Chick-fil-A On S.R. 54 Sets The Date


What we first reported in 2015 is about to become a reality.

Chick-fil-A will open its second Wesley Chapel location, at 28295 S.R. 54, on Thursday, May 2.

In its traditional, 15-year fashion, Chick-fil-A will hold a First 100 event, allowing the first 100 customers in line at the Grand Opening to win free meals (consisting of a Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich, medium waffle potato fries and a medium beverage) for a year.

There will be a First 100 Campout party, with games and Chick-fil-A food, leading into the morning opening. You will be able to register in the new store’s parking lot beginning at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, May 1.

The event is open to guests who live in the vicinity of the restaurant, so make sure you check out the eligible zip codes RIGHT HERE.

Prizes will be awarded shortly before 6 a.m. on May 2, and the restaurant will open shortly afterward.

Jim Larreau, a Tampa native, will operate the new Chick-fil-A. He is transferring from St. Petersburg’s Chick-fil-A at Tyrone Blvd. restaurant, where his team earned the Symbol of Success – Chick-fil-A’s highest honor for its Operators.

Larreau is partnering with Bridging Freedom to combat domestic minor sex trafficking during his grand opening celebration. He is encouraging First 100 participants and guests taking part in the Wesley Chapel event to bring items such as individual craft kits, toilet paper, paper towels, tissues, healthy snacks and gardening seeds during the grand opening week to be donated to Bridging Freedom.

Chick-fil-A always seem to have long lines, but Larreau says, “I hope to be the quickest Chick-fil-A drive thru in the Southeast.”

The Palms Pharmacy : Three years of success!

Dr. Shahida Choudhry and her Palms Pharmacy have moved…but don’t worry, it’s only next door in the same Shoppes at The Pointe plaza in Tampa Palms, in a bigger store to accommodate the independent pharmacy’s ongoing growth. (Photos: Gavin Olsen)

At the Palms Pharmacy, located at The Shoppes at The Pointe in Tampa Palms, Shahida Choudhry, Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.), promises personalized service you won’t find in a typical chain drug store.

Dr. Choudhry wants customers to see and feel the difference from the moment they walk in the door, with a warm, welcoming space where coffee is offered and natural soaps lightly scent the air.

“It even smells nice,” Dr. Choudhry laughs. “People who come in expect concierge service, which they get and we enjoy.”

That means Dr. Choudhry and her staff get to know their customers. Not only do they learn their names to be able to greet them personally and start getting their prescriptions ready as they’re walking in the door, they also learn about their patients’ medications to be able to provide the best possible care for them.

“We ask questions and we get to know them,” she says. “It’s a cool process.”

The pharmacy celebrated the third anniversary of its “first” Grand Opening on April 15. Late in 2018, Palms Pharmacy moved, but just next door to its former space in the same plaza. The new location is larger, allowing more room for pharmacists and technicians to work, a separate room for prescription compounding, and another separate room where durable medical equipment (such as walkers, crutches and nebulizers) is sold and fittings for compression garments are done.

The new Palms Pharmacy is larger, more attractive and has more inventory. 

Dr. Choudhry received her Bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy, then went on to receive her Pharm.D. degree, both from Long Island University in Brooklyn, NY, in 2001. Before opening Palms Pharmacy, Dr. Choudhry was the pharmacist at the Publix in Tampa Palms for 10 years. She loved her job and her customers, and enjoyed working with pharmacy technician Naivis Valdez.

“It was comfortable and I learned so much,” she says. However, Dr. Choudhry also says she was looking for a better balance to her work life and home, where she had two small children, and thought she could help patients more if she had her own pharmacy.

So, she says, she took classes and read books and asked questions of many people who served as mentors to her, eventually opening Palms Pharmacy and hiring Naivis to work alongside her.

Success Spurs Growth

As the business has grown, so has the staff at Palms Pharmacy. Today, there are six employees, including a second full-time pharmacist, two pharmacy students and a pharmacy clerk.

“Now that we’ve been here more than two and a half years, hopefully people realize we’re here to stay,” Dr. Choudhry says.

 â€œWe do exactly the same as every other pharmacy,” she continues, “but we do it better.”

She says this includes a wait time that is usually “next to nothing,” along with compounding medications and selling durable medical equipment not sold at typical big chain pharmacies. She and her staff also provide immunizations such as flu shots, vaccines for pneumonia and shingles, and travel vaccines.

They also thrive on helping patients with especially complicated health or insurance issues.

Dr. Choudhry says that when insurance companies decline to cover a patient’s medications, that’s when she picks up the phone.

