Cheddar’s, the growing, Texas-based chain with 100 company-owned restaurants and 65 franchises (including Brandon and Pinellas Park), will open in front of the Tampa Premium Outlets (TPO) mall (at 2391 Sun Vista Dr., off S.R. 56) on Monday, June 6.
The Neighborhood News was on hand today for the Wesley Chapel location’s “family & friends” pre-opening event, which also included a Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce (WCCC) ribbon cutting just after 10:30 a.m.
Grilled 8-oz. top sirloin
The prediction here is that Cheddar’s, which has re-branded itself as a “Scratch Kitchen,” will be a monster hit in our area, which is hurting for reasonably-priced restaurants where you can get anything from steaks and ribs to grilled salmon and tilapia. It has similar (albeit mostly less expensive) price points as Applebee’s or Chili’s, but the food â including the grilled 8-oz. top sirloin pictured here â is definitely a step up from those microwave-dependent chains.
“Literally everything here is made from scratch,” said one of Cheddar’s regional managers. “We pride ourselves on stressing the details to make our customers happy.” We also were told that beginning next year, the company plans to open another 20 restaurants per year for at least the next five years.
With its prime location in front of TPO, reasonably-priced full liquor bar and truly fresh-tasting food at very fair prices, expect long lines for lunch and, especially, dinner tables from the moment the place opens.
Some team members of the New Tampa YMCA Synchronized Swim Team pose underwater for a photo after a recent practice. The synchronized swimmers will perform June 4 at 10:30 a.m. to raise money for 14 team members to attend the Junior Olympics next month in New York.
Kids and adults stream in and out of the New Tampa Family YMCA in Tampa Palms, some headed for the basketball and volleyball courts, others to the activity rooms and exercise equipment. At the pool, kids learn to swim, while other more advanced swimmers churn out lap after lap under the direction of the YMCA swim team coaches.
Itâs about what you might expect at any YMCA.
But, tucked away beyond that in the far end of the same 50-meter pool, thereâs something you might not expect.
Amongst the din of splashing swimmers, one of the New Tampa Yâs more successful programs toils in relative peace, a group of tightly-coiffed, nose-clipped synchronized swimmers, young and old, dancing beneath the water and working together in perfect harmony.
The Tampa YMCA Synchro (TYS) team, based at the New Tampa YMCA since starting in 2004 and one of the few programs in the central part of Florida â but a regular on the state and region competition circuit â is coming of age.
âThe key to a successful team is when swimmers get a taste of improvement and get a taste of excellence and the winning,ââ said 26-year-old Camille Albrecht, who started as an assistant coach in 2009 and has been head coach of the TYS program since 2013. âA lot of our younger girls saw some of the success the older girls were having, and they want those same things and theyâre working harder because they already know what success looks like.â
Success is measured by competitors like 19-year-old Wesley Chapel resident Saloni Mehrah, who participated at the U.S. Nationals in Mesa, AZ, along with 13-year-old Benito Middle School student Julianna Silva.
Success also is sending synchronized swimmers to compete for a spot on the U.S. National Team, which Silva, 12-year-old New Tampa resident Katie Wieckowski and 10-year-old Jennah Hafsi, who are both homeschooled, did in Coral Springs, FL, this spring.
Success also is sending almost half your team â which qualified with top-3 finishes at Regionals â to the Junior Olympics next month, to compete against roughly 1,000 other synchronized swimmers.
Mehra and Meghan Wieckowski will compete in the 18-19 age group, and Abby Eckhardt, Kyra Okin and Zoe Keegan have qualified in the 16-17s.
Silva, Camila Acuna, Maria Pinilla-Baquero and Ariana Alonso are in the 13-15 age group, while Katie Wieckowski, Jennah Hafsi, Jennifer Lynfatt, Lilly Weber and Teghan Theile are all competing in the 12-under division.
The 14 synchronized swimmers heading to the Junior Olympics, held June 24-July 2 at the Nassau County Aquatic Center at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow, NY, is the most the program has ever sent, better than the previous best of 10 swimmers last year.
Synchronized Swimmers Ice Cream Fund Raiser
In order to travel to the prestigious event, the TYS is hosting a New York-themed Ice Cream Social on Saturday, June 4, 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., at the New Tampa YMCA. The synchronized swimmers will show off their latest routines and custom-made suits (that can cost $150 and more), and even the dads and brothers will get into the act as the âSyncBrosâ perform a routine.
The show is free to attend and the TYS and the parents will be selling ice cream, root beer floats, pizza, salad and drinks. There also will be baskets filled with prizes, and tickets to enter the drawing are just $2 each or $5 for three.
Albrecht has helped grow her team by holding two summer camps each year, to teach the finer points of her sport to younger kids. Her hope is to make synchronized swimming, which until the turn of the century was known as âwater ballet,â a primary sport.
A former synchronized swimmer herself for the Tampa Bay Synch Rays, Albrecht says she started competing when she was 7.
âMy mom wanted me to have a sport, and I loved to dance and I loved swimming,ââ she says. âI had already broken both my arms, so we thought that would be safe.â
Abby Eckhardt, 15, who has been on the New Tampa team for five years, started her athletic career as a gymnast, competing for three years until a neck injury sidelined her. She found her athletic outlet in the pool.
