Two of the most highly-anticipated new restaurants in Wesley Chapel — Irish 31 and Noble Crust — have finally announced their grand openings.
Irish 31 Pub House & Eatery will officially open its fifth Tampa Bay location when the doors swing open at the new Shops at Wiregrass location on Thursday, July 6.
The festivities at the 2,734-sq.-ft. location are scheduled to begin at 11 a.m.. The Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce will be on hand for the official ribbon-cutting at 4 p.m.
Founded by former USF football player Jay Mize (who wore No. 31 as a Bull), Irish 31’s other locations are in Hyde Park Village, Westshore Plaza and Westchase, as well as a space on the Chase Club level in Amalie Arena in downtown Tampa.
Meanwhile, Noble Crust is expected to open its doors in mid-July, following a special VIP event on Saturday, July 15, to benefit the Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel Foundation.
The 166-seat restaurant (with 56 outdoor seats on the patio) will feature its popular brand of seasonal Italian fare with Southern soul.
“This is a flourishing area, and we’re looking forward to growing our success in this community,” said co-founder TJ Thielbar.
Carin Hetzler-Nettles is the principal of the new Cypress Creek Middle High School and was previously principal of Wesley Chapel High, where she earned Pasco County’s Secondary Principal of the Year in 2012.
We spoke with Hetzler-Nettles during staff training week at Cypress Creek, located off Old Pasco Rd. As the entire staff worked together to create the culture of the new school (which is set to open to students on Pasco’s first day of classes for the 2017-18 school year, on Monday, August 14), Hetzler-Nettles reflected on all the work that’s being done to get the school ready for its first class of students. Here are some highlights from that conversation:
Neighborhood News: How different is this process of opening a new school, compared with the typical summer routine at other county middle and high schools?
Carin Hetzler-Nettles: Really different! Every principal does a lot of work this time of year, but it’s very rare to have this opportunity to be side-by-side with the entire staff, building something new.
We’re setting the stage, creating our culture here. We’re setting our school-wide expectations and motto, and talking about what a Cypress Creek “Coyote” looks like.
An aerial view of the sprawling new Cypress Creek Middle High School campus on Old Pasco Rd., near Overpass Rd.
Cypress Creek will be a pilot program for “trauma informed care,” so we had training for that. We learned about ourselves as a staff and to be mindful that everyone comes in with their own trauma (which could be something minor), and we react in different ways. When a student acts out, it’s because of something in their life, and it’s on us to figure that out, and then to build resilience, grit and perseverance. Those are life skills.
On the last day of our staff retreat (which was earlier this month), our teachers will get their schedules and find out their classrooms, which they’re so excited about. Then, as teams, they’ll head out into the community to commit random acts of kindness. We want to say “hi” to our fellow community members and tell them we’re hoping for their support.
NN: What’s your favorite thing about the campus itself?
CHN: The look of this school reminds me of a community college. It has beautiful brick paver accents. There are amazing (floor-to-ceiling) windows in the classrooms. There’s so much natural light and every classroom has a great view. We are the only high school in the county that will have a rubberized track, so we’ll be able to host some big meets. We also have a large cafeteria and an enormous band room, and the most beautiful gym floor I’ve ever seen.
We had been working out of two classrooms at Quail Hollow Elementary. To move into the new campus, we needed to have the wi-fi working, a place to sit at and something to sit on. That happened last week, so this is our home now. The trailers will go away, but we will have a district employee and construction subcontractors finishing up around campus, for probably six more months.
NN: What are you most excited about?
CHN: I am most excited about the opportunities for students. It’s so cool to have middle and high school students together. I have seen the power of kids talking to kids, and of kids showing leadership, like when eleventh grade students help ninth grade students transition. They explain, “This is why you need to do your homework,” or even say, “Let me sit with you at lunch.”
I see that happening.
Outside of school, you don’t necessarily see that part of them all the time, but we see that kids have big hearts and truly want to help others.
We have a “Pack leader” program where, over the summer, eleventh graders will be trained in leadership and eighth graders will be trained in peer counseling. Then, those trained students will be scheduled into core classes in the lower grades.