“I know the doctors and the medical assistants,” she says. “I work with them to get their patients what they need, usually within the day.”

This is in huge contrast to other pharmacies, which may take 7-10 days to come up with a solution when an insurance company won’t cover a medication.

In fact, Dr. Choudhry says many of her patients find Palms Pharmacy through their doctors. “Doctors are supportive of us because we take care of their patients,” she says.

Clarence Williams is one patient who found Palms Pharmacy when his doctor recommended it. He drives to Tampa Palms from his home off County Line Rd., passing several big chain pharmacies along the way.

He says the personalized attention he receives is worth it. 

“They know all the medications you’re taking,” he says, and will suggest alternatives “if there’s one that’s better for you or cheaper.”

Clarence says Palms Pharmacy has great communication with his doctor, checking with the doctor before making any changes, and he appreciates the phone calls he gets when his medications come in or when he’s due for a refill.

“The people working there are friendly and reliable and they just do a good job,” he says. “They go one step further than everyone else.”

Dr. Choudhry says that’s the commitment Palms Pharmacy has to all of its patients. 

“We recently had a patient come in who is in his early 30s. We saw that he had been prescribed diabetic medication,” says Dr. Choudhry, explaining it was a red flag for someone so young. Dr. Choudhry found that the patient hadn’t really paid a lot of attention or given it much thought when his doctor suggested the medication because he is pre-diabetic. She says she challenged him to make some lifestyle changes, such as exercise and diet, to avoid having full-blown diabetes. 

“I scared him,” she says, “but sometimes people need that, especially if they’re pre-diabetic in their early 30s.”

Dr. Choudhry says that at another pharmacy, they would just hand you your medication and you would leave. “We don’t want to do that,” she says.

Dr. Choudhry has also taken classes to specialize in hormone balancing for women and men. She reviews lab work provided by a patient’s doctor, prescribes the appropriate hormones and gets approval from the doctor for them.

She says it’s gratifying to have the doctors’ trust and help patients in this way.

Unique Gifts, Too!

Palms Pharmacy also sells natural vitamins and supplements, from companies such as Pure, Nordic, Metagenics and Mason. The store also sells LovePop pop-up greeting cards and all-natural products in the Zum line, such as Zum Bar all-natural soaps, Zum Kiss lip products, Zum Body lotions, Zum Rub moisturizers with shea butter and Zum Mist aromatherapy & body mists.

Palms Pharmacy patients also can use a free app, called “RxLocal” to refill their prescriptions, receive reminders and interact with the pharmacy staff. 

Dr. Choudhry says opening her own pharmacy has been extremely rewarding.

“I love it,” she says. “From the clinical side, I have a say in patients’ health care. Physicians listen to me and they ask me what I recommend. This is why I went to school, to affect my patients’ health care.”

In addition to helping patients, Palms Pharmacy works in the community, from supporting the Parent Teacher Associations at Chiles and Tampa Palms elementary schools to providing over-the-counter and prescription medications for medical students from nearby University of South Florida who travel around the world on medical mission trips.

“We’re growing every day and it’s a blessing,” Dr. Choudhry says. “I wake up every morning and I’m excited to get to work every day.”

Palms Pharmacy is located at 17008 Palm Pointe Dr. and is open Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. For more information, call (813) 252-9063, or visit ThePalmsPharmacy.com.

USF School Of Public Affairs To Study New Tampa Business

In campaign meetings with New Tampa community leaders and residents, former City of Tampa Police (TPD) Chief and mayoral candidate Jane Castor said the usual concerns were raised by those groups. But, along with traffic congestion, the conditions of roads and the affordability of homes, the topic of New Tampa businesses came up often.

“One of the main issues was concern over a lack of sustained retail along Bruce B. Downs,” Castor says.

Castor’s thought was that while no single reason was given for what might be causing what some see as an exodus of restaurants and retailers — although congested local roads, access and the growth of Wesley Chapel were mentioned — she also says New Tampa’s business climate was worth looking at. “I’m excited about the study,” Castor says.

In a chance meeting shortly thereafter with Karen Kress, the director of Transportation and Planning for the Tampa Downtown Partnership, wheels were put in motion for a study that is now being organized by the University of South Florida’s School of Public Affairs and director Ron Sanders, says Sam Becker, an intern for Kress, who attended one of Castor’s meetings with local groups. Afterwards, Becker had a discussion with Castor and Kress, and brought up the idea of a study to Sanders, who conducted a poll of graduate students working towards their Master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning.