âIt fell right into place for her,ââ said her mother, Amy. âItâs the perfect sport.â
âI think its challenging and I like all the friendships you make with all the girls,ââ said Abby. âWeâre like a giant family.â
Many synchronized swimmers on the team come to the sport after trying swimming, gymnastics, ballet and/or dancing. In fact, synchronized swimming has always been described as a hybrid of those sports.
The daughter of former Tampa Bay Buc offensive tackle Steve Young (not be confused with the former Bucs and San Francisco 49ers quarterback of the same name), Albrecht says her girls are hard workers. While most peopleâs first question is always, âHow do they hold their breath so long?,â Albrecht says the swimmers are as fit and strong a group as you will find.
âPeople donât know how much work we do outside the pool,â she said. âThe basic skillset we look for is flexibility, and then itâs strength. We do a lot of cross training, a lot of land work. You have to be strong.â
Albrecht says it takes years to perfect synchronized swimming. Mastering the solo aspect of the sport is challenging enough, but then to be able to synchronize your routine with others takes years of practice.
To get her swimmers ready, Albrecht has former SynchRay swimmers Amanda Olson and Brittany McCauley on her staff. And Lily Hu, a USF student, joined the staff after moving here from China, where she competed internationally in the sport.
For more information about the synchronized swimming program at the New Tampa Family YMCA (16221 Compton Dr. in Tampa Palms), visit TampaYMCA.org/locations/new-tampa, or call 866-9622.
This fire displaced 28 students at Saddlebrook Prep on June 9, the day before the schoolâs graduation. Saddlebrook GM Pat Ciaccio says that the amount of damage is still being evaluated and that rebuilding the housing unit will take nine months. Until then, students returning in September will be placed in a different dorm.
Thanks to an alert student and some smart thinking, the only casualty of a fire at Saddlebrook Resort & Spa off S.R. 54 on June 9 was the building where the blaze started.
The fire, which never got out of the control of local firefighters that morning, caused excessive damage to one of the buildings used to house Saddlebrook Preparatory Academy golfers and tennis players, but all 28 students were able to escape unharmed, as well as 12 others that were in the building.
According to Saddlebrook general manager Pat Ciaccio, a student smelled smoke in his dorm room around 2:30 a.m. and called security before going outside of his room to pull the fire alarm. He and another student then went room to room to alert the other students.
âEach month, we do a fire drill in school, and it went just as they practiced it,ââ said Ciaccio. âSecurity was there within seconds. The fire department was there within minutes. It went about as good as it can go. I hope we never have to deal with one again.â
The fire is believed to have started due to a short circuit in the second-floor bathroom ceiling, Ciaccio said.
Pasco County Fire Rescueâs Shawn Whited said it took 55 firefighters to control the blaze, until all of the hot spots were extinguished around 8 a.m.
The three-alarm fire required eight fire engines and one ladder truck to extinguish, including an âaerial assaultâ on the fire.
The students were moved to another building. The following day was their graduation ceremony.
Saddlebrook Resort was developed in 1979 by current Chairman and CEO Tom Dempsey, and opened in 1981. Highly regarded for its posh accommodations, golf course and professional tennis players who have trained there, the resort started Saddlebrook Prep in 1992. A boarding school for budding golf and tennis professionals within the resort, Saddlebrook Prep has almost 100 students hailing from 26 different countries.
All have returned home for the summer, Ciaccio said, and those who were in the fire-damaged building will be assigned different housing in September when they return.
Ciaccio says he does not yet have a dollar amount for the damage to the two-story building — which had 16 suites with two rooms in each suite — and wonât know the cost of damages until restoration finishes the clean up and the insurance companies finish their work.
âThere is going to be a pretty extensive rebuild,ââ he said, estimating that it will be at least nine months before the building can be used again.
WCNT-TV, a new multimedia project from Neighborhood News and Full Throttle Intermedia, in conjunction with the Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce, will debut next month from the Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel Studios.
The bi-weekly show will feature news and events in and around New Tampa and Wesley Chapel, a feature on a WCCC member business and editor Gary Nager’s Neighborhood Dining News. Look for more updates soon.
TAMPA, FL – DECEMBER 20: Head Athletic Trainer Tom Mulligan tends to Brian Boyle #11 of the Tampa Bay Lightning after a hit to the head during the first period against the Ottawa Senators at the Amalie Arena on December 20, 2015 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Scott Audette/NHLI via Getty Images)
Tom Mulligan has the training and experience to help cure a lot of things.
But, when it comes to Tampa Bay Lightning fever â which is running rampant in the area these days â the teamâs head trainer and Arbor Greene resident can only suggest one solution:
Watch more Lightning hockey.
âThis is great,ââ Tom says. âIâm not playing, but the next best thing is to be a part of it and help contribute, and I love just watching the excitement of people in the area. Last year, the run we had was fantastic. To do it again would be great.â
Tom, his wife Kellie and children Tyler, 13, Zachary, 10, and Abby, 8, have been fixtures in New Tampa since 2002, when they moved into an apartment at Richmond Place before finding their first of two homes in Arbor Greene.
Kellie is an occupational therapist at Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel, and the Mulligan kids all currently attend or have attended Richard F. Pride Elementary and Louis Benito Middle schools.
âFor my kids, they get to go to the rink and talk with the players, and Tyler even got to help at rookie camp,ââ Kellie says. âHe was literally filling bags of ice, but still, he was there.â
The Mulligans are among the holdovers from a time when roughly 75 percent of the Tampa