So, an eleventh grade student might be scheduled into a ninth grade English class and they are the “Pack leader” in that class. We partner them up in one of their strong subjects to help kids in that class. They might set up a texting app to remind the class that there’s a test tomorrow, or take kids outside the class to help them, or just talk, if they had a fight with a friend, for example.
We’re trying to help kids stay engaged. The Pack leader might say the same things as the teacher, but in a different way.
So many things divert kids’ attention, whether it’s that they don’t see the purpose of school, they’re looking for fun, or they’re making bad choices. It’s on us as educators to engage them and find what works for them. It’s different with every kid, so there are a lot of different ways to do that.
NN: How deep are your roots in Pasco County schools?
CHN: I am a product of Pasco County Schools. I graduated from Land O’ Lakes High. I started my career in 1996 as an ESE teacher at River Ridge Middle School. I spent a year in Hillsborough County but found it very different and came back to open Mitchell in 2000. I got my educational leadership certificate and became assistant principal, then became principal at Wesley Chapel High in 2009.
I’ve actually worked with people who were my teachers in high school. When I was at Mitchell, I became an administrator and one of the teachers there was a teacher I had in high school. The same thing happened when I was principal at Wesley Chapel. I was principal of a teacher who taught me.
NN: How does the size of Cypress Creek Middle High School compare to other campuses in the area?
CHN: We are starting with 650 high school students, which is very small. The next smallest high school in Pasco County is 1,100 students, so we’re about half the size of that. It’s almost unheard of.
Four Cypress Creek Middle High teachers from the school’s Athletic Dept. showed up at our office on June 22, and all four were obviously excited to talk about the opening of the new school.
But, our middle school has 850 students, which is pretty typical. As those middle schoolers age up, we will end up being the size of a traditional high school, so we will grow quickly. We will have about 1,500 at the high school and 900 at the middle school (in the next few years).
In about four years, we hope to have a completely separate middle school built adjacent to this school. (Right now,) Cypress Creek Middle High School is a way to relieve a booming population that is necessary at our feeder schools. We’re embracing it as a unique opportunity to create a dynamic culture.
We’re doing vertical teaming, so sixth through eleventh grade teachers in each department (math, for example) will meet every week. There will be no “they didn’t learn this in middle school.” We will have a seamless campus and curriculum. And, when that day comes when there’s a separate middle school campus, we expect that culture will bleed over into that campus, as well.
NN: What do you want your students to know as they get ready to come to Cypress Creek?
CHN: Life is full of possibilities. That’s how I approach every day. I know parents teach their kids they can do whatever they put their mind to, and that’s what’s being instilled in our school. It’s easy to be worried or concerned about having sixth through twelfth graders on the same campus and sharing buses, and it’s right to have concerns. But, we are planning for that. We already have schools with this model.
We can also look at what an amazing situation it is that a middle schooler has access to criminal justice, business, and journalism classes. If they want to take Spanish or American Sign Language, they can walk across campus and take it. They have easy access to accelerated courses. They don’t have to do it online. It’s a great opportunity and it’s very exciting to me.
It’s easy to stay comfortable. I loved working at Wesley Chapel with those kids and teachers and parents and staff, but I took a leap of faith to come here, and so did all the other staff. We are looking at the possibilities and all the doors that will open for all of these students. It’s gonna be really cool.
When the husband-and-wife team of Chef Ramses and Ana Garcia took over Las Palmas Café in the Pebble Creek Collection four years ago this month, the restaurant was already a popular little place that not enough people outside of Pebble Creek knew about.
Today, in addition to revamping the interior, Ramses says he “changed literally everything on the menu” to make the Cuban dishes more authentic. And, using his training from places he worked for in his hometown of Miami, he has slowly added many other menu items, some of which are not traditionally Cuban, although everything we’ve sampled on Las Palmas’ extensive (but never expensive) menu has been delicious.
In fact, there are so many great items available at this still-hidden gem that I didn’t have room for a pic of what has always been my favorite dish at Las Palmas — the merluza a la Rusa, or flaky, breaded white fish with a unique topping of hard boiled eggs, pimiento and parsley.
Instead, I did include a pic of Ramses’ equally delicious (and less fattening) grilled fish, with a side of yellow rice, and his grilled chicken with a side of homemade fried plantains.
