Nibbles & Bites: More Food Openings On The Way, And A Little Virtual Reality, Too!

Tessa’s Sweet KafĂ© To Replace Gu Wei!

We always love it when readers let us know when they see new businesses opening or getting ready to open, even if it’s before we’re able to get the information ourselves.

We’ve previously told you that the Gu Wei Noodle House, which didn’t stay open for very long in the former location of Sukhothai on Bruce B. Downs Blvd. at Galbraith Rd. (across from the AMC 20 movie theater), was closed permanently, but we didn’t yet have any idea of what was planned to move into that space until Josephine Quah Browne sent us the picture (far right) on one of our Facebook posts announcing that the new restaurant will be called Tessa’s Sweet KafĂ©, which (according to the sign and a couple of other posts on the “Tampa Bay Asian Foodies” Facebook page) will feature Korean Street Food, Binsgu (although some spell it Bingsoo, see near right photo) and other Korean desserts.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to find out too much additional information about what the new restaurant will serve (although boba teas and Korean fried chicken were among the items mentioned) or when Tessa’s Sweet KafĂ© is expected to open, but of course, we plan to keep you posted! — GN

VR Galaxy Lounge Entertainment Venue Opens In Tampa Palms!

Talk about an idea whose time has come — the VR Galaxy Lounge has opened to rave online reviews (next to A Special Rose Florist) at 15355 Amberly Dr., in the Shoppes at Amberly plaza in Tampa Palms. 

VR Galaxy Lounge is the brainchild of three long-time “gamers” who recognized that although virtual reality gaming is readily available on peoples’ home entertainment systems, there hasn’t been a place where those gamers could go out to enjoy the ever-growing selection of VR games.

According to VRGalaxyLounge.com, three guys named Joe, Larry and Tony grew up as gamers as far back as the original 1977 Atari 2600, and have all watched the industry evolve to where Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality experiences are becoming more and more mainstream. 

“The VR industry is here and has unlimited potential. This is what drives the three of us…It is about becoming fully immersed in an experience whether that is traveling to Italy to see the Coliseum, swimming with sharks, traveling to space, meeting with co-workers or just hanging out with friends in a social environment…Our goal is to pass this experience on to all of you and bring you into the amazing and limitless world of VR.”

And, with its location in the same plaza with younger-skewing businesses like Peabody’s Billiards & Games, Crunch! Fitness and a variety of restaurants, Joe, Larry and Tony would seem to have a virtual hit on their hands. 

For more information, call (813) 374-4797. — GN

Hungry Crab Juicy Seafood To Open!

Although we still do not have confirmation as to exactly when it will open — the last we heard was late April, but we had no further updates at our press time — there’s no doubt that a lot of progress has been made at the Hungry Crab Juicy Seafood & Bar (photo above) which is getting close to moving into the former location of KobĂ© Japanese Steakhouse in the Pebble Creek Collection.

Keep checking back on our “Neighborhood News” Facebook page for the latest updates, but it looks like New Tampa will soon have a place featuring giant Alaskan king crab legs and other seafood favorites! — GN  

It’s Official: Vanzant Will Replace Tonelli

Long-time Wharton High boys basketball coach Tommy Tonelli (left) is stepping down and former Wharton star Shawn Vanzant (pictured here with daughter Lena) is taking over.  

Shawn Vanzant is coming home.

It took a little cajoling, but the former Wharton star and 2007 graduate has officially been named as the Wildcats next boys basketball coach.

“I’m very excited,” Vanzant told the Neighborhood News. “I can’t wait to get to Wharton and get a full head of steam going. I’m excited to get back home.“

Vanzant, 33, who has coached the boys team at Bloomingdale the past four seasons, will replace Tommy Tonelli, who announced that he was retiring from coaching after Wharton advanced to the Class 6A final four this past season for just the second time in school history.

Tonelli has always praised Vanzant’s coaching acumen, long predicting that his former player would someday become one of the top high school coaches in the area if a college job didn’t come along first.

