Joe Schembri scoops some cookie butter ice cream onto a waffle cone. Schembri spent a year developing his ice cream flavors before opening his first store, and the results have made his Ice Dreammm Shop our readersâ favorite dessert place in Wesley Chapel.
Joe Schembri knows people love the ice cream he makes at his popular Ice Dreammm Shop at The Grove.
But sometimes, he can be surprised, overwhelmed and humbled at just how much the locals love it.
Last week, Schembri received an order from a long-time customer of his original store in Lutz. It was for the customerâs mother-in-law, who was going into hospice. One of her last requests was a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and a scoop of coffee ice cream. The next morning, at 10 a.m., the order was picked up.
Famous for its ice cream, but it has added other dessert favorites like brownies and pies.
It was a surreal moment, one that had Schembri catching his breath.
âI mean, you always want to see customers love what you sell,â he said. âBut this, this was crazy. Crazy.â
Schembriâs Lutz location already was among the top choices for best dessert in or near Wesley Chapel, but adding to his legion of fans by opening a Wesley Chapel location has launched him to No. 1 â a runaway victory.
Made with the best, all-natural ingredients he can find, the flavors he spent a year perfecting in his garage before opening his first location continue to satisfy, and Schembri continues to concoct new delights.
He says his Cookies & Dream flavor is the best seller, and the Cookie Butter is coming on fast. And, donât miss out on the seasonal Santaâs Cookies and Milk, Sweet Potato Pie and even Coquito ice cream, as well as a dozen other creamy delights, with many new flavors swapped in weekly, and you can even have them made into amazing ice cream pies (below).
And, speaking of new flavors, Schembri has, as he promised when the Wesley Chapel shop opened, added a variety of new baked goods, including fudge brownies, triple-layer peanut butter brownies and more. â JCC
2. TWISTEE TREAT 5258 Village Market (321) 445-9103 TwisteeTreat.com
Sometimes, you may be in the mood for something other than sitting inside and enjoying a rich, fancy exotically-flavored helping of ice cream. And, when you just want some soft-serve ice cream, Twistee Treat is a super-popular choice.
You can get your ice cream on a waffle taco, brownie boat, between two cookies or as part of a sundae or banana split. But, the most traditional way Twistee Treat serves up its 25 or so flavors might be its most popular â through a drive-thru window on the side of its unmistakable ice-cream-cone-shaped building, twirled on top of a cone of your choice.
And since your car will probably be full of kids, donât forget to ask for extra napkins! â JCC
Since opening at the Shops at Wiregrass in 2017, Nothing Bundt Cakes has been a consistent top choice for favorite dessert.
In 2018, it was voted as the areaâs No. 1 Favorite Dessert, and the last three years, including 2021, it has finished in the Top 3 of Wesley Chapel faves.
And why not?
While it doesnât offer a crazy variety of cakes, this national chain with more than 400 bakeries across the U.S. has mastered its products, which are, hands down, the moistest cakes youâll find anywhere. You can choose between 10 flavors in different sizes â bite-sized bundtinis, mini bundtlets or special order full-sized bundt cakes â and theyâre always a perfect treat to bring to any holiday party. â JCC
The rest of the 2021 Dessert top 10: (4) Crumbl Cookies (5) Culverâs (6) Dairy Queen (7) 365 Cafe Italiano (8) Menchieâs (9) Dunkin (10) Starbucks
Congratulations go out to my wife Jannah and her daughter Lauren Cione, who together put on a successful first charity golf fund raiser that raised about $7,000 for the new RADDSports Charity, Inc., a 501(c)(3) registered nonprofit charitable organization. The new charity will provide scholarships to young athletes who couldnât otherwise afford to participate in the sports programs at the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County.
The golf tournament was held at the recently revamped Lexington Oaks Golf Club on Dec. 6 and was blessed with more than 70 golfers, wonderful auction prizes, a bag lunch and a delicious Italian buffet dinner created and served by Lexington Oaks owner Anass El-Omari, his wife Susana Herrera and the golf club staff.
