(Below Left) AdventHealth Wesley Chapel (AHWC) Chaplain Danny Sierra welcomes new president & CEO Ryan Quattlebaum and his family — (l.-r.) his wife Cristina and daughters Emily and Sophia — back to AHWC during a packed (bottom left) meet & greet event at the hospital on Jan. 29. Quattlebaum has replaced former AHWC president & CEO Erik Wangsness, who left to take the same job at AdventHealth Tampa. (All photos by Charmaine George)
When Chaplain Danny Sierra — who has been with AdventHealth Wesley Chapel since it opened on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. as “Florida Hospital” — introduced the hospital’s new president & chief executive officer (CEO) Ryan Quattlebaum at a meet & greet event on Jan. 29, he was trying to figure out how best to re-introduce more than 100 guests to the hospital’s former chief financial officer (CFO).
“I thought about the Bible story of the prodigal son, but then I thought, ‘Maybe not, because he wished his father not well and there are kids here.’”
Instead, Chaplain Danny went with Philippians Chapter 4, Verse 4: “Rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say, rejoice.”
To which he added, “And, we rejoice that Ryan is back with us. And let us pray more. Lord, thank you for this special homecoming of your son, his wife and his children. You knew them before they were conceived. You numbered the hairs on each one of their heads, and you brought them back to us. And, as a campus with all our friends, we rejoice of this man.”
Quattlebaum, who served as the CFO at AHWC from 2020-22, left to become the president and CEO of AdventHealth North Pinellas in Tarpon Springs, but returned to AHWC when Erik Wangsness left to take the same position at AdventHealth Tampa. He thanked Chaplain Danny and said he was thrilled to be “back home.”
First, Quattlebaum thanked the elected officials who attended the event, including Dist. 20 State Senator Danny Burgess and Pasco County commissioners Ron Oakley and Jack Mariano. He also thanked the AHWC Foundation and hospital Board members, as well as the doctors, nurses and staff members in attendance.
“I’m beyond blessed to be able to be here with each one of you,” Quattlebaum said. “And to be welcomed back. My youngest daughter Emily was born here at this hospital, so I am blessed to be back. My first job in a hospital was in the dish room when I was in high school. So, my roots in Advent Hospitals go way back and this is where my heart is.”
Quattlebaum also said that he, “ultimately wants to make sure that everyone’s family member gets treated like how our families are treated and I firmly believe that we do this together. So, there’s a whole team of people here as well that’s made that work happen. So I want to acknowledge and say thank you to all of them for this important work.”
And finally, Quattlebaum said, “What I really care about is people. And Christ’s Healing Ministry was really about people, and this is representative of what our community truly looks like.” He then gave everyone in attendance his cell phone number.
For more information about AdventHealth Wesley Chapel (2600 BBD Blvd.), call (813) 929-5000, visit AdventHealth.com. — GN
Photos of the construction of the new Tesla dealership (above) & Verve Wesley Chapel apartments (below right) by Joel Provenzano.
Local Tesla owners, both current and future, will soon have reason to celebrate. There are two new developments taking shape alongside I-75 in Seven Oaks, just south of the S.R. 54 exit, across Eagleston Blvd. from the existing Blue Heron Senior Living facility (see map below).
Tesla, the electric vehicle (EV) powerhouse, recently poured the future dealership’s concrete foundation (photo, above) for a new one story building, which should be a little over 50,000 sq. ft. total on about eight acres. According to the description in Tesla’s permit, the new dealership will include a service center for electric automobiles, a showroom area, a customer lounge, a break room and office space.”
The service area is slated to be about 41,000 sq. ft., which is downright huge for any dealership (with more than 50 service bays), leaving just 9,000 sq. ft. for all of the other functions. There will be 20 charging station parking spaces behind the building (of which half appear to be super chargers), and close to another 530 parking spaces onsite for inventory and customers’ vehicles.
From what we’ve been told, Tesla might still get an offsite lot for additional inventory, depending upon how busy the dealership will be. Based on the number of Teslas already cruising around our area, the dealership could be one of the busiest in Wesley Chapel.
