You can now add Ruby Tuesday to the list of New Tampa restaurants that have closed in recent years, as it joins Casa Ramos and Las Palmas this year alone. (Photo: John C. Cotey)
Longtime New Tampa fixture Ruby Tuesday abruptly closed its doors in late July, which was a surprise to many local residents.
The restaurant, which boasted โSimple Fresh American Diningโ and had arguably the best (only?) salad bar around, was located on the corner of Highwoods Preserve Pkwy. and Bruce B. Downs Blvd., in front of the popular AMC Highwoods 20 movie theater.
While it didnโt lack for passing traffic, it apparently was lacking in paying customers, joining more than 100 Ruby Tuesdays across the country that have been shuttered over the last year.
Based in Maryville, TN, the dining chain was purchased by NRD Capital last year, and named Ray Blanchette as CEO in January in an effort to turn the company around.
Visitors on July 22 were greeted by a printed sheet of paper taped to the inside of the front door, saying โThis Location Has Closed,โ and directing people to the Ruby Tuesday in Valrico.
The manager at the Valrico restaurant confirmed that the New Tampa location was closed for good, but declined to answer any other questions. Messages left at Ruby Tuesdayโs corporate offices were not returned.
Ruby Tuesday joins a growing list of shuttered restaurants in New Tampa in the past two years.
This year alone, Tampa Palms Mexican restaurant Casa Ramos and Pebble Creekโs Las Palmas Spanish Cafรฉ have closed their doors, joining others like Dairy Queen and Vueloโs Mexican Grill on BBD, as well as Beef OโBradyโs on Cross Creek Blvd.
The Dairy Queen location has a new tenant that has yet to open, but is expected to
be a Jamaican restaurant, and the old Vueloโs site (which was formerly a Romanoโs Macaroni Grill) may have a new restaurant group interested in bringing something new to the area, but the others remain vacant.
And, speaking of places that have closed recently in New Tampa, the H.H. Gregg appliance and electronics store located in the Market Square plaza on Commerce Palms Dr. in Tampa Palms closed last year, and last month, the Staples store in the same plaza shut down.
โWe are now at 100-percent occupancy,โ Tampa Premium Outlets (TPO) general manager Stacey Nance told me at the July 20 ribbon cutting event for the new Kate Spade store (photo) in TPO. โHow many malls can say that?โ
In addition to Kate Spade (see below), Nance says the remaining three slots at the outlet mall also are all now taken โ True Religion Designer Jeans & Clothing, Salt Life and the Man Cave Store, which has been a hit at other Simon malls with billiards tables, Harley Davidson gear, Mr. Beer and more.
But, thereโs no doubt that a lot of people โ dozens were on hand during or shortly after the storeโs ribbon cutting to check out the deals โ are excited about the high-end handbags, wallets, clothing and accessories at Kate Spade, the store chain that the late designer Kate Brosnahan and her husband Andy Spade (the brother of actor/comedian David Spade) created as Kate Spade New York in 1993, combining her first name and his surname. The couple had sold all of their interest in the brand to Nieman Marcus by 2006, which then sold it to Liz Claiborne that same year.
Of course, Kate was found dead in her apartment on June 5 of this year, by her own hand, leaving a note for her daughter Frances.
โWe signed this lease in December,โ Nance, an admitted fan of the brand, said. โAnd weโre really excited that Kate Spade is open.โ
Get Ready For The Hyatt Place!
โWe know thereโs not enough hotel rooms in Wesley Chapel right now,โ says Karen Martin, the director of sales for the new 132-room Hyatt Place hotel on the north side of S.R. 56, next to Bahama Breeze, which had its โsoftโ opening on July 31. โBut, itโs about to get a lot more fun out here.โ
Martin says that although the six-story hotel just opened, โMy phoneโs been ringing off the hook for weeks, especially with people booking rooms for tournaments at the hockey rink (Florida Hospital Center Ice, located just east of I-75 on S.R. 56, while the Hyatt Place is just west of the interstate).