I’m all about trying new things, so I told Ramses to make some of his favorite dishes for us to sample at the Neighborhood News, and he didn’t disappoint.
First up was a fried yuca appetizer, served with a delicious cilantro lime dipping sauce. I don’t always love the consistency of yuca, but Ramses no doubt knows how to make it crisp, tender and very tasty.
Ramses’ award-winning “historic” Cuban sandwich also didn’t make it onto these two pages, in part because his full-page ad on page 41 has such a gorgeous picture of it, but also because he wanted me to try his equally tasty Cuban club sandwich, which includes ham, turkey, bacon and Swiss cheese, with lettuce, tomato and mayo pressed on perfect Cuban bread.
“Our traditional Cuban incudes our famous roast pork, ham and Swiss, with mustard, mayo and pickles pressed on Cuban bread,” Ramses says. “We entered the Cuban Sandwich Festival for the first time in April (as reported last issue) and we were proud to win, but not surprised. We sold more than 1,000 mini-Cubans in the two days of the festival. By the time they announced that we had won (on Sun.), we were already almost sold out.”
Other traditional Cuban cuisine Ramses made sure we tried were the Havana Trio — ropa vieja (shredded beef), roast pork (lechon) and picadillo (ground beef with olives and veggies in tomato sauce), and Ramses’ must-try braised ox tail.
I told Ramses that I had only ever had ox tail at Jamaican restaurants, and usually, it was in a soup, which I didn’t love. But, his ox tail is in big pieces, on the bone like a veal or pork shank, in a dark, savory sauce.
“We only make ox tail on Thursday,” Ramses said on my recent Thursday visit. “But, we braise it for six hours and have regulars who come in every week for it.”
And, as if on cue, in stepped Bob, a Pebble Creek resident whose first words were, “Where’s the grumpy guy? I’m here for my ox tail.”
Other new and old favorites of mine at Las Palmas include the grilled flank steak with chimichurri sauce, the breadedsteak milanese with marinara sauce and Italian cheese, the “masitas” (pork chunks) and tender, grilled pork chops.
One item I couldn’t try that everyone else in our office raved about is the shrimp in garlic sauce, served with a side of homemade tostones (large and not sweet fried green plantains). If you’re not allergic to shrimp, I definitely suggest dipping Ramses’ perfect Cuban bread in the sauce.
Other popular appetizers include ham, chicken or cheese croquettes, empanadas and pork tamales. Soups include black bean, chickpea and chicken tortilla. Try the house and Las Palmas salads (the creamy herbal dressing is addictive), too.
Other favorites on the menu include the chicken and yellow rice, the Cuban-Creole shrimp stew, the “vaca frita” (crispy beef), the Cuban rafters (merluza topped with shrimp), Ramses’ steak sandwich (unbreaded palomillo steak topped with sautéed onions and shoestring potatoes) and the fried fish sandwich.
Daily Lunch Specials & More!
Even though all of the entrées on the menu are only $8.99-$14.99, many of the previously mentioned favorites (including picadillo, ropa vieja, pork chops and more) are available as lunch specials (with white or yellow rice and a side item) for only $7.99-$8.99 for lunch.
There’s also a great kids menu, with all items $4.99 or less, an extensive catering menu and many homemade desserts, including flan, rice pudding, creme brulée, triple chocolate truffle cake and Ramses’ homemade tres leches dessert, which Bob says is, “the best I’ve had anywhere and I’ve had it all over the world. Do yourself a favor and try it for yourself!”
Las Palmas Café is located at 19651 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., in the Pebble Creek Collection. It is open Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-8 p.m., and 11 a.m.-9 p.m. on Saturday (closed Sunday). For more information, call (813) 907-1333, or visit LasPalmasCafe.net. And please, tell Ramses and Ana that we sent you!
Brian Lee pitched complete game wins in four straight playoff games to lead King to the Class 7A state championship game. /Photo courtesy of Jarrett Guthrie
By JARRETT GUTHRIE
Oftentimes an athlete’s competitive days end in a whimper, a slow spiral downward until he or she is forced from the field. Other times, they can end in a snap, a break, or a fluke injury. And still, there are times for a lucky few where an athlete gets to pick his spot and go out on his or her own terms.