“I couldn’t be more excited and proud that he will be the basketball coach at Wharton,” said Tonelli, who will continue in his role as a guidance counselor at the school.

It was a recent dinner with Tonelli, and a phone call with a former college teammate, that eventually persuaded Vanzant to take the job after he had declined previous overtures.

“Anybody who knows me knows I don’t like anything being given to me,” Vanzant says. “I felt like I’ve been building something great here at Bloomingdale, and Wharton was really what coach Tonelli had built. I wanted to do that same thing at Bloomingdale.”

But Matt Howard, a teammate at Butler where the duo helped lead the Bulldogs to consecutive NCAA championship games in 2010 and 2011, helped Vanzant look at it differently.

“He said, ‘I get what you are saying, but at the same time sustaining something that great is a big challenge,’” Vanzant said. “He helped me see the other side of it. Wharton’s never had a losing season. I’ve been a part of building that, and I know I can keep that going.”

Vanzant, who has known Tonelli since he was nine-years-old and would show up on weeknights and weekends at Wharton for pick-up games, coached Bloomingdale to a 3-21 record his first season as a head coach in 2018-19, but the team has averaged 14 wins over the last three seasons and went 17-12 — and won a District championship for the first time since 2016 — this past season.

Having played for two ultra-successful coaches in Tonelli and Butler’s Brad Stevens, Vanzant, who is married with two young daughters, says he has incorporated both men’s styles into his own.

“My coaching style is very similar,” he says. “Offense is easy, you compete and win on defense, and I expect you to compete at a very very high level. And you play for one another. It’s we over me, that’s something we always said at Butler.”

Vanzant acknowledges he has big shoes to fill.

Although no official records are kept, Tonelli is leaving the coaching ranks as the all-time wins leader for Hillsborough County public schools. Since building the program from scratch when Wharton opened in 1997, Tonelli never had a losing season and finished with 528 victories and just 137 losses in 23 seasons — for a sparkling .794 career winning percentage. 

Tonelli picked up his 500th win on Dec. 7 against Chamberlain. On Jan. 28, he won his 517th game against Vanzant’s Bloomingdale team, passing former Chamberlain legend Doug Aplin to take the “unofficial” No. 1  spot.

William Bethel, who coached at Middleton in the segregation era, was 551-88 in the Florida Interscholastic Athletic Association (at the time, the FHSAA of all-black schools). The Tampa Bay Basketball Coaches Association annually awards the William Bethel Award to the county coach who has gotten the most out of his team, an award Tonelli has won more than once.

Tonelli, 57, says the demands of coaching have made balancing two jobs too cumbersome and overwhelming. He had been contemplating retirement since last season, worn down by the demands and difficulties during the pandemic, but wanted to let the dust settle before deciding to actually retire. 

“I didn’t want the frustration caused by Covid to be something that chased me out of coaching,” Tonelli said. 

As it turns out, it wasn’t Covid.

It was just time.

When the dust did settle, it revealed one of Tonelli’s most successful seasons ever. The Wildcats were 28-3 and won the school’s 12th District title, its second Regional title and advanced to the Florida High School Athletic Association Class 6A finals, where it lost to eventual champion Stuart Martin County.

In typical Wharton fashion, the Wildcats overachieved this year and rode an opportunistic offense and gritty defense to a better finish than most expected. Tonelli called it a “dream season.” 

In perhaps Tonelli’s most impressive accomplishment, it marked the 17th straight season that the Wildcats won at least 20 games, a testament to his practice regimen and game preparation.

“Coach always had us prepared,” says forward Trevor Dyson. “We worked harder than almost everybody. We were always ready. Coach always made sure of that.”

Tonelli, a former Chicago high school star and University of South Florida point guard, says he still feels he has something to give as a coach, and said he would “never say never” to a return to the sidelines one day, if the right situation comes along.

“But right now, I’m done,” he says.