Four students volunteered to conduct the study, which also will include input from local business leaders, District 7 Tampa City Councilman Luis Viera and the North Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce.

According to Sanders, the study, which is still being defined, will take place this summer and in two phases — one will be a “listening tour” that will be conducted through meetings held with focus groups of citizens and business owners, and two, there also will be a field study.

“We’re still trying to find the parameters of the study, but the basic premise is to try to look at what is happening in New Tampa, the outmigration of some of the stores, and see if there’s anything that can be done about it,” Sanders says.

District 7 Tampa City Councilman Luis Viera has been pushing for some kind of study, and he says he was pleased to learn USF would be involved.

Too Much Ado About It?

While there are some who feel the issue is overblown and that the current outmigration is simply part of a national trend that’s the result of the cyclical nature of business combined with the ever-changing effect of e-commerce, Viera hopes the study will root out any potential underlying issues.

As we’ve reported in previous issues, the Market Square at Tampa Palms plaza has seen HH Gregg, Staples and Bed Bath & Beyond close; restaurants like Casa Ramos in Tampa Palms and Ruby Tuesday on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd just north of I-75, also have been shuttered.

The old Romano’s Macaroni Grill site has twice been reborn as a Mexican restaurant that failed both times, and even non-chain restaurants like the once-super-popular Spanish restaurant CafĂ© OlĂ© have shut down.

There are signs of life, however. The old Dairy Queen on BBD is now a Jamaican restaurant (see ad on page 43), the Beef O’Brady’s on Cross Creek Blvd. is expected to reopen soon as an Italian eatery, and Las Palmas has re-opened in a different New Tampa location after the original location closed in 2018.

Also, The Village at Hunter’s Lake project will bring more than a dozen new businesses to New Tampa when it is completed.

“I think it is not clear how much (of the business closings) are consistent with national trends, or if it’s cyclical, or part of it is technology,” Sanders says. “If it’s part of a macro trend, or national, it’s not clear how much can be done about it. But, we’ll also look for local circumstances and conditions that may be driving it. Those are more addressable.”

Sanders also says the study will be ideal for his students, and that USF wants to be a good neighbor and lend a hand. If the study does produce something concrete, it could lead to the city conducting something “more extensive and sophisticated.”

The study is still being developed, so how long it will take and when results will be published are unclear.

Sprouts, 12 others signed up for Hunter’s Lake project

New Tampa’s first green grocer, Sprouts Farmers Market, is prepping construction on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. across from the main entrance Hunter’s Green, and according to the developer’s listing on its website, it already has some neighboring businesses waiting to move in as well.

Regency Centers, which is developing The Village at Hunter’s Lake project along with Harrison Bennett Properties, shows the 29,257-sq.-ft. Sprouts as the anchor of the much-anticipated mixed-use project, although there also are 12 other tenants ready to fill the retail shopping strip.

And, six of the retail spaces are still available. A map on the Regency Centers website lists a row of businesses that have apparently already signed leases, ranging from health and beauty businesses to a few places to grab a bite to eat or have a coffee.

The Village at Hunter’s Lake across from the Hunter’s Green entrance is starting to take shape.

The Village at Hunter’s Lake, which in total will have 71,397 sq. ft. of commercial space, will have — not surprisingly — a Starbucks, according to the website. 

Three other places in the development will offer food and drink. Poke Island Plus, featuring traditional Hawaiian dishes of cubed raw fish and other fresh ingredients, is among them.

Poke is one of the hot, trendy food items in the country at the moment, and another similar restaurant, Poke Point, recently opened on the west side of BBD, a couple of miles north of AdventHealth Wesley Chapel.

It won’t be the only eatery offering healthy bowls of food in The Village at Hunter’s Lake. Grain & Berry, a quickly growing local chain that hopes to have 100 stores statewide by the end of the year, is also scheduled to lease a location in the commercial project.

Founded in 2017, Grain & Berry has seven locations in the Tampa Bay area (the nearest being on E. Fowler Ave.) and specializes in acai bowls. 

Dubbing itself a superfoods cafe, Grain & Berry offers fresh pressed juices, hearty avocado toasts and international coffees, in addition to bowls filled with acai — a purple berry rich in antioxidants — and varieties of different fruits and grains.

But Wait, There’s More!

And, if you’re going to be looking for something maybe a little more hearty, Via Italia Woodfired Pizza & Bar is also listed on the Regency Centers website (as Double Zero Pizza) as headed to New Tampa.

Other spaces are leased by chains like Pure Beauty Salon, T-Mobile, Heartland Dental, Hair Cuttery, Pink & White Nails and Nationwide Vision Center.

