Category: Business

By Gary Nager

Long-time readers surely recognize at least two things about my dining reviews — #1) I prefer mom-and-pop restaurants to any sort of chain eatery and #2) perhaps my biggest complaint is about having too many of certain types of restaurants and not enough of some others. For example, although we have quite a few very good-to-great pizza places, we don’t really have even a non-chain Italian restaurant anywhere in New Tampa or Wesley Chapel.Continue reading

By Gary Nager

Do you have a budding young artist living in your house? Has he or she ever been to You Do the Dishes (YDTD) Paint-Your-Own Pottery Studio & Coffee Bar in Tampa Palms?

If not, now is the time to go and check out not only the studio, but owner Cindy Kozlowski & her long-time friend Herb Pinder’s great Summer Art Fest program. Although kids who attend the camp still get an opportunity to paint their own pottery, too, the Art Fest program is so much more than that. The one-week sessions (which begin Monday, June 11, and are run 10 a.m.-4 p.m. every weekday) for ages 7-13 include printmaking, drawing, watercolors, acrylics, collages, pottery painting and origami.

Herb, who first met Cindy shortly after she opened the studio in 1998, first came into YDTD to paint some pottery. An artist/educator who received his formal art training from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia and from USF, Herb has led the summer art program for kids at YDTD the last eight years.

“Every year, we have themes for the Art Fest program,” says Herb. “One of this year’s themes is folk art. We will show the kids a variety of different types of folk art and have them create projects in those and other themes and artistic mediums. We definitely get a tremendous response to this program year after year.”

Last year, he adds, the kids had fun creating fish statues in the style of renowned artist Frank Gehry.

He admits that more girls than boys participate in the Art Fest annually, “But, there are always boys participating, too. I try to give them serious art training but always remembering that they are children, so of course, it has to be fun for them. We get a lot of repeat students, plus siblings of past students who have participated.”

For only $210 per session, which includes all materials used and created by each student, your child can have supervised fun — and get an art education — in YDTD’s safe, nurturing environment. Please note that all Art Fest students have to bring their own lunch and snacks each day.

 

And So Much More!

In addition to the annual Art Fest summer camp, YDTD also offers opportunities for kids under age 15 (although kids under age 7 must be accompanied by an adult) to join the studio’s Summer Paint Club. For only $100, your child receives unlimited Monday-Friday studio time, paints and firing costs for the entire summer (June 8-August 21), between 11 a.m.-4 p.m. weekdays. Paint Club students are separated from the Art Fest kids and the cost of the bisque (unpainted pottery), food and drinks is in addition to the $100 program cost. Students also can bring their own lunch and snacks.

And yes, adults can still paint during the summer months, too. Call YDTD (see info below) for details.

YDTD also is an outstanding coffee bar serving delicious Joffrey’s coffee (and coffee drinks), Tazo hot teas and Arizona iced teas, as well as Otis Spunkmeyer cookies and other baked goods, from brownies and muffins to an ever-changing variety of cakes.

And, Cindy is proud to announce that YDTD has added several flavors of Bruster’s Real Ice Cream, which is available in cones and cups at very fair prices. And, considering our office is right next to YDTD, it’s hard for me to not stop in every day to get a scoop of Moose Tracks or Cookies & Cream.

And of course, YDTD is still a great place for kids parties, girls night our and other events and even offers a coupon in conjunction with The Soap Factory (located in another part of Tampa Palms), a studio where you can design and take home your own bars of soap. If you make a bar of soap at The Soap Factory, you get a reduced price (with the coupon) on a paint-it-yourself soap dish at YDTD.

For more information, call You Do The Dishes (15357 Amberly Dr., Shoppes of Amberly plaza) at 975-1700 or visit YouDoTheDishes.com.

By Camille Gillies

Summertime means bathing suits, shorts, sleeveless shirts – and lots of shaving! The stubble, the irritation, the razor bumps…ugh! Perhaps you have tried waxing and found it painful or, well, just a pain. What’s a girl – or a guy with a hairy body – to do?Continue reading

By Gary Nager

While there are some very good places in our area that some members of our staff at the Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News are lukewarm about, there is no doubt in this reporter’s mind that Sonny’s BBQ, the 45-year-old Gainesville, FL-based “real pit” barbecue chain, isn’t one of them.

In fact, there wasn’t one person in the office who wasn’t excited when I said I was doing a story on the Wesley Chapel Sonny’s, which just happens to have been and continues to be owned by my friends and former neighbors in Hunter’s Green — Jim and Kristina Hoff (photo, right) — since the location in front of the Publix-anchored Hollybrook Plaza on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. (just south of S.R. 54) first opened 14 years ago.

Everyone in the office rushed to check out the menu online to pick their favorites. Office manager Nikki Bennett got her half chicken lunch plate, sales and advertising assistant AnnMarie Beck got to enjoy her pulled pork lunch (graphic artist Porsha Lemos was beaming about her pulled pork sandwich), staff writers Matt Wiley and John McGurl both slathered plenty of sauce on their pulled beef brisket sandwiches and yours truly had tastes of my two favorites — the rib sampler combo and the High Springs chicken (I love Sonny’s sizzlin’ sweet and other BBQ sauces, but I order the chicken without the sauce) topped with cheese and mushrooms.

I got the rib sampler in order to enjoy my Sonny’s favorite — the meaty, tender signature baby back ribs — but also to sample, for the first time, the new classic dry-rub ribs, which I really enjoyed dipping into the sweet BBQ sauce to offset the spiciness of the dry rub.

Speaking of sauces, you can take home all four kinds of Sonny’s bottled BBQ sauces — mild, smoky, sweet and sizzlin’ sweet — as well as the dry rub, and of course, Sonny’s also offers the fresh and delicious “Garden of Eatin’” for those dining in, as well as chicken Caesar and “big” salads both to go and to dine in-house. And, you can’t beat Sonny’s delicious corn on the cob, BBQ baked beans, French fries, homemade corn or garlic bread and other sides, like fresh veggies, plus homemade sweet tea.

 

Need A Cold One?

Back in 2010, the Hoffs were among the first Sonny’s owners to add the chain’s new “lunch counters,” where you can sit in comfort and watch big, flat-screen TVs while enjoying an ice cold beer, a glass of wine and premium liquor selections. There are even four varieties of great new chicken wings to enjoy and great all-day Happy Hour specials — just don’t call the lunch counter a “sports bar.”

“We separated the lunch counter from the dining room, so families can still be comfortable,” says Kristina. “You can get alcoholic beverages in the dining room, too, but adults who want to enjoy their food and drinks away from children really seem to enjoy the separate lunch counter.”

Jim and Kristina hope that now that the widening of both S.R. 54 and BBD has been completed, more of their regular customers — like the Neighborhood News staff — will start returning more…regularly.

“It’s been a long haul with the road,” says Jim. “We opened the lunch counter just as the construction really got rolling. Even some of our regulars didn’t know we had it because they just couldn’t handle the traffic to get here.”

In the ad on pg. 32, you’ll find a great deal on Sonny’s Special Feast for Four. And, Sonny’s is a great place to bring the family for Mother’s Day.

Sonny’s BBQ is located at 5324 BBD. For more information, call 994-8989 or visit SonnysBBQ.com.