Happy Birthday, New Tampa Regional Library!

More than 25 years after being dedicated to our community, the New Tampa Regional Library is still the heart and one of the jewels of New Tampa. (Photo: Charmaine George)

Lisette May was so excited about a library being built near her Hunter’s Green home that she was the first one there the day the New Tampa Regional Library opened in May of 1997.

The library staff handed her a bouquet of flowers for being the library’s first-ever patron. She was accompanied by her then-5-year-old daughter Lindsey (6-year-old Lauren was in school that day), and Lisette remembers marveling at the modern design and layout, the view of the lake out back and the stuffed animals and bean bag chairs in the children’s area.

“There was a lot of anticipation,” says Lisette, who checked out a half dozen books, a movie on videotape and signed her daughters up for the summer reading programs while she was there. “It was very exciting for everyone. I remember thinking, wow, they did a really good job with this.”

On May 4, the New Tampa Regional Library (NTRL) turns 25 years old. Lisette still visits, impressed by all of the library’s new additions and offerings, and happily recollects her years taking her children to story times or just to sit and enjoy a book with them.

“I always felt like going to the library made you feel like you were part of a really great community,” Lisette says. “We would go and see our neighbors there; the kids would see their friends from school there. It was a great place to see your friends and educate your kids.”

The story of how the NTRL came to be is one of Said Iravani’s favorites. The longtime Heritage Isles resident  thinks about it almost every time he drives by the library on Cross Creek Blvd. — which, of course, is almost every day.

More than three decades ago, a group of Hunter’s Green and Tampa Palms residents, headed by a retired  librarian, put hundreds of hours into a grassroots movement, calling city and county officials and cajoling a local developer to donate the land, with the goal of building a 25,000-sq.-ft. state-of-the-art regional library that is arguably the heart of the New Tampa community and, while perhaps a little underappreciated, may be its greatest resource.

“It’s such a great story,” says Iravani, who has written a few of the pages himself as the former president of the Friends of the New Tampa Regional Library, a group dedicated to raising funds for programs and equipment the county’s budget does not cover.


Then-Hillsborough County Commissioner Jan Platt (left) and Friends of the New Tampa Library founding president Jeri Zelinski were on hand when the New Tampa Regional Library was dedicated. (Photo provided by Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library)

The first thing you may notice when you walk into the NTRL lobby is the Jeri Zelinski Community Room, which was dedicated to the library’s patron saint in 2004, two years after her passing.

Zelinski, the retired librarian and founding president of Friends of the Library, which was formed in 1990, is credited as being largely responsible for securing the library for New Tampa. 

With help from friends like Lorraine Clewis of the Tampa Palms Ladies Club, the New Tampa Community Council (led by then-president Frank Margarella) and others, Zelinski forged partnerships and soon began attending Tampa-Hillsborough Library Advisory Board and County Commission meetings. 

She developed a close alliance with then-County Commissioner Jan Platt, who helped push through a .10-mill property tax to pay for the library.

The Tampa Palms Ladies Club also played a big role in helping circulate petitions, and Zelinski did all she could to find a home for the library. It could have ended up in Tampa Palms, but its developer, Ken Good, only offered 1.6 acres of land, according to The Tampa Tribune, which was not enough for a regional library.

Clewis had to withdraw from the library effort due to family obligations, which could have been a big blow to the Friends. But, Zelinski continued to look for land, expanding her search to the Cross Creek and Pebble Creek areas.

Eventually, however, Zelinski contacted Markborough Florida, the developers of Hunter’s Green, and helped secure 3.6 acres just east of Hunter’s Green Elementary and west of the future Benito Middle School.

“Quite simply, there wouldn’t be a library without Jeri Zelinski,” says Iravani, who has fought against efforts to name the library after anyone other than Zelinski, and was active in efforts to begin an expansion project in 2008.That effort was tabled but is still under consideration.