The Coder School, a franchise founded in 2014 and headquartered in Silicon Valley that teaches computer coding to children year-round, also is slated to be located in the The Villages at Hunter’s Lake.

Permit requests also have been submitted to Hillsborough County to build two monument signs and a screen wall, as well as a 3,200-sq.-ft. Banfield Pet Hospital.

The Haven at Hunter’s Lake

Voicemail messages left at Regency Centers we’re not returned.

The Village at Hunter’s Lake project, originally approved by the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners by a 7-0 vote in 2014, will be built on an 80-acre parcel that also will include a 30,000-sq.-ft. New Tampa Cultural Center, a dog park and a four-story, 241-unit multi-family project to be called The Haven at Hunter’s Lake.

The project, located in the heart of New Tampa, has long been referred to as a potential “downtown” for our area, as well as the area’s version of the popular and trendy Hyde Park development in South Tampa.

Our Exclusive Recap Of The 2019 Taste Of New Tampa & Wesley Chapel!

You could still hear the sound of skates skimming across the ice and children making their way around the rinks, but if you listened very closely on March 24, you might have also heard the sound of delighted taste buds.

“Mmmmm.”

Local food and beverage vendors invaded AdventHealth Center Ice (AHCI) for the third consecutive year, offering samples of some of their most popular dishes and drinks at the 2019 Taste of New Tampa & Wesley Chapel.

“I love Taste of New Tampa,” said New Tampa’s Debra Gilreath. “I love the venue, love the neighborhood, love the fact that it’s indoors. The variety of restaurants and vendors that are here is great and it’s easy to buy tickets online and it’s reasonable. Most tastes are two tickets or three tickets.”

Although the event has been held in the comfortable confines of AHCI for three  years, the Taste has been around since 1995, serving tasty morsels while also serving as a fund raiser for local charities supported by the Rotary Club of New Tampa and college scholarships given out to graduating high school seniors by the North Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce (NTBC). 

Held at various locations over its more-than-two-decade run, but since a four-year hiatus beginning in 2013 (following the merger between the New Tampa Chamber of Commerce and the Wesley Chapel Chamber), the event has found a convenient, weather-proof home at AHCI.

Roughly 2,000 people attended this year’s event, which co-chair Karen Frashier said was stronger than ever and has become the Rotary Club of New Tampa’s biggest fund-raising event, although the club also puts on a successful Turkey Trot road race Thanksgiving morning every year. 

“Every year in June, the money raised from Taste of New Tampa & Wesley Chapel and the Turkey Trot is given away to the charities we support,” said Frashier, a former president of the Rotary Club of New Tampa. “In 2018, we raised $46,000 (between the events) and donated it to our international foundation, End Polio Now, as well as 36 other local, nonprofit or school-related charities.”

Frashier also said that Rotary Feeds America, Feeding Tampa Bay, Meals on Wheels and the Fisher House residence at the James A. Haley VA Hospital are some of the other charities that will benefit from this year’s event. A 20-person committee of the 72-member club organized this year’s event that featured 38 restaurants and beverage purveyors and 34 non-restaurant sponsors.

The winner of the 2019 Taste of New Tampa & Wesley Chapel People’s Choice Award, which was determined by the weight of the Taste sample tickets collected by each restaurant, was first-time participant Bahama Breeze, followed by Noble Crust (up from third a year ago and a top-three finisher all three years at AHCI) and first-time participant the Ice Dreammm Shop.

According to Frashier, the top 10 restaurants, in alphabetical order, were:

Bahama Breeze

Chuy’s Fine Tex Mex

Ciccio Cali

Cinebistro at the Grove

Fat Rabbit Pub

Ice Dreammm Shop

Noble Crust

Nothing Bundt Cakes

Pomodoro Pizza 

Vom Fass Wiregrass

The four finalists for the beverage division were Blue Chair Bay Rum, The Brass Tap, Time for Wine and Zephyrhills Brewing Co., which repeated its win as the favorite adult beverage provider this year..

Gilreath and her daughter Asha were enjoying some of the samples outside the rink, and had already decided on one of their favorites.

“Noble Crust’s chicken & waffles is my favorite thing so far,” said Asha. “Noble Crust is great because they make everything from scratch.”

Noble Crust events coordinator Brad Elia said his crew was hoping to improve on last year’s third-place finish in the restaurant category. The Italian eatery is now the only restaurant to place in the top three all three years since the Taste returned in 2017, and hungry and eager patrons gobbled up their samples as quickly as Noble Crust’s employees could get them on the table. 

