Although we had been previously told to expect some sort of fried or grilled chicken restaurant in the space previously occupied by Wok Chi in the Shops at Wiregrass, the new restaurant that opened there earlier this month is called Teriyaki Madness, which is more of a Japanese experience, whereas Wok Chi was definitely more of a Chinese restaurant.
Please note that in our October 18 Wesley Chapel edition, I mistakenly called this new restaurant by a different name, which also was a fast-Asian concept that closed several years ago. I already have apologized to the general manager at Teriyaki Madness for my mistake, so I hope you will read this and go visit Teriyaki Madness soon. Feel free to make fun of me when you do visit.
Teriyaki Madness specializes in — you guessed it — dishes cooked with a teriyaki glaze (thicker than most sauces) that, to me, is more like BBQ sauce than something you’d get at a Japanese restaurant. This fast, healthier-than-most-fast-casual concept was founded in Las Vegas in 2003 and currently includes more than 100 locations being operated throughout the U.S. and now Mexico by M.H. Enterprises, which is based in Denver, CO.
In addition to beef, chicken and tofu teriyaki dishes, Teriyaki Madness also offers spicy chicken, spicy tofu teriyaki, orange chicken teriyaki, fried chicken katsu and yakisoba noodles with chicken, beef, tofu or all veggies. Appetizers include crispy chicken egg rolls, edamame (soybeans), crab Rangoon, chicken pot stickers and more.
The veggies are very fresh and you can customize which veggies you want, so yes, I’ll visit The Teriyaki Madness (28152 Paseo Dr.) again soon.
For more information, call (813) 803-3749, search “Teriyaki Madness” on Facebook or visit TeriyakiMadness.com.
In a tiny office tucked behind The Grove shopping center he recently bought for $62.7 million, Mark Gold is unveiling big dreams.
“Big, big, major,” he says. “This is major.”
Gold’s vision is all over the walls of the leasing office at The Grove, on blueprints and promotional materials.
There will be a family park, an amphitheatre for musical performances, a brewery, new restaurants, an indoor adventure facility, beautiful landscaping and lighting, and what Gold says will be the biggest shipping container park — think Sparkman Wharf, but on steroids — in the world.
A rendering of how a “container park” will look at The Grove.
There also is room for 400 homes, if Gold chooses to develop the additional acreage.
While others have, for too many years, seen a big box dead end office plaza with empty buildings and overgrown and unkempt land, Gold sees the future.
“This is a diamond that no one has touched for 10 years,” he says. “No one had the money to polish the diamond. That’s just crazy.”
The Grove, which opened in 2007 and whose current tenants include Best Buy, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Michael’s and others, as well as the Cobb 16 Movie Theater, may be an afterthought to many locals, a shopping center that once had great potential before development stopped. Gold and his Mishorim Gold Properties promise that will change.
“The message is, The Grove is coming back,” says Gold, emphatically. “It’s not owned by the bank or an insurance company anymore, it’s owned by creative developers that do this already all over the U.S.”
As Gold lays out his plan, it almost sounds too good to be true. However, District 2 Pasco County Commissioner Mike Moore, who arranged a meeting for Gold with county planners and administrators, loves the idea.
“I think he’s the real deal,” Moore says. “When he left after his presentation, there was energy and excitement in the room.”
Pasco’s uber-friendly-to-business county commission is likely to do what it can to make things happen fast. Many of the typical hold-ups — such as proper zoning and utilities — are all already in place.
The mostly vacant Village across the parking lot from stores like Best Buy, Marshall’s and DICK’s Sporting Goods has been mostly vacant but Gold already has new tenants signed to leases.
Gold, who has now owned the plaza less than a month, isn’t wasting any time starting to create a destination that he thinks could serve as a downtown Wesley Chapel one day.
“This is not only about money, it’s about vision,” he says. “Let’s bring something to Wesley Chapel that people like to come to.”
Just a few days after his purchase, he already had signed leases for 15 of the 60 containers, or micro-shops, that will populate the land between The Grove’s office “village” and Outback Steakhouse. Moore said he was impressed to see that overgrown grass had already been moved and some of the area was already being prepped.
Gold is hoping to create a European-flavored market or bazaar, with an emphasis on locally-owned stores and boutiques, and he says that in about two months, the containers will begin showing up.
