reader Dining Survey & Contest, where you can win a $50, $100, or even $200 gift card to the restaurant of your choice in the Tampa Bay area!
New Tampa’s Señor T’s Mexican will not make it to its one-year anniversary.
The restaurant is shutting down immediately, according to new manager Bill Jaber.
Jaber, who has only been with the restaurant for approximately two weeks, called the Neighborhood News Tuesday afternoon to cancel advertising and say that Señor T’s was closing, effective immediately.
Dwayne Bracy, the restaurant’s original operations partner, left in July for another job.
Calls to Señor T’s are now directed to a voicemail that does not identify the restaurant, just the phone number.
Señor T’s opened on “Black Friday 2015” (Nov. 27), in the long-vacant former New Tampa Macaroni Grill, located at 17641 Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. in front of the also-vacant former Sweetbay Supermarket. The Macaroni Grill was unoccupied for more than a year before Señor T’s confirmed it was moving in last September.
The Mexican eatery was going to be the first link in a planned start-up chain of roughly seven Tampa Bay locations.
The New Tampa restaurant received lukewarm, and sometimes blistering reviews online. It was excoriated on Yelp! and by many in New Tampa for failing to offer complimentary chips and salsa, which is customary in most Mexican restaurants. The food was panned as lacking authenticity, and the service received mixed reviews.
The restaurant was in the midst of trying to recover, with changes in the kitchen and possibly an interior renovation. But, the decision was made to cancel any re-boot and shut down immediately.
The restaurant featured indoor and outdoor seating, a full premium liquor bar that featured 75 different brands of tequila, and mid-priced Mexican fare.
Señor T’s To Become Vuelo’s
One of my favorite dishes is the Murphy’s chicken sandwich, which you can get grilled or blackened. It comes with crisp bacon, melted Swiss, lettuce, tomato and onions, a split-top bun and served with your choice of
O’Brien’s also makes great hamburgers, from the no-frills Wesley Chapel burger to the Florentine burger with spinach and artichoke dip, blue cheese crumbles and bacon bits and the new shamrock burger, which is a grilled burger topped with corned beef and Swiss — and many more. 
Win $200, $100 or $50 In FREE Dining In Our 2016 Survey & Contest!
I was saddened to learn that Toast Wine & Café, located in the Oak Ramble Plaza (which still has Acropolis Greek Taverna, Mr. Dunderbak’s, Jersey Mike’s and Takara Sushi & Sake Lounge, among others) had closed, and apparently it’s been more than a month since it happened at our press time.
New Tampa’s Señor T’s Mexican will not make it to its one-year anniversary.