“The chicken & waffles is one of our signature dishes,” Elia said. “When we opened our St. Petersburg branch, it was one of the dishes we opened with.”

Noble Crust, located the Shops at Wiregrass mall, topped the dish with some micro greens from their sister company Fat Beet Farm. 

Last year’s winner, Tampa Palms’ Ciccio Cali, was set up in the center aisle, not out of sight of Noble Crust. Ciccio’s brought the same three items that earned it top honors last year — a hot & crunchy tuna, a spicy Brazilian (blackened chicken) and a Thai chicken bowl, but did not crack this year’s top three.

There were certainly some other unique culinary merchants at the event. The Main Ingredient, located off Collier Pkwy. in Lutz, isn’t really a restaurant, but more of a cook-to-order specialty grocer that offered samples of their oils and hot sauces over noodles.

“We sell most everything by the ounce,” owner Christina Sweet said. “People can come in with a recipe and get the exact amount they need instead of getting something and it’s sitting in their cabinet for who knows how long. Everything we sell is organic, non-GMO and gluten-free. We also have a line of specialty spices and tea leaves.”

Helping out at the Main Ingredient table was 11-year-old Sophia Contino, who knows a little about convincing people to try samples, as she has garnered a lot of media attention (including in these pages) for raising money for the Pasco Sheriff’s K-9 Unit. 

Contino said she really liked The Main Ingredient’s noodles and hot sauce. 

Cinebistro at the Grove doled out samples of soft tacos, meatballs and ceviche-style seafood dishes. The Hilton Garden Inn’s chef Frank Skalitza gave out ahi tuna poke spoons and herb-cheese-and-dates Endive Bites.

Other food/restaurant vendors included Vom Fass in the Shops at Wiregrass, offering samples of not only their vinegars, oils and sangria, but also some of the chain’s new gourmet prepared foods. Vom Fass did not have a sign telling you what they were serving, but there were four different unique appetizers, one with prosciutto, bruschetta with strawberries and more. The foods were provided by Vom Fass in conjunction with Kaixo, a local caterer with a food truck, and Walkabout Bakery CafĂ© in Lutz, which served a unique-looking Australian pastry.

Taste attendees Ashvin and Kitty Maharaj got a brief respite from their duties— Ashvin as a Rotary volunteer and Kitty with the All County Alliance Property Management table — and used it to sample some of the fare. 

“This is a huge benefit for small businesses and it’s a great community event,” Ashvin said. 

All County Alliance Property Management sponsored the cruise that was given away as one of the 50-50 raffle prizes. 

Kitty said one of the best things about the event was that it introduced local residents to some places they may have previously not heard of, like Ava’s Low Country Cuisine, which provides private chef service, catering and classes and doled out samples of macaroni and cheese, cupcakes and rice bowls. “Ava’s doesn’t even have a store front, and I hadn’t even heard of Walkabout,” she said.

The Schoolfield family of Tampa Palms enjoyed offerings from all of the aforementioned providers. 

Jake Schoolfield works at the CenterState bank in downtown Tampa, which was one of the event’s sponsors. His favorite offering was Ciccio’s crunchy tuna. 

“An event like this brings awareness to local owner/operators,” Jake said. “You drive past all these places how many times in a week? I hope that it translates into more business for them. It’s also fun to see your neighbors out here.”

Dessert items were high on the list of favorites, too. Nothing Bundt Cakes, which was third in 2017 before it even had its current Wesley Chapel location in the Shops at Wiregrass, handed out samples of strawberry, lemon, chocolate and white chocolate raspberry bundt cakes. The strawberry cakes, however, were the most popular of the day, according to manager Crystal Cadet. Also serving amazing strawberry cake was Canterbury Hall, the new catering/banquet hall at Grace Episcopal Church in Tampa Palms.

Adult beverage purveyors were also once again on hand at this year’s Taste, including 2018 beverage winner Zephyrhills Brewing Co., which took first place beverage honors again this year, second-place finisher The Brass Tap, and Time for Wine and Blue Chair Rum, which finished in a tie for third this year. 

Other than playing music, some of Freedom’s marching band members worked on navigating a gigantic ‘Operation’ game brought in by AdventHealth Wesley Chapel, the event’s primary sponsor, which also offered chair massages. And, sponsor Pinot’s Palette, which combines the love of wine and painting, gave the kids some fun art activities to participate in (but no wine!).

Ashley McKibbin of Tampa brought her friend, Amber Cherry, all the way from Jacksonville to enjoy the event.

“I love it, it’s a great event, fun, family-friendly,” said McKibbin.