RADDSports president and CEO Richard Blalock told the golfers about the reason why he and the management of RADDSports wanted to start the nonprofit and Anass gave some pre-tournament instructions.
Several of the tournamentâs sponsors, including the Champion Sponsor, the Residence Inn Tampa-Wesley Chapel, Heineken and JJ Taylor provided on-course adult beverages.
What a great day! â Gary Nager; photos by Charmaine George & Morgan Conlin
When you visit LĂŒfka Refillables Zero Waste Store on S.R. 56 in Wesley Chapel, youâll meet co-owner Gail Sickler, herbalist Megan Davis and co-owner Danielle Howard. (Photos by Charmaine George)
LĂŒfka Refillables Zero Waste Store, a new store specializing in natural, chemical-free, refillable, zero-waste products, is more than just a business for owner Danielle Howard.
Itâs a way of life.
After growing up with a number of maladies, Danielle says she set out on a journey to find a way to live cleanly. That led to her owning two Salt Room businesses â one in Wesley Chapel and the other at the Sarah Vande Berg Tennis & Wellness Center in Zephyrhills â and now LĂŒfka Refillables Zero Waste Store, which is located on S.R. 56 in Wesley Chapel, a few doors down from Capital Tacos.
While Danielle says The Salt Room Wesley Chapel and the Salt Room at SVB specialize in halotherapy, which involves breathing salty air in order to help respiratory conditions like asthma, bronchitis and allergies, LĂŒfka Refillables Zero Waste Store takes a more expansive approach to the benefits and solutions of keeping oneâs body and home environment clean.
âI can help them from the inside out,â Danielle says. âLĂŒfka helps their cleaning, and their laundry, and all the stuff they put on their bodies. This is for people who want to make a difference and are also conscious of what those chemicals are doing.â
Whether itâs better choices for toothpaste, hand-crafted soaps, deodorant or laundry detergent, skin and after-shave lotions and even cleaning sprays, she says, LĂŒfka offers the healthiest options made with the best ingredients.
And, while they can help make you healthier, they help the environment as well. Most LĂŒfka products come in glass containers, and you are encouraged to bring them back to have them refilled. Customers also are encouraged to bring containers of their own.
Itâs no accident that when you first walk in the store, a table of both air and body sprays is one of the first things you see. Room deodorants are one of the biggest offenders when it comes to containing hazardous toxins, so Danielle and her co-owner and mom Gail Sickler are quick to point out safer alternatives that arenât afraid to show exactly what they are made of to customers.
The five glass jugs of spray deodorants â Autumn Wood, Vanilla Bean Spice, Cranberry Orange Spice, Pumpkin Apple Butter, and Lavender & Tonka â all have labels listing all of their ingredients.
âThis is the perfect example of our products,â Gail says. âYou can use them to spray the room you are in, spray bedding if you are having guests over or, if you like it, you can use it as your body spray for the day. Just spray and walk through and it can land on your skin and doesnât hurt anything because thereâs nothing in there to hurt you.â
While perhaps more expensive than what you would get at a major store, Danielle says the products are worth every penny.
âIf you do some research on a good, organic, clean, multi-functional spray, youâre looking at anywhere from $20-$40, and people will pay that,â she says. But, if youâre looking primarily for the cheapest stuff â say Glade Spray Air Fresheners that might be BOGO at Publix â Danielle says, âWell, we canât help you. We can just let you know that this is something completely different.â
How It All Got Started
LĂŒfka Wesley Chapel is only the third LĂŒfka Refillables Zero Waste store in the Tampa Bay area.
The concept was originally hatched by Kelly and Parosh Hawaii, who opened the original LĂŒfka in Seminole Heights in 2019, and a second store in South Tampa in November 2020.
Danielle was turned on to the store by a friend, and immediately fell in love with it. She recommended it to all of her clients at her Salt Rooms. The clients raved about the products, and in turn raved about Danielle, who was helping them at the Salt Rooms, to Kelly and Parosh.