Although Martin says the new Hyatt Place doesnโt have full Hyatt resort amenities, it does have a Gallery restaurant and bar, a separate breakfast area, an outdoor swimming pool, nice fitness and business centers and meeting spaces with built-in audio/visual features.
The adjacent Sierra Conference Center has a really nice ballroom that Martin says can seat about 350 people with tables in a banquet setup and can be subdivided into three smaller ballrooms, which can each seat at least 250 people each in a theatre-style seating set-up. Martin says she also loves the conference centerโs adjacent break-out and outdoor seating areas.
โBut, to really get a feel for whether or not we should be hosting your event,โ she says, โyou should come out and take a tour. Weโre all really excited to be open.โ
She adds that the hotel hopes to host an upcoming โFinal Fridayโ networking event for the North Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce and is planning โa big Grand Opening event sometime in November.โ
The Hyatt Place Wesley Chapel is located at 26000 Sierra Center Blvd. For more information, call (813) 803-5600 or visit HyattPlace.com.
Weโll have updates about the Hilton Garden Inn & Residence Inn hotels coming soon to S.R. 56 in our next issue.
Here & There, This & That…
โข I canโt even tell you how excited my taste buds are now that Taste of New Tampa & Wesley Chapel favorite Nothing Bundt Cakes has opened across from Noble Crust in the Shops at Wiregrass mall. Whether you love red velvet or dark chocolate cake with extra creamy white icing, or the decadent white chocolate raspberry bundt cake, Nothing Bundt Cakes will have you salivating for more.
Check out a free sample when you visit and please tell the staff that you read all about them in the New Tampa Neighborhood News!
โข I also was sad to hear, despite owner Ramses Garciaโs best efforts to negotiate a new lease with his landlord, that Las Palmas Spanish Cafรฉ, the Latin/Cuban favorite located behind Kobe Steakhouse in the Pebble Creek Collection on Bruce B. Downs Blvd. (a mile south of County Line Rd.), had closed.
Garcia had been talking to me for several months about how hard it had been for the businesses in the plaza to stay afloat, with the Bruce B. Downs widening construction still ongoing in front of the plaza, but he was still hoping to work things out less than two weeks before he announced the closing on Facebook. Will Garcia reopen in another location? Weโll keep you posted!
โข Meanwhile, congratulations go out to my friends Travis and Fiona Monday, the owners of Fit 4 Life Personal Training & Physical Therapy Studio (17419 Bridge Hill Ct. in Tampa Palms), who celebrated the studioโs 22nd year in business with another great Martini Party, catered by the nearby Stonewood Grill & Tavern, on July 20.
Hillsborough County commisioner candidates Ken Hagan, Victor Crist and Ray Chiaramonte are among those hoping to advance beyond Tuesday’s primaries to the Nov. 6 election.
Two county commissioners with long-time ties to New Tampa โ former resident Ken Hagan and current Tampa Palms resident Victor Crist โ will be hoping to win their Primary Elections on Tuesday, August 28, in their efforts to effectively swap seats in the general election on Nov. 6.
Both have been term-limited out of their current positions.
Comm. Hagan, who is currently the District 5 commissioner, a countywide seat, is running in District 2, which represents all of New Tampa, as well as Lutz, Temple Terrace and Thonotosassa. Hagan held the Dist. 2 seat from 2002-10.
Comm. Crist, currently the Dist. 2 commissioner, is running for Haganโs Dist. 5 seat.
Hagan, 50, has been one of the highest-profile commissioners in recent months, due to his role as the countyโs lead negotiator in luring the Rays to Tampa to play in a proposed $892-million stadium in Ybor City.
For his primary race against first-time office seeker Chris Paradies, Hagan had raised a staggering $484,374 at our press time. Paradies, a Keystone resident who has been critical of Haganโs position as a political lifer who attempts to avoid term limits by jumping seats in order to stay in office, had raised $27,523.