“Things are moving fast,” he says. “This is big in places like Europe, Amsterdam…you see it all over the place. In the U.S., it is fresh. And, it is going to be the largest one in the world.”
Each of the container “shops,” which are former semi-truck trailers that will be outfitted with solar panels, is 40-feet long (although there are options to split the office containers into two or even three separate spaces), and here’s the big news — he is renting them out for only $1,500 a month for an entire container, with limited up-front costs for design.
“If you have a dream, let’s make it happen!,” Gold says.
“If you have a dream, let’s make it happen!,” he says. “This is your mom-and-pop opportunity, your dream. I care about my tenants. I want to help people come to us. Let me help you.”
A family park for children also will be one of the key components of The Grove’s transformation, as will a 36,000-sq.-ft. indoor trampoline/adventure park (see pg. 14)..
New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees is a part-owner of Surge Adventure Park, Gold says he already has Surge at four of his developments and that it is likely Brees will follow him to Wesley Chapel, too. Surge Adventure Park would be built near the Cobb 16 Movie Theater.
As we reported last issue, Double Branch Artisanal Ales, owned by Wesley Chapel residents, is expected to open in December, the first new project under Gold’s Mishorim Gold Properties.
“I think it is extraordinarily exciting for our community,” says Hope Allen, CEO of the North Tampa Bay Chamber. “It’s a long time coming. “It was disheartening to see (The Grove) not living up to its full potential over the last couple of years. I appreciate that new ownership is going to invest in it.”
Gold says he also has signed leases with at least four restaurants — pizza, sushi, gourmet hot dogs and frozen yogurt — for the currently mostly-vacant office park that he calls “The Village,” as well as a restaurant/duelling piano bar owned by Wesley Chapel resident Jamie Hess and his brother Joe.
“I met with him and was very enthusiastic and energetic,” said Jamie Hess, who signed his lease on Oct. 10. “I thought he had an amazing plan. I went home and researched his other properties and after that, I was sold. He’s going to make The Grove a huge success.” We’ll have a separate story about the piano bar in a future issue.
Gold has a reputation for investing in property that is undervalued and turning high-vacancy shopping and office centers into bustling, vibrant, family-focused entertainment destinations.
He bought the Lynnhaven North shopping center in Virginia Beach, VA, in late 2018 and quickly turned that around, with nearly $10 million worth of renovations and upgrades.
Whether you’re talking about the Regency Court Shopping Center in Jacksonville, or the Shoppes at Hickory Hollow in Antioch, TN, the DW Center in Newport News, VA, or a handful of other similar U.S. projects, Gold has swooped in to buy a failing shopping center and invested millions into transforming them.
And, the ebullient Gold is excited about The Grove’s prospects.
He says he has been looking to purchase land in the Tampa Bay area for years, but couldn’t find anything that suited him.
“It was like Mission Impossible,” he says.
He spent eight months negotiating to buy The Grove, when he says it usually takes him only about a month to complete similar deals.
The purchase included the 604,000 sq. ft. of existing shopping and dining space, as well as 1.3-million sq. ft. of retail and office space that he plans to build.
But, even better, The Grove is located in one of the southeast’s fastest-growing areas.
Not only are there thousands of homes at various stages of development within a 10-mile radius of The Grove in nearby communities like Mirada, Epperson and even Quail Hollow, but Wesley Chapel also boasts an average annual household income of $92,000.
The shopping center is located just off busy I-75, and can be seen by 100,000 drivers a day.
“I am in the middle of the all the action,” Gold says. “Right where I want to be.”
And soon, he hopes, where all of Wesley Chapel will want to be.
For leasing & more information about The Grove, contact keren@mgoldgroup.com.
The Japanese restaurant and sushi bar formerly known as Fong’s Sushi and Sushi Raw, in the Shoppes at Amberly plaza in Tampa Palms (next to Crunch Fitness) is under new ownership and my first visit to the new Sake House will have be going back for seconds.
I didn’t get to speak to the new owner but I did enjoy some tasty fried pork shumai dumplings (photo above), a unique chicken fried rice and some super-fresh snapper sashimi. Hopefully, I’ll be telling you more about the Sake House in a future issue. In order to help make that happen, please call or stop in and tell them you heard about the Sake House from Gary at Neighborhood News!