While they had thought of franchising before deciding against it, Kelly and Parosh liked Danielle enough â practically vetting her via all the clients she sent to their store â to suggest she open her own LĂŒfka store.
âParosh told me he had been watching me, and saw that I was changing lives, and said he wanted me to open a place in Wesley Chapel,â says Danielle, who just happened to be thinking about opening another retail business at the time. âI started looking for places the second I left there.â
Danielle asked her mother if she wanted to be her partner and, in September, LĂŒfka Wesley Chapel held its North Tampa Bay Chamber ribbon cutting.
âWe love it and it goes with everything we do,â Danielle says. âI really felt like Wesley Chapel needed this.â
Whatâs In A Name?
So, what is a LĂŒfka? A wash cloth, which is handmade in the Kurdistan region of Iraq and has been around for thousands of years. Parosh is passionate about sharing ancient handmade Kurdish products with the world, hence the name of the store.
The women who weave the LĂŒfkas from Babylonian willow bark fibers receive all the proceeds from their sales at LĂŒfka Refillables Zero Waste Store.
A LĂŒfka looks like a kitchen mitten, but serves as a wash cloth and can be opened so you can wash your back. Not only does it clean, but it also exfoliates the skin. Danielle says her skin is âas soft as a babyâs buttâ when sheâs done with hers, and Gail says the same.
Danielle takes the education part of her job seriously. While the average person is likely to think all natural products are more expensive and less effective, LĂŒfka has hundreds of products that work just as well as their chemical-filled counterparts and are priced competitively, according to Danielle.
You arenât just choosing with your wallet, however. The laundry detergents at LĂŒfka, for example, have just a handful of chemical-free ingredients, compared to the 200 or so ingredients, mostly chemicals, in regular detergents.
The same goes for LĂŒfkaâs regular soaps and shampoos, toothpaste, body and facial lotions and deodorant.
âThere are so many chemicals that you put on your body for the whole day, and your skin absorbs all of it,â Danielle says. âEverything in here is better for you than what you are probably using, and itâs better for the environment, too.â
For people with autoimmune diseases and sensitive skin and/or sense of smell, the distinction between LĂŒfka products and those that arenât chemical- and toxin-free is significant.
While deodorant is the storeâs best seller, pet products also are very popular. Pet soap is a big one, due to skin issues, as well as other products, such as food-grade diatomaceous earth, which is a safe alternative to anti-flea products, which are some of the most toxin-filled products on the market.
Gail says local hikers come in to purchase the toxin-free bug spray (which lacks the chemicals that give regular bug spray its stickiness) and there is all-natural sunscreen as well as the ingredients needed (like apple cider vinegar, olive oil and vegetable glycerin) for those who want to make their own cleaners and soaps.
Megan Davis is LĂŒfkaâs herbalist, and can help explain the uses and combinations of the herbs and other ingredients that line one wall of the store â like combining the bladderwrack and sea moss into an apple sauce-like paste that can be consumed and contains 102 trace minerals that your body needs.
However, no one at LĂŒfka is able to provide medical advice, and they do not sell food, although they might recommend some spirulina or turmeric for your morning smoothie.
Danielle hopes to send customers out on the same journey she is on â to eliminate the chemicals her body is ingesting in regular daily products.
There is some trial and error, she says, and everyone is different. But, for many of the things that ail you, like sores or rashes or just malaise, there might be a healthy option to solve it.
âIt can change your life,â Danielle says. âIt has definitely changed mine.â
For more information, look up @LĂŒfkaWesleyChapel on Facebook, where you can find specials, candle-making classes and even private shopping events if youâre interested in transitioning to healthier products. LĂŒfka Refillables Zero Waste Store is located at 27221 S.R. 56. and is open Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on Saturday and it is closed on Sunday and Monday. To find out more, call (813) 596-9376 or visit LĂŒfka.com.
It may look like a tunnel for an MRI, but at Life Guard Imaging on Rocky Point, you slide through the Philips Brilliance CT Scanner, which scans your body from your shoulders to the base of your torso. (Photos by Charmaine George)Â
Beating cancer or heart disease can be an uphill battle.
However, Frankie Maldonado says he can help give you a fighting chance.
The solution, he says â donât wait until the hill is too large to climb.
At Life Guard Imaging, where Maldonado is the director of operations, you can get out in front of deadly cancers and other diseases by having a body scan that can identify potential problems with your heart, as well as identify early stages of many different cancers that may be lurking.
The upscale facility, located on Rocky Point Dr. in Tampa, specializes in preventive screening in order to find heart disease or cancer early enough that patients and their physicians can take steps to correct it. Otherwise, most find out the hard and sudden way â with a heart attack that can be deadly or with symptoms that may not present themselves until late-stage cancer.
âUnited States healthcare is set up to be reactionary,â says Maldonado, who opened Life Guard Imaging in August. âWe are taught from the time we are (little) to tell me when you have a symptom, and weâll treat the symptom. Thatâs bad enough when itâs a cold, the flu or a virus. But, when itâs heart disease or cancer? Thatâs deadly.â
At Life Guard Imaging, you are scanned from your shoulders to the base of your pelvis. A registered CT Technologist slides you through a low-radiation, high-resolution CT scanner, creating 3D images of your internal organs, which are then examined by a team of Board-certified Doctors of Radiology who can help aid in detecting deadly diseases before itâs too late.
The scans can help detect hundreds of issues, but among the most prominent are lung cancer (which kills more men and women than any other cancer), liver disease (which accounts for 2 million deaths per year) and abnormalities in your chest, abdomen or pelvis. The scans also can serve as a virtual colonoscopy that Life Guard Imaging says is more thorough (and less invasive) than a traditional colonoscopy, although most doctors still recommend traditional colonoscopies, even with the scan.
Authorâs note: I received a scan â super easy by the way, it only takes five minutes â and while happy it detected no cancer, it did confirm other issues Iâll need to take care of as well as providing a coronary calcium score (almost identical to the one I received from my cardiologist).
Maldonado says your first scan serves as your base, and yearly scans can reveal any dangerous changes (although youâre welcome to come in for just one scan if you choose).
Life Guard Imaging is one of only five places nationwide that offer this type of program, where you can receive a full body scan every year.
âOne scan is invaluable,â Maldonado says, âbut multiple scans are the ones capturing things (as they change).â
Why does a yearly scan make sense? Maldonado says it is an effective way to detect new diseases.
âItâs just like having a mammogram scan every year,â he says. âThe single-most diagnosed cancer in America is breast cancer. And yet, and most people donât know this, the single most-survived cancer in American is breast cancer. Thatâs not a coincidence â itâs because of early detection scans, before symptoms appear, before any lump gets massive. Itâs about catching it early.â
Frank Maldonado (Director of Operations) and Amy Maldonado (Administrative Director)
Maldonado has spent most of his career in the travel industry, but when a friend introduced him to a job opening at a facility in Atlanta that used the same body scanning technology, he was eager to make the jump.
A Personal Connection
For Maldonado, it also was personal.
His father, Dr. Benjamin J. Maldonado, Jr., was a prominent surgeon in Maryland. In January 1998, he felt there was something wrong in his stomach. He was scanned, but the technology then had gaps in the scans. In one of those gaps, on the backside tail of his pancreas, cancer had settled in.
âThey missed it,â Maldonado says, and 10 months later his father was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Just six weeks and a few days after that, he passed away.
âIt devastated me,â Maldonado says. âHe was my hero.â
Dr. Maldonadoâs portrait hangs in the lobby of Life Guard Imaging, a daily reminder to his son that early detection can save lives, as well a world of sadness for those left behind.
While Frankie Maldonado has no medical training himself â he graduated from the University of Maryland in College Park with a degree in television broadcasting â the chance to help save lives and honor his dadâs memory made taking the job at the independent imaging facility in Atlanta in 2017 an easy choice.
âIt was the biggest no-brainer of my life, he says. âI said, âI want to be a part of this.â What we were doing in Atlanta literally had to do with how my father lost his life.â
In fact, Maldonado says that, in 2018, one of the patients scanned at the facility was discovered to have early-stage pancreatic cancer, the same cancer that killed his father, but she was able to be saved. In Atlanta, he says he saw thousands of lives that were saved, and he decided to start Life Guard Imaging and bring it to Tampa. He plans to open 1-3 new facilities in Florida and around the country every single year.
âI thought that more people need to know about this,â he says. He is spreading the word through advertising, an appearance on the BloomTV show on WFLA, and we met him at Life Guard Imagingâs booth at a health fair at the Tampa Premium Outlets.
Since Life Guard Imaging opened in August, more than 330 scans have been conducted. Maldonado tells the story of one man who came in with his wife and mother-in-law, who were worried about heart disease in their family. They wanted scans; he did not. However, Maldonado talked him into getting one, and while the ladies each scored a perfect zero on their coronary calcium scan, which measures how much calcified plaque may be in your heartâs arteries, the gentlemanâs number was alarmingly high and he was able to get to the doctor to have it checked in time.
Another man, Maldonado says, came in with his wife and his test revealed a calcium score of 900 (anything over 300 is considered high).
The next day, he saw a cardiologist, and discovered that three of his four main arteries had 90-percent blockage. Two weeks ago, he had triple bypass surgery.
âHe told us we saved his life,â Maldonado says.
While health insurance doesnât cover the cost of a scan â which can be pricey if you receive just one but are much cheaper if you choose to receive them yearly â Maldonado hopes to get that changed. He has collected enough data that shows how many lives have been potentially saved and is ready to fight in the hopes that he can change the health narrative and mindset from reactionary to preventive.
âHealthcare is probably never going to switch over but we are going to try,â he says. âThis works. Itâs an awesome thing, and Iâm proud of it.â
Life Guard Imaging is located at 3001 N. Rocky Point Dr., Suite 185. For more info, visit LifeGuardIMaging.com or call (813) 524-1010. If you mention this story or the ad, you will receive a free heart scan and coronary calcium score.
Pastor Svend Wilbekin says the diversity in New Tampa is one of the things that has helped make Lifesong Church in Tampa Palms successful
It was just a little more than five years ago when Pastor Svend Wilbekin opened the doors at Lifesong Church in Tampa Palms for the first time.
It was so unlikely, he says, that thereâs no explanation for it unless God ordained it.
That was November 5, 2016, when Svend was sent from a church in Gainesville called The Rock, where he had served on staff for 20 years as youth pastor, college pastor and young adult pastor. He felt the experience led him to start a new church in New Tampa.
He says most churches these days donât launch with fewer than 50 people, but his had only nine. And, the really unheard of thing? They started in a building that they already owned.
âGod supernaturally blessed us to purchase a building right before we had our first service,â he explains. When Svend tried to find a place to rent, such as a high school, everywhere he looked was already leased. He started looking at what was available to buy and was shocked to find a building for sale that would work for the fledgling church.
That began frantic efforts to get the building ready, in addition to all of the details of putting together the very first service, while Svendâs wife Katy organized a picnic for all the friends and family who were coming to support them on launch day.
âA lot of families in Tampa Palms saw the bounce house and the food,â he says, and learned about the new church in the neighborhood. He says a full-page ad in the Neighborhood News hit mailboxes the day before the first service and, âIt was a great way to introduce ourselves to the community.â
Five years later, Lifesong Church is an important part of New Tampa, as it continues to grow and welcome new people into its ministries.
âThe vision of our church is to love out loud,â says Pastor Svend. âIf you visit, youâll hear that terminology. Our heart is to love everybody who walks through our doors.â
He says Lifesong members also are âoutâ loving the community, like through their homeless ministry.