Ken Hagan
Hagan, who has often been viewed as a pro-development commissioner, has been active in seeking New Tampaโs support in his current campaign. He has co-hosted two local town hall meetings with Dist. 7 Tampa City Council member Luis Viera and has been active in trying to get new parks built or expanded in K-Bar Ranch and Branchton Park off Morris Bridge Rd.
Hagan also proposed adding $250,000 to the county budget last year to speed up a potential connection of Kinnan St. to Mansfield Blvd. in Meadow Pointe.
In June, FloridaPolitics.com named Hagan the ninth most powerful politician in Tampa Bay.
Democrat Angela Birdsong, like Hagan, a Carrollwood resident, has raised $21,674, and she awaits the winner of Hagan vs. Paradies. Birdsong has recently picked up her efforts in New Tampa, as she seeks to expand her profile.
Crist, 61, is running against Angel S. Urbina Capo in countywide Dist. 5.
A longtime local fixture, Crist has been a strong proponent of a New Tampa Cultural Center, which is expected to finally come to fruition โ by 2020. He championed, as did Hagan when he served in Dist. 2, the idea of a New Tampa โtown center,โ which is now under development at the Hunterโs Lake project across from Hunterโs Green.
Comm. Crist had raised $121,300 at our press time, while Capo, a 47-year-old cybersecurity consultant, was at $6,768.
Crist talks to a group at Hunter’s Green Country Club last year about plans for a New Tampa Cultural Center.
Cristโs profile, connections and list of accomplishments in government dwarf Capoโs, and he is favored to win the primary. In Nov. 6, the winner will face Joe Kotvas, who is not affiliated with any party, and whoever emerges from the Democratic primary between Mariella Smith and Elvis Piggott.
Smith, a fourth-generation Tampa native currently living in Ruskin, is a 64-year-old small business owner and has been a longtime citizen advocate and community leader who could present a formidable challenge to Crist should she defeat Piggott, a 30-year-old church pastor who had been out-raised $73,978 to $20,315.
A crowded field is seeking the District 7 seat, which also is countywide.
Four Democrats โ Ray Chiaramonte, Mark Nash, Kimberly Overman and Sky White โ are running. All have either governmental or activist experience.
Nash has held the edge in fund-raising, pulling in $82,768, but Chiaramonte wasnโt far behind at $74,876, followed by Overman ($54,410) and White ($9,718.22).
Chiaramonte, who stopped in at the Neighborhood News office to talk county politics with editor Gary Nager, has been the executive director of the countyโs Planning Commission, Metropolitan Planning Organization and most recently, the Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority (TBARTA, from which he elected not to renew his contract last year).
He says that as a lifelong Hillsborough resident and regional transportation specialist, he is the candidate in the best position to help focus on the transportation issues throughout our area. Look for more of Garyโs interview with Chiaramonte in these pages if he wins the primary.
Republican Aakash Patel, however, has raised more than all of them combined. With a $381,594 war chest (that tops half a million dollars when you include money raised by his political committee, Elevate Tampa), Patel also has some big-time endorsements from Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, State House Speaker Richard Corcoran, former Speaker Will Weatherford and Congressman Gus Bilirakis.
His opponent on August 28, attorney Todd Marks, had raised $138,866.
School Board primary elections also will be held, though not for New Tampaโs District 3 seat, currently held by Cindy Stuart. However, a countywide seat in District 6 (to replace April Griffin) is up for grabs, and a field of six candidates will contend for the spot on Primary Day.
(Left to right) Jon Karthaka, Ansh Bhatt, Aaryan Sharma and Nusheen Immen lead the Catalyst Club at King High, where they are all juniors in the schoolโs IB program.
While many students recognize the importance of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) concepts and some join robotics or science clubs, it is likely that there are some kids who havenโt been exposed to STEM in a way that is fun and engaging.