According to a local Tesla sales representative, the dealership is slated to open by the end of this year. For those unfamiliar, these relatively new dealerships and the whole Tesla sales experience are very different from most other vehicle brands.
How It Used To Work
I still remember the very first time I rode in a new Tesla. Many years ago, a Tesla sales person came to my office at the time, in a silver ‘Model S’ P100D sedan. What a great-looking car it was, super clean and very modern. It also was the first time I had ever seen an almost all-white interior.
Me and three of my coworkers piled in, with the sales person at the wheel, pulling out of our parking lot and onto the local street. He pulled slightly over to the side of the road, went to the drive settings on the touch screen, and went for a button labeled “ludicrous.”
In my head I was thinking, “Why would anyone label a drive mode that way?” He hit the accelerator and we all found out really quickly how appropriate that name actually was!
The map is from Collier Companies, modified by Neighborhood News.
The instant torque from the electric motor was nothing like I’d experienced before, as both my stomach and my brain were being relentlessly pushed into the seat back until he let off at 80 miles per hour, all of us finally able to take a deep breath after what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was less than 4 seconds.
I had raced motorcycles when I was younger at the local drag strip, but this sedan was faster than that! “What a great way to sell cars!,” I thought. The point of these early demos was to give potential customers more than just a glimpse of these EVs. The idea was to allow you to experience the difference between Tesla and vehicles by any other automaker.
Back in those days, and for a few years after, the demos were the only way to appreciate a Tesla first hand, unless you knew someone who drove one. You could either book an appointment and drive to a small sales office (if you could even call it that) in some back lot of a corporate park, or if it was being demoed to enough people, the sales people would bring it to your group’s location, as they did in my case.
But, you couldn’t buy the demo vehicle you tested, as the sales were online only, with a set, no-haggle price. And, in many cases, a deposit was required to secure your place in line to even begin to ‘order’ more popular or upcoming models.
Even with the new dealerships, however, not much of that sales philosophy has changed, and the Tesla brand takes great pride in its unique way of selling its vehicles.
How It Works Now
Tesla sales are still technically online, which means you still can’t test drive the exact vehicle you want to buy. The vehicles are still sold at a set price, with no haggling, and a $250 ordering deposit is required to secure the specific vehicle you want to buy, although the deposit may be less depending upon the model.
We were told that the vehicle you choose gets removed from the “available inventory” when the deposit is received, or if the deposit is for an upcoming or brand new model, it secures your place in the ordering queue.
While this may be counterintuitive to the traditional dealership models people are used to, most customers have raved about the simplicity of the process in their Google reviews.
From what we read in the reviews, and speaking with two different Tesla sales associates, one in the national online/call-in sales office and the other a local (Westshore) sales person we spoke with by text, we got some further clarity.
The in-person sales associates at the dealership are there to help answer questions (they were good at answering all of mine), review vehicle inventory that may be available locally, help customers place their online order to get an inventory vehicle or a custom-ordered vehicle from the factory, provide and schedule test drives in their demo vehicles, and help customers take delivery of their vehicles when they arrive at the dealership (or if they’re already present in inventory), including providing any remaining paperwork that needs to be signed.
The sales associates clarified that if a vehicle is in local inventory, that vehicle is assigned to one of the physical Tesla sales offices (or dealerships), and you would have to pick up the vehicle from that specific office when purchased, explaining that inventory vehicles cannot be transferred or shipped to other dealerships or offices for pickup — which can occur within three days for inventory vehicles.
If purchasing a custom-ordered vehicle from the factory, you can specify exactly which Tesla location you want your vehicle delivered to in the app.
One thing I’ve always heard is that Tesla can deliver to your door like Amazon, but there’s a caveat to that. The company does deliver to homes through a service called “Carrier Direct” but the Tesla website states, “This fee-based option is available for customers who prefer to have their vehicle delivered, and who live more than 220 miles from the nearest Tesla delivery location.” So basically, this service isn’t available anywhere near Tampa Bay, as the national sales rep confirmed.