The New Tampa Library ribbon cutting. (Photo provided by Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library)

On May 2, 1997, a black tie- optional gala was held at Tampa Palms Golf & Country Club to celebrate the opening of the library. The grand prize that night: two round-trip plane tickets to Lima, Peru.

Two days later, the New Tampa Regional Library opened its doors at 9 a.m.

Wendy Prasad, administrative librarian and the NTRL branch manager since 2017, says that despite changing reading habits and the effects of technology on libraries in general, the New Tampa Library is still going strong. 

Last year, more than 72,000 people visited the library, and it has consistently been one of the most popular libraries in the county’s system.

“There are so many things we provide the community,” she says, including a main reading room,  a separate children’s room, Grandma Claire’s Early Learning Hive, robust summer reading programs, meeting and study rooms, free WiFi and computer use and a wealth of online services. 

The library continues to be a place that can open up the world to newer and older generations.

When it first opened, this newspaper published stories about the videotapes, audio cassettes and compact discs that were available to check out. How times have changed — you can now check out a 4K video camera the size of a couple of packs of gum.

“We have definitely evolved,” Prasad says. “And I think you’ll see us continue to evolve.” 

The NTRL is located at 10001 Cross Creek Blvd. The Friends of the Library are hosting a Giant Book Sale at NTRL May 6-7. For more info, email FriendsofNewTampaLibrary@gmail.com. 

Another Starbucks for Wesley Chapel?

According to permitting requests filed with Pasco County, the Grove at Wesley Chapel has begun the process of adding a Starbucks to its ever-evolving footprint.

The new 2,566-sq.-ft. Starbucks will be constructed on the north side of Wesley Chapel Blvd. on the parcel of land immediately west of Brooklyn Bagel Water Co. and King of the Coop.

The new location of the iconic and omnipresent Seattle-based coffee chain is just 1.1 miles west of the Starbucks on S.R. 54.

According to our count, it will be Wesley Chapel’s fifth Starbucks location.

Celebrating More Than 25 Years Of Covering The New Tampa Regional Library!

Gary Nager Editorial

As indicated on page 8 of our current issue (in a story that will be be posted tomorrow), the New Tampa Regional Library (NTRL) on Cross Creek Blvd. is celebrating its 25th anniversary as one of the true jewels of the New Tampa community. The library officially opened to the public on May 4, 1997.

And, I’m more than proud to say, only one publication has covered every story about NTRL since not only the beginning, but also since the plans for the library were first announced more than two years earlier.

Plus, even though I didn’t write all of the stories about the NTRL myself throughout the years, I have been the proud owner and editor of that publication and have been the person responsible for editing every word of every one of those stories.

Our first story about the library was a small news item (to the left), from our June 1994 issue — almost three years before the library opened — about a 5K “Fun Run” whose $800 in proceeds would benefit the Friends of the Library, even though the library itself would not be approved by the Hillsborough County Library System and the County Commission until more than a year later.

We also were the first news medium to announce that the bidding process to build the 25,000-sq.-ft. regional library on 3.6 acres of land donated by Markbrough Florida (the developer of Hunter’s Green) in Aug. 1995, when the expected completion date for the NTRL was announced as the fall of 1996.

In fact, we published no fewer than a dozen articles about the library between that first 5K Fun Run news item and the actual ribbon cutting and opening of the library to the public in May of 1997 (see below).

Unfortunately, we have no electronic records of those early years (I believe the first electronic versions of our issues weren’t kept until about 2002, but even those were saved on hard drives that are no longer compatible with any computer program still in use today), so the pictures of the news stories shown on this page are actual iPhone camera pics of the print issues where those stories appeared.

If anyone knows someone interested in creating electronic archives (and a directory) of all of our issues since April of 1994 on our behalf, it’s a service I would gladly pay for, so I can avoid having to take fuzzy pics of our issues for future historic pieces.

Please email me at ads@NTNeighborhoodNews.com if you or someone you know would be interested in providing this service.