Aaryan Sharma, a 16-year-old International Baccalaureate (IB) student at King High on N. 56th St. in Tampa wants to change that.
โWe want to reach out to kids who are not already interested in STEM,โ the Arbor Green resident explains.
Last year, Aaryan started the โCatalyst Clubโ at King with a goal to teach STEM to middle school students.
Middle schoolers, says Aaryan, are the perfect age โ not too young to comprehend the subjects, and not too old that it is too late for them to become interested.
โMiddle school kids are mature enough to grasp advanced concepts,โ explains Aaryan. โHigh school students might be apathetic,โ especially if theyโve already determined their path, and arenโt really open to being introduced to a new passion.โ
So, Aaryan and fellow club members and officers worked last year to get the Catalyst Club up and running. This summer, their efforts took off.
Catalyst Club members reached middle school students, mostly through the HOST (Hillsborough Out of School Time) program, which provides care for students after school and during the summer.
They visited Liberty Middle School once a week, and Turner/Bartels K-8 School twice a week this summer.
Using presentations, hands-on activities and friendly competitions, Catalyst Club members teach STEM concepts to middle school students at Turner/Bartels K-8 school.
Each visit included a new lesson, first taught via a PowerPoint presentation, which was then followed up with a hands-on activity.
Jon Karthaka, the clubโs director of information and content, explains a recent lesson last month.
โWeโre teaching about non-Newtonian fluids, using oobleck,โ he says. Oobleck is a mixture of cornstarch and water that has properties unlike a typical liquid. โWe put oobleck in a Ziploc bag, then put an egg in. The kids can drop it and throw it, and the egg wonโt break.โ
He explains that the hands-on activities piqued the studentsโ curiosity and gave them the opportunity to learn in a fun way.
โWe always have a demonstration and try to have competitions,โ Jon explains. โThey love it.โ
He says the competition aspect of the club captures the middle school studentsโ attention. For example, at one lesson, club members gave the students popsicle sticks and tape to make a boat and see which one could hold the most quarters without sinking. This helped teach engineering, buoyancy and other principles.
โIf we just teach the theory behind it, kids might be confused,โ says Aaryan. โHaving hands on activities, it clicks. The concept makes more sense.โ
Along with Aaryan, Ansh Bhatt is the clubโs vice president, and Nusheen Immen, who lives in Tampa Palms, is the clubโs director of outreach and communications.
All are 16 years old and juniors in King Highโs IB program.
Theyโre doing the typical things other high school students do, too, but are making time in their schedules to teach younger kids STEM concepts.
โWeโre busy studying for SATs, too, but this is a way for us to give back,โ says Aaryan. โThatโs our core motivation.โ
Not only do they want to volunteer and help those around them, they also are hoping to plant seeds that will lead to more students pursuing STEM careers.
They call it their โmacro goalโ โ not just to impact some students here in New Tampa and surrounding areas, but to โbolster innovation and scientific progress in society,โ Aaryan says.
โWe hope to ignite a spark to create a beautiful chain reaction,โ Nusheen adds.
Working with the HOST program has been a great match so far, and that is expected to continue, now that the students have returned to school. The lessons from the Catalyst Club members donโt conflict with the school day, where teachers might not have time to incorporate them.
Catalyst Club members also can attend their full day of school and go to HOST to teach after their school day ends.
โAnother thing we love is it gives us opportunities to reach all kinds of students,โ says Aaryan, not just students who are already gathered together because theyโve joined a STEM-related club. Catalyst Club officers say they hope to expand their lessons to more schools โ and students โ via the HOST program or other means.
They also emphasize that theyโre not limited to just schools. So far, in addition to schools, they have also presented to Girl Scouts and are open to working with other organizations.
They hope more high school students will start their own Catalyst Club chapters at their schools, too, to increase their impact.
Aaryan says the middle school students he met this summer asked them to come back, and look forward to their visits.
โItโs so good to see the kids and develop a relationship with them,โ he says.