âWe noticed that within the homeless community, food is provided, some shelter is provided, and a lot of services, but what wasnât being provided were relationships,â he explains. âWe started going downtown with nothing but ourselves and our time. Weâve been doing that and made great relationships.â
The church offers life groups where people encourage each other, too. There is a group for women and one where men are challenged to be better husbands and fathers. Every year, the church offers a course to help couples strengthen their marriages, overcome obstacles, and live more fulfilling lives with their spouses.
Svend and his wife, Katy, who now live in Meadow Pointe, are parents to three sons, who all grew up in Gainesville.
Their oldest son, Scottie, had a remarkable career playing college basketball at the University of Florida, where he was named SEC Player of the Year in 2014. He was a star player on a team that went undefeated in the SEC and beat perennial powerhouse Kentucky at home to win the SEC championship in a run his dad calls âmagical.â Scottie currently plays professional basketball in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Middle son Mitchell played basketball at Wake Forest and currently plays for the Greensboro Swarm, an NBA G League (the NBAâs official minor leage organization) team affiliated with the Charlotte Hornets.
The Wilbekinsâ youngest son Andrew will graduate with a Ph.D. degree in Physical Therapy in May from Husson University in Bangor, ME.
âWhatâs beautiful about that is theyâve all graduated from college and they all love the Lord,â says Svend. âWhere theyâre at now really blesses us.â
The transition from living in Gainesville, where everyone knew how to pronounce their last name â thanks to their famous son â to the New Tampa area also has been a blessing for Svend and Katy.
âWe absolutely love New Tampa,â he says. âItâs the most incredible community. We love so much about it â we love the restaurants, I love the golf courses. Itâs very diverse.â
As an interracial couple, the communityâs diversity is important to the Wilbekins and a goal for their church is to âbuild a community of believers that looks like heaven,â Svend says, embracing all ages, nationalities and skin colors.
Sunday Morning Services
Lifesong Church meets Sunday mornings at 10 a.m., and Svend says thatâs where the âsongâ part of the church shines.
âWe have anointed musicians and instrumentalists ushering in the presence of God through the use of music,â he explains. âWe have a full band with guitars, drums, keyboards and vocalists singing contemporary music.â
He says the Covid-19 pandemic has been one of the most challenging seasons heâs ever experienced as a pastor.
âWe shifted to an online service, and weâve grown in that area, which has helped us expand our reach,â he explains. âBut now, we have an online community as well as an attending community. Itâs been neat to see.â
Melissa Choe and her husband Jacob have been attending Lifesong Church in person for about a year with their daughter Melody.
Theyâre one of the families that found Lifesong online and watched from home before deciding to attend in person.
âI really like the community aspect of Lifesong,â says Melissa. âEveryone is very welcoming and there are opportunities to get plugged in and get involved.â
While Melissa and her husband serve on Lifesongâs Worship Team, her daughter loves Lifesong Kids.
âSheâs always saying, âCan I go to my church?â and âI love my church,ââ says Katy. âI love that (childrenâs director) Julie (Nash) is really mindful of not making it your parentsâ church. They focus on teaching the children about the Bible, but in a fun and appropriate way.â
Svend says Julie offers a hands-on and age-appropriate version of church for kids. âItâs enjoyable, and they come away with the knowledge of Godâs word in a practical manner,â he says.
Svend graduated the from University of Florida with a degree in political science. He went through a mentoring program at The Rock under the leadership of Pastor George Brantley to be trained and equipped as a pastor.
Of the experience of planting a church, he says, âIt was harder than I thought, and more rewarding than I thought it would be. Seeing people become a community has really been a priceless and beautiful moment, and such a confirmation of what God put in my heart six years ago.â
Lifesong Church hosts its weekly service on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m., including a special Christmas Service on Sunday, December 19. The church is located at 6460 Tampa Palms Blvd., near Tampa Palms Golf & Country Club and Tampa Palms Elementary. For more information, visit LifeSongTampa.org.