The Sake House is located at 15311 Amberly Dr., Tampa. For hours and more information, call (813) 977-3838 or visit SakeHouseAmberly.com.
Congrats also go out to Jeff and Crista Dean, the owners of Bubba’s 33, which is now going vertical between Ashley Furniture and Texas Roadhouse on S.R. 56, west of I-75, in Wesley Chapel. This will be the first location in Florida for Texas Roadhouse’s sports bar concept, which held a North Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce-hosted groundbreaking (photo above) on Sept. 9.Â
For additional information, visit Bubbas33.com.
Congrats, Dr. Dave!
Congratulations to well-known local optometrist Dr. David Scamard and his office manager Eileen Popescu of Excellence in Eyecare on their August 14 ribbon cutting hosted by the Greater Pasco Chamber of Commerce.
You can visit Dr. Dave’s two-year-old independent optometry office inside the Costco on S.R. 56 — even if you’re not a member of the wholesale club — and he provides a full-range of eye care services, including comprehensive exams, visual field analyses, retinal imaging and more, with walk-ins welcome.
Dr. Scamard opened his first optometry office in our area more than 17 years ago and I can personally attest to the fact that he’s a great optometrist and a really good guy.
If you need more details, or it’s been a while since you had your eyes checked, call (813) 279-7038, visit ExcellenceinEyecare.net or see the ad on pg. 12 of this issue.
Dirson had started his successful, healthy-eating-oriented restaurant concept in the same plaza as The Hungry Greek and Dickey’s BBQ a little further south on BBD (across from AdventHealth Wesley Chapel) when he decided to find anther location in 2018.
What he didn’t know was that he would be closed for several months (basically, from August until December) that year, as he agreed to leave his old space in order for the new tenant — Umu Japanese & Thai — to get started on their build-out while he began building the new OTB.
Bottom line? Dirson and his wife Ana weathered the storm of several months with no OTB income and have been thriving in their new location ever since.
“Our breakfast business has definitely picked up since we’ve been here,” Dirson says. “And our lunch crowd has been about the same.”
The new location is definitely a nicer layout and even though OTB is the only restaurant in Nye Commons, which doesn’t have a particularly easy entrance to get into either, people have been finding it (it’s located less than four miles north of the Pasco County line) — and loving many of the changes to the menu.
But, What About The Food?
At its old location, when OTB only served healthier turkey bacon for breakfast, I’ll admit I didn’t go out of my way to enjoy my most important meal of the day there.
But now, with the new OTB even closer to my office, Dirson has added not only real bacon, but a variety of delicious new breakfast menu items.
My favorite is still the “breakfast plate”, with your choice of three regular or chocolate chip pancakes, two eggs any style (over easy for me, of course) and three strips of that (extra crispy) bacon — a bargain for only $9.99. And, even though it comes with pancakes, I still add OTB’s tasty marble rye to soak up my egg yolks.
Just as delicious, but understandably more expensive ($12.99) is the steak and eggs breakfast, with a nice portion of thinly sliced steak and three eggs your way. Newer breakfast items include “Omelette’ing You Go,” a three-egg omelet served with your choice of side (try the fresh fruit) and toast. You can choose any three ingredients from the following list: any cheese, grilled onions, grilled peppers, tomatoes, baby spinach, arugula, red onion, diced ham, diced turkey, sprouts, pepperoncini, black olives and mushrooms — and all for only $8.99.
You avocado lovers will flip for the Good Morning Ciabatta, with two eggs your way, tomato, avocado and provolone on a tasty seeded, multi-grain ciabatta hoagie roll.
There’s also a breakfast burrito, chicken-quinoa eggs-travaganza and a tasty hash-and-eggs breakfast made with real corned beef and sweet potato home fries; an asparagus-bacon eggs Benedict; the Yolko Ono, with eggs, Black Forest ham, tomatoes and Havarti cheese on a multi-grain ciabatta; as well as an Acai bowl (with granola, bananas, strawberies, coconut flakes and organic Acai.
And, since Dirson is from Brazil, you know he’s serving great coffee, too.
Don’t They Serve Lunch, Too?
Although most people don’t think of a hamburger as a “healthy” option, Dirson’s grass-fed artisan burger is seasoned, hand-pattied, grilled to order and delicious. There’s also tasty veggie and turkey burgers.
OTB’s lunch selections also feature a variety of salads, including the Asian orange ahi tuna salad, with a generous portion of seared rare tuna, Mandarin oranges, toasted almonds and sprouts; a blackened portabella Caesar as well as a chicken Caesar; a seared steak delight salad and “salmon gone wild” salad. OTB doesn’t have the biggest selection of salad dressings, but all of them are pretty tasty. I especially enjoy the sesame ginger and spicy Santa Fe dressings.
Many of the salads also are available as “Rice Rice Baby” bowls. My favorites are the Shanghai chicken (with jasmine rice, sesame seeds, toasted almonds and the sesame ginger dressing), and the steak delight rice bowl (top right on this page), with black beans, jasmine rice, tomatoes, caramelized onions and blue cheese crumbles, with balsamic.
OTB Has Meal Delivery, Too?
Busy working adults, especially those with younger kids, are turning more and more these days to meal delivery services like Hello Fresh and Blue Apron, but Dirson decided to get into the meal delivery business locally because he can promise the same dependable delivery of fresh meals with advantages over those other services.
“We don’t mass produce anything,” Dirson says proudly. Your meals aren’t taken out of a fridge and put into a box, they’re made to your order. You tell us what you want, we make it fresh and deliver it when you want it (guaranteed to arrive between 4 p.m.-9 p.m. on your chosen date to ensure freshness).”
The best way to get started is to call (813) 906-2229 or order online at OnlyTheBestDelivery.com.
You’ll find a huge selection of options online and even though there are actual menu items, Dirson promises that “everything is customizable. If the menu calls for an item to be served with broccoli, you can substitute asparagus, add sprouts, whatever you want.”
And, OTB’s portion-controlled meal delivery service has complete one-week meal plans, keto meals (like keto pesto parmesan chicken and veggies), plant-based meals (like mushroom taco lettuce wraps), special items for kids (kids’ sliced steak and sweet potato mash), desserts (like vegan, gluten-free cookies) and even raw, cold juices (try the cold press juice sampler, with green, yellow, red and bunny juice) available for delivery. There’s even a full catering menu that is fully customizable to your specifications, for events large or small.
Best of all, the food is delicious and guaranteed to arrive fresh, whether you like pulled chicken or ahi tuna with broccoli, quinoa or rice (two left photos on this page) or anything else on OTB’s extensive menu, Dirson’s delivery manager Jen will make sure your order is right — or she’ll make it right.
After six years, I’ve come to expect nothing less from Dirson and OTB!
Karina Azank Parilo, M.D., of KAP Medical Group is proud to be Wesley Chapel’s only Direct Primary Care family physician.
After eight years in a local medical group, Dr. Parilo says she was frustrated with the ever-increasing number of patients she was expected to see, which she says was necessary in a medical group setting to cover the overhead costs associated with having to bill insurance companies.
Although Dr. Parilo says she already had 2,700 active patients, the group expected her to take on even more new patients.
“There were patients I’d had for six years who couldn’t get in to see me and couldn’t do their hospital follow-ups with me,” she says, explaining that her schedule was too full to be able to work them in, “and I was becoming increasingly frustrated.”
So, in December of 2017, Dr. Parilo decided to leave the group she had been with and three months later, opened her own practice, using a newer model known as Direct Primary Care.
That means her practice — located in the Windfair Professional Park behind the retail plaza on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. that includes Dickey’s BBQ and The Hungry Greek restaurants — doesn’t bill insurance companies.
“Instead, there is a membership fee for the practice,” Dr. Parilo explains, “which is generally $50-$60 for an individual, or a family with two kids is $150 per month.”
The practice is open to all ages, and the monthly fee covers unlimited office visits and virtual visits via phone or video, in-office tests, well checks, sick visits, weight management and management of chronic medical conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, asthma, arthritis and more.
For minor office procedures, such as cyst removal or laceration repair, a small supply fee is charged. A list of most KAP Medical Group membership costs is available at KAPMedicalGroup.com.
Dr. Parilo compares direct primary care to a gym membership, where you pay the same whether you visit once a year or once a month, or even once a week, which Dr. Parilo says some of her patients do to drop in for their regular weight checks.
Medical assistant and office manager Michelle Diaz (left) and Dr. Karina Azank Parilo are the only two faces you’ll see when you visit KAP Medical Group off Bruce B. Downs Blvd.
She says her practice is an alternative to what’s becoming more common with primary care physicians, where the overhead costs to have staff available to constantly submit and follow up on insurance claims becomes one of the unfortunate driving forces of the practice.
Direct primary care has proven very popular with Dr. Parilo’s new patients.
“In addition to growing as a movement across the country, it also is growing across our area,” she says. “We have patients coming from three counties, because it is more convenient and affordable. Some have traditional insurance, some have high deductible plans, some have no insurance and a few have Medicare.”
She adds that those who already have good insurance plans choose to be KAP members because of easier access to their doctor and less hassle dealing with insurance companies.
“Dealing with insurance is a pain,” she says, “and a lot of administrative cost goes into billing insurance.”
To cover the costs, those doctors simply have to see more patients.
“As a result,” she explains, “doctors just don’t have time.”
A Little History
Dr. Parilo is originally from Tampa. She earned her Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in Biology from Duke University in Durham, NC, then came home and earned her Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree from the University of South Florida in 2005. While she started training in anesthesiology, she changed her focus to primary care because she found she missed building ongoing relationships with her patients.
“I like taking care of kids, women, men and the older population,” she says, “so I went into family medicine to be able to take care of everybody.”
In 2008, she moved to Massachusetts and completed a residency in family medicine at the University of Massachusetts in Worcester in 2010.
At the time, she says she was a single mom, so she was excited to be able to bring her daughter back home to the Tampa area.
Now, she and her husband, Dane, live in Seven Oaks and have a blended family of three children and three granddaughters. They met through the Rotary Club of Wesley Chapel Noon in 2012 and both have remained active in the club.
“I enjoy the service aspect of Rotary and enjoy serving the community,” she says.
For example, in addition to being involved with the club’s local service projects, both Dr. Parilo and her husband have been part of the Rotary Club’s trips to Honduras to provide clean drinking water and latrines for families and schools in the mountainous and impoverished city of Troyes.
With the Direct Primary Care model, Dr. Parilo says the main advantage is the amount of time she can spend with each patient when needed, and that the time she spends with each patient is flexible to meet their needs, as well.
“I have time to talk with my patients’ specialists or spend an hour catching up with them if they’ve had a lengthy hospital stay,” she explains. “I can take care of my patients however they need to be taken care of.”
While that might be in person, at times, she notes that it also could mean via phone, via video conference or even via text. Dr. Parilo uses an app that maintains patient privacy and connects directly with the patient’s electronic medical record.
“Patients love it,” she says, adding that many times, her patients don’t want to leave work to come in for an appointment. “They can just send us a picture and we can respond.”
Dr. Parilo has just one person on her staff — Michelle Diaz, her medical assistant and office manager. The two have worked together since 2010.“My old patients have known her and loved her as long as they’ve known me,” Dr. Parilo says.
And Yes, It Works
Daelyn Fortney is a Seven Oaks resident who began seeing Dr. Parilo shortly after KAP Medical Group opened. Now, Daelyn’s husband, three children, son-in-law and granddaughter are all patients too.
“Dr. Parilo is a good doctor and a great person,” Daelyn says. “It’s almost like a partnership with her. Plus, you walk into the office and they actually know you. That (kind of service) has been lost in recent years.”
Daelyn adds that she had been frustrated trying to find the right primary care physician, and that the time she saves with KAP Medical Group is worth every penny.
“We run our own business,” Daelyn says, “so our time is actually money, anytime we have to take time away from our business.”
Dr. Parilo says that in some cases, Direct Primary Care may save her patients money.
“People don’t realize how much they’re spending before they get anything,” she explains. “You pay premiums whether you ever see a doctor or not.”
She says most people don’t have an old, traditional insurance plan where they can see any doctor they choose and pay a simple co-pay. Most patients have a high deductible they have to pay before the insurance company even begins to pick up the tab.
“At the end of the year,” she asks, “how much did you actually pay out of pocket?”
KAP Medical Group Direct Primary Care & Family Medicine is located at 2615 Windguard Cir., Suite 101, across Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. from AdventHealth Wesley Chapel. The practice is open Monday-Friday, 8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. For more information or to set an appointment, visit KAPMedicalGroup.com or call (813) 536-0050.