That rep also said that Tesla does take trade-ins. It’s all done over the app at the time of purchase and there’s never an in-person inspection required. They’ll give you a “take it or leave it” price quote for the trade (again, no haggling), and the rep stated that their prices are very competitive with other similar services like Carmax or Carvana. They even encouraged getting quotes from one or both of those services in advance to know whose would be the best.
Do People Like The Tesla Dealerships?
This is not the first full-size Tesla dealership to be built in the Tampa Bay area. The first is in North Tampa, on N. Florida Ave., near the intersection with W. Fowler Ave. The location was the former Bob Wilson, Jeep-Chrysler-Dodge that had sat vacant for years. The site already had a parking garage, so Tesla just built a new dealership building on the site in 2018, opening its doors shortly after.
Currently, there are mixed reviews of the existing Tampa dealership; the positives were mostly those absolutely praising the super simple Tesla purchasing and delivery process, along with staff’s ability to answer questions.
But, the negatives were mostly about how others have found that the service department was severely lacking, in both the availability of needed parts and installing them, communication with/and scheduling of customers, the exorbitant cost of non-warrantied issues and the overall quality of the services performed.
We’ll see soon enough how this new Wesley Chapel location will stack up.
Urbon Apartments Now Have Verve
The Verve Wesley Chapel luxury apartment complex, formerly known as Urbon at Seven Oaks, is quickly taking shape (right photo) adjacent to I-75, just south of the under-construction Tesla Dealership, directly across the street from Blue Heron Senior Living.
Verve is a little further ahead of Tesla, with the buildings now going vertical, and with the bare concrete elevator shafts looming like ancient monoliths next to I-75.
The apartments are being developed by The Collier Companies, which on its website describes itself as, “a multifamily housing management and real estate development company based in Gainesville, FL, [with] 12,000 apartment homes & growing.”
Collier’s Tampa Bay-area portfolio is situated around USF and includes traditional apartment housing called Lakeview Oaks Apartments on N. 37th St, and two student-specific apartment complexes called Reflections Apartments on E. Bearss Ave. and IQ Luxury Apartments (built in 2016), which are on Bruce B. Downs Blvd., immediately south of the Haley Veterans Administration Hospital.
The website for Verve Wesley Chapel doesn’t have much information, but it does currently state, “We don’t just rent apartments. From the moment you walk through the front door, you’ll feel the comfort that makes our residents happy to call us home. Cutting-edge amenities, meticulously-groomed grounds and a dedicated staff contribute to a higher standard of living. Convenient shopping, award-winning schools, local museums and parks are all close at hand, with sponsored activities to develop new hobbies while getting to know your neighbors.”
The complex will be a fairly large one, situated on 16.8 acres and consisting of six 4-story buildings with 360 apartments total — including 144 1-bedroom, 168 2-bedroom, and 48 3-bedroom units. The center of the complex will be situated around a large swimming pool, with an unobstructed pond view towards the sunsets. Other amenities and features, like elevators, a gym, meeting spaces, large common areas, and 30 rentable 1-car garages will be similar to other newer, high-end apartments in the Wesley Chapel area. Verve is expected to open sometime later this year; we did not have information at our press time about what the rents might be.
Although not everyone is happy about yet another chicken-driven restaurant opening in Wesley Chapel — with Raising Cane’s,Dave’s Hot Chicken, Chicken Guy! and Hangry Joe’s Hot Chicken all opening in our area within a few months of each other — Chick-fil-A may be the one chicken restaurant that most locals still embrace.
Chick-fil-A — which is currently the third most popular fast food restaurant by sales, behind McDonald’s and Starbucks (in that order) — has now gone vertical (photo) on the east side of Curley Rd. (north of Curley’s intersection with Overpass Rd.; see map) across from the Epperson community, within the Watergrass Master Planned Unit Development. Most of the building’s shell is now in place.
This new sign announcing Chick-fil-A’s latest Wesley Chapel-area location gained quite a bit of attention on social media, as Patricia Elizabeth, who has previously described herself on Facebook as the marketing director for “Chick-fil-A Wesley Chapel,” was quick to step into the conversation and give everyone the link to the store’s new Facebook page (created on Jan. 31) and explained that it would be, “Owned and operated locally by the same owner as Chick-fil-A Wesley Chapel” — the one on S.R. 54 just east of Bruce B. Downs Blvd., on S.R. 56, not the location in front of the Tampa Premium Outlets, as some may have been thinking.
The new Chick-fil-A will be located five miles away, on a 1.9-acre lot appraised at more than $1.28 million.
According to Patricia, despite being located in Watergrass, the new store is being called “Chick-fil-A Epperson Ranch FL,” because it was named by corporate. However, she assures everyone that, “We are happy to be a part of both neighborhoods!” She also announced that this Chick-fil-A should be open by the end of May. — JP
Managing partner Abby Fletcher says that Bubba’s 33’s menu hasn’t changed much since the Texas Roadhouse-owned sports grill first opened on the south side of S.R. 56 back in early 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic began.
“The fact that we’ve only made minor tweaks to the menu since the restaurant first started (in Fayetteville, NC, back in 2013) means that we’re doing just fine,” Abby says. “We now have about 50 locations and everyone seems to love that our food is almost all made from scratch, unlike most sports bars.”
It’s hard for me to believe that the Wesley Chapel Bubba’s 33 has been open for five full years, but considering that we hosted our “car karaoke” and “parking lot karaoke” events outside of the restaurant during the pandemic — and the fact it is still here and still attracting new customers — is clear indication that the Wesley Chapel Bubba’s 33 is doing just fine, thank you!
And, just because the menu hasn’t changed too much over the years, that doesn’t mean that Bubba’s 33 doesn’t keep adding new items. It just means that most of the original menu also is still around and making local diners happy.
So, What Is New?
Bubba’s 33 is famous for its wings, unique, crisp-crust pizzas, burgers and other sports bar fare, but if you haven’t tried the grilled or espresso-rubbed signature ribeye steaks, they’ve been made even better by adding one of the three new “Bubba Style” toppings — with either bacon and bleu cheese sauce, or with queso, peppers and onions, or with sautéed mushrooms and onions, as shown in the top photo on this page. I’m not really a big mushroom fan myself, but the mushroom and onion sauté adds a great, buttery flavor, as well as additional tenderness, to an already tender ribeye. My first time trying the grilled ribeye with this topping definitely left me wanting more. The menu also shows the already-tasty Southern Fried Chicken dinner with the queso “Bubba Style” topping, which looks pretty great, too.
As for what else is new, Bubba’s 33 already has had layered cheese fries as an appetizer on its menu, which have not only melted cheese and bacon, but also queso and green onions. But now, when you get a side of French fries or tater tots, you can get them topped with cheddar and Jack cheeses and bacon (as shown in the photo, left).
The only other new menu additions are the three new Bubba’s “Mocktails” (below right) — which can not be ordered with alcohol (I know because we asked, lol). Left to right in the photo are the Sparkling Berry Bliss, the “coconutty” Tropical Breeze and the Strawberry Cucumber Fizz. Even though “Dry January” may have ended, if you’re trying to continue to at least reduce your alcohol intake, give one or all three of these a try.
Another item that isn’t actually new to the menu but which we tried for the first time is the cheesy spinach dip shown above right on this page. As someone who finds most spinach (or spinach and artichoke) dips too heavy, this Bubba’s 33 spinach dip is a creamy welcome change — especially because it’s served with freshly baked (and grilled) garlic focaccia bread. Charmaine and Jannah both preferred it with the house-made tortilla chips and fresh salsa — Jannah called the salsa “legit” — but the focaccia is excellent, too.
Other favorites of ours include the Bubba’s Bacon Cheeseburger (left), one of ten burgers on the menu (which also includes a black bean & quinoa veggie burger), and the Meaty Meaty Pizza (below left), which features bacon, homemade Italian sausage, pepperoni and scratch-made tomato sauce. I told Abby that I enjoy Bubba’s pizzas even though they are not truly New York-style, because the sauce, cheese and always-crispy crust are still mighty tasty.