Catalyst Club officers emphasize that they do all the work and donโt charge for their services. When they work with a school or organization, they agree on dates and times, then club members plan everything.
To learn more about the Catalyst Club, to request a presentation for a middle school group, or for high school students to find out more about starting their own chapter of the club, visit CatalystClub.TK.
The fruits of this yearโs New Tampa-friendly budget are beginning to ripen, as meetings in June and July presented visions of the expansion of the New Tampa Recreation Center (NTRC), as well a sensory-friendly park, which will be the first of its kind in the Tampa Bay area.
Kevin Smith, senior vice president of FleischmanGarcia, addresses those gathered to hear about the expansion progress.
On July 11, the City of Tampaโs Parks & Recreation Department hosted a community meeting at the NTRC to present its plans for a 7,825-sq.-ft. expansion of the overcrowded Tampa Palms home of one of the Tampa Bay areaโs most sought-after gymnastics and dance programs.
The popularity of the programs has resulted in thousands of Tampa and Pasco County residents being placed on waiting lists for years.
However, those waiting lists should dwindle a lot, thanks to $1.95 million allocated in this yearโs budget to creating more room for more programs at NTRC โ which could double โ says Brad Suder, the superintendent of planning and design for Tampa Parks & Rec.
The expansion will add another multi-purpose room similar to the room currently used and there will be a new preschool gymnasium. Currently, the preschool program uses the main multi-purpose room.
Suder said the NTRC also will have a new training box, a 1,760-sq.-ft. rectangular room that can be used for a variety of training regimens. In addition, Suder said, there will be more windows so parents and family can watch the gymnastics and dance programs, as well as six new bathrooms.
One of the bathrooms will have an electromagnetic lock, so it can be open on the weekends for those using the outdoor areas when the NTRC is closed.
The expansion currently is in the design stage, and bids are expected to go out in October. Suder said he expects construction to begin in January, and for the expansion to be completed for the summer of 2019, or a year from now.
Public Shown Sensory Park Plans
At another public meeting held in June, more than two dozen residents and City of Tampa officials gathered with design architects at the NTRC to share ideas and their vision for a 5-acre sensory-friendly park that will be located behind the B.J.โs Wholesale Club on Commerce Palms Dr. in Tampa Palms.
David Conner, president of David Conner & Associates, showed some preliminary plans to area residents. Conner heads up the planning, landscape architecture and urban design firm that is being paid $49,400 (of the $90,000 budgeted by the City of Tampa) to begin designing the sensory-friendly park.
Attendees looked over a series of display boards (left) showing examples of other sensory parks in the U.S. โ which are created for children and adults identified as having Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and are focused more on soothing and serene activities โ with some additional ideas for the New Tampa park.
Those who are on the autism spectrum can take in information from their five senses just like everyone else, but cannot process it the same way and can become overwhelmed, which makes them unable to communicate and interact because they are overcome with anxiety.
Sensory-friendly parks focus on incorporating easier-to-process activities and sights. They are, however, still accessible to everyone.
Proponents of the park say as many as 40,000 children in and around the New Tampa area are likely to use the park each year.
The displays showed photographs of potential amenities that could be part of the park, like slides, swings and jungle gyms. Residents were asked to place โLikeโ and โLoveโ stickers (above) on the amenities they liked the most.
District 7 Tampa City Council member Luis Viera, whose older brother Juan has autism, spearheaded the effort to get the study and design of the sensory park funded in this yearโs city budget.
Several residents voiced their excitement and approval during a short presentation by Conner and Brad Suder of Tampaโs Parks & Recreation Department.
โWe live in Stafford Place (in Tampa Palms), like one block away from the park,โ said Jeff Chacon, who said that he is eager to take his two-year old grandson, Finn, to the park. โI want to be able to walk down there with my grandson. Weโre excited. Itโs good for the neighborhood and good for the City of Tampa.โ
Freelance writer Andy Warrener contributed to this report.