New Tampa resident and King High senior pitcher Brian Lee made the most of his moment, capping a stellar senior baseball campaign with four straight, complete-game, post-season wins as he lifted the Lions baseball team into the Florida High School Athletics Association Class 7A State championship game.
The final moment on the field for Lee, a Tampa Palms resident who grew up playing in the New Tampa Little League and with the New Tampa Predators travel team, included a pair of seventh-inning strikeouts as the Lions won 3-1 on May 31 in the state semifinal. A large group of King supporters chanted his name as he walked off the field.
“I never imagined something like that would ever happen,” said Lee, who finished with a 11-3 record and sterling 1.00 ERA this season. “It’s kind of overwhelming to have all those people come to Fort Myers to watch you. It was really special.”
“It’s as a good a performance I’ve seen in my 42 years,” King High veteran coach Jim Macaluso said, “and I’m not saying just in King High School … I’ve never seen anyone in the county, around the state, that threw the pressure games he threw, and won.”
Unfortunately, King just didn’t have enough to finish the 2017 campaign with a championship, falling to Ponte Vedra Nease 11-0 the following evening.
Lee had a stellar career at King, winning 25 games in 43 appearances as a pitcher. Despite a average junior year, Lee showed signs in the offseason of having a breakout year.
“Brian had experience as a senior because he started in our rotation as a freshman,” Macaluso said, “but he kind of leveled off a little bit there through his junior year. Then, we saw something in the fall. You could see that bulldog in his face, you could see it in his eye, you could just see the type of competitor he had matured into.”
Lee said this was due to a reduced travel baseball schedule, which he said began to tire him out in his previous high school seasons. After his junior year, Lee said he focused on a weight-training regimen and eliminated the added wear on his throwing arm.
“I think it just all clicked for him that he just wanted to dominate,” Macaluso said.
Lee, who opted to attend King for its International Baccalaureate (IB) program, was a member of the National Honor Society and a number of service clubs. He said that when he started seriously looking at colleges in his junior year, baseball at the college level wasn’t an option.
By the time baseball had crept back into the college picture, he had already fallen in love with the business program at Boston University – a school without competitive baseball.
So, he knew his senior year would be his last. “It was a thought, but when I was looking for colleges I kept baseball separate from it,” Lee said. “By the time I realized I could maybe think about baseball in college, I’d already found the school for me.”
At just 5-foot-10, Lee doesn’t have an intimidating mound presence and there is no fireball coming from the lefty’s arm. What he did have was a variety of deceptive arm angles, some good movement on his off-speed pitches, a funky delivery that often saw his follow-through end with his head mere inches from the ground, an intelligence for the game, and most important to Macaluso, a determination that grew throughout his senior season.
“If you are going to throw a complete-game you are usually going to have an inning you have to (fight) through when the other team goes on a run,” Macaluso said. “We saw it go first and second, no outs and you’d see him take a moment. You could see it. You could feel it. He’d step behind the rubber and just say, ‘No, I’m gonna get through this.’”
That determination helped King reach the state semifinals for just the fourth time since the school opened in 1960, and its first-ever appearance in the final. Although it ended just shy of a championship, Lee said his final season will be something he will always remember.
“Yes, I’d have liked it to end a different way,” Lee said. “But, that’s baseball … and I’ll remember this team the rest of my life.”
Saladino Award winner Drew Ehrhard (with trophy), is joined by ((l. to r.) Wharton assistant coach Joe Fernandez, his mom Shannon, his brother Zack, dad Rodney, Wharton head coach Scott Hoffman, Tony Saladino and Wharton assistant coach Wade Boggs.
Rodney Ehrhard was supposed to talk about how proud he was of his son. How it had been great teaching young Drew how to play the game of baseball. How terrific his son’s senior season had been, and about how special it was to see him chosen as Hillsborough County’s best baseball player.
But he couldn’t. Not yet.
Overcome with emotion, Rodney could only stick a napkin in his eyes and walk outside to compose himself.
It was an emotional ceremony in the living room of Tony Saladino, the patriarch of one of Hillsborough County’s most prominent baseball families and the namesake of a popular spring break baseball tournament, as the 80-year-old host awarded Wharton High’s Drew Ehrhard the 47th Saladino Award, presented each year to the top high school senior baseball player in the county.
Drew led the Wildcats in hits (35), average (.422), RBI (24), doubles (9) and homeruns (4) this season, helping Wharton to a Class 8A, District 4 district title, two thrilling come-from-behind playoff wins and a spot in the Regional championship, where his team lost 2-0 to the eventual state champions from Tallahassee Lincoln High.
He became the first player in Wharton’s 20-year existence to ever win the prestigious award, which is voted on by the county’s coaches, and said he was shocked to win it.
“I didn’t think I would win it, to be honest,’’ Drew said. “I had always hoped I would, but I knew there was some good competition.”
He joins an impressive list of past winners of the award, including past major leaguers like Mike Heath (Hillsborough, 1973), Dave Magadan (Jesuit, 1980), Tino Martinez (Jefferson, 1985), Gary Sheffield (Hillsborough, 1986), as well as current Houston Astros pitcher Lance McCullers (Jesuit, 2012) and Chicago White Sox pitcher Tyler Danish (Durant, 2013).
“I’ve looked at the list, and it’s unbelievable to be a part of that crowd,’’ Drew said. “I have no words for it.”
Some Hall Of Fame Help
One major leaguer who played in Hillsborough County but never won the award, former Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Devil Rays third baseman and Hall of Famer Wade Boggs, played a big hand in helping Drew win it this year.
An assistant baseball coach at Wharton the past 17 years, Boggs — who teased Saladino about getting passed over for the award in favor of Brandon’s Sammy Spence in 1976 — said he remembers hitting ground ball after ground ball to Drew his freshman year as the youngster was converting from second base to shortstop.
Drew Ehrhard
Despite being undersized and having to adapt to making a longer throw to first base, Drew made the transition seamlessly and ended up, rather remarkably, playing every inning of every game in his high school career.
“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog,’’ Boggs said, proudly.
Boggs, along with head coach Scott Hoffman, also helped get Drew to the Saladino home in Brandon while keeping the award a surprise.
“He told me some story about how there were some reporters down from Boston for coach Boggs, and we had to go to dinner to meet them,’’ Drew said.
The coaches managed to get Drew into Saladino’s home, even though he had to step over a Saladino Tournament doormat to enter — “I didn’t even see it,’’ Drew laughed — before it finally dawned on him that he, and not Boggs, was the evening’s actual guest of honor.
“I was kind of confused when I got inside,’’ Drew said. “I had always heard stories about being in Coach Saladino’s house and seeing all the memorabilia on the wall…I was like, ‘whose house am I in?” Then I realized, oh, this makes sense now.”
Drew found a large crowd waiting for him, including his brother Zack, who will be a freshman at Wharton next year, his parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and baseball coaches.
While Boggs compared Drew to current Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia, others see a more apt comparison to Rodney, who was a high school standout as an outfielder at Plant City High who was drafted as a catcher and went on to play in the New York Yankees minor league system, making it as far as Double-A.
At Plant City, many considered Rodney Ehrhard the best player on a team that included future major league pitcher Kenny Rogers. Rodney went on to star at the University of Tampa, and was inducted into the Spartan Hall of Fame last year.
When it came to playing ball, Drew also chose the Spartans. Like father, like son.
“I hear his family make that comparison a lot,’’ said Shannon, Drew’s mother.
“Both of them hit well, they always started and they always worked hard,’’ said Rodney’s father, George. “I followed Rodney around when he was at Tampa, and I’ve got some more following around to do now with Drew.”
His napkin gripped tightly in his right hand, Rodney finally spoke proudly of Drew, who was given a stuffed baseball and bat when he was only three years old. He never put them down, his parents say. Soft stuffing gave way to cowhide and aluminum, but Drew’s grip, his father said, never wavered. He watched his son grow into the player he is today, relying more on hard work and determination than on God-given ability, as the two spent countless hours sharing their passion.
“He’s always been smaller than everybody, but he’s always been really good,’’ Rodney said. “But, he made up for that in hard work. He never stopped trying to get better.”