One dish I can’t sample but has become Charmaine’s new favorite at Bubba’s is the creamy chipotle pasta, which combines corkscrew-shaped pasta, grilled chicken, sautéed shrimp, roasted peppers, onions and mushrooms, all tossed in a semi-spicy chipotle cream sauce and topped with cilantro and parmesan cheese. It’s also served with garlic focaccia bread.
And, Jannah and I still enjoy the Bubba’s lasagna, the Chicken & Bacon Mac & Cheese, the California Chicken (grilled chicken breast topped with avocado, pico de gallo, Jack cheese and scratch-made honey lime sauce, which we order on the side, over garden rice), the Southern Fried Chicken and Fish & Chips (Atlantic cod golden-fried in Sam Adams Boston Lager batter).
Popular appetizers at Bubba’s 33 include the “Big O’Rings,” the Crispy Fried Pickles, Crooked Fried Cheese, Bubba’s Nachos and Chorizo Queso Dip. There’s also a Combo Appetizer featuring boneless wings with your choice of sauce, the crooked fried cheese and fried pickles served with a trio of sauces.
And of course, Bubba’s offers nine different sauces for its traditional (bone-in) and boneless wings, from hot or mild Buffalo-style to “Kickin’ Teriyaki,” Garlic Parmesan and Cajun spice rub, plus unique options like Habañero Heat, the hot- &-sweet “Shotgun” and Raspberry Chipotle.
For dessert, the chocolate chip cookie and Oreo® brownie (bottom picture) sundaes are both great, as is the Bubba’s cheesecake, especially the “Turtle” style (topped with fudge and caramel). The cheesecake also is offered “plain,” with strawberries and whipped cream, but why bother? (Just kidding!)
The Bubba’s 33 Kids’ Menu ($5.99-$7.99) includes everything from a mini-pizza to a Kids’ Mac & Cheese or Grilled Cheese and many more.
Entertainment, Specials & More
Like most sports bars, Bubba’s 33 has lots of TVs all around the place, but it also usually shows rock and other music videos on some of the screens. And, pretty much every day has either a different food or entertainment special — or both.
For example, there are Burger Mondays, which features all burgers on the menu for just $10.99. Mondays also are “Ditch the Digital” days where you earn a free dessert or appetizer for your next visit if you put your electronics in a pizza box and don’t open the box for the entire meal.
On Tuesdays, any 12” pizza on the menu is just $12.99. The always-fun “Music Bingo” game also is played in the bar area on Tues., between 7 p.m.-9 p.m., with prizes awarded for each round.
Wednesday is “Kids Day,” when up to two kids eat for just $0.99 with each adult entrée purchased. Abby says there also usually is a “craft” for kids every Wed. and “Magic Mike” (not the one you’re imagining) performs magic for kids and twists balloon animals some Wednesdays. And, Thursday is Trivia Night, starting at 7 p.m.
Bubba’s 33 also has a “Fan Club” rewards program which includes news and special offers an can earn you FREE food. The restaurant also supports the late Jim Valvano’s “V Foundation” with $1 donated for each “Dickie V” pizza (named for sportscaster and Tampa Bay local Dick Vitale, a close friend of the former North Carolina State coach) sold. Valvano lost his battle with cancer in 1993. Bubba’s 33 also donates $1 for every Patriot Burger sold to Homes For Our Troops, which has provided multiple homes for veterans in Wesley Chapel.
Abby says if you want your food delivered, it’s “always better to order it direct at Bubbas33.com, which has a flat $5.50 delivery charge and no added fees or higher menu prices.”
Bubba’s 33 (26340 Silver Maple Pkwy.) is open every day for lunch and dinner. For more info, call (813) 522-5090, visit Bubbas33.com or see the ad below for this month’s FREE appetizer (with entrée purchase) coupon special.
On a beautiful Valentine’s Day, February 14, 23 couples were joined in holy matrimony by Pasco Clerk of the Court & Comptroller Nikki Alvarez-Sowles (photo), in front of the historic courthouse building in Dade City. This is the 17th year Pasco has held a Valentine’s Day Wedding Ceremony, which has previously helped more than 300 couples tie the knot.
There were two couples listed with Wesley Chapel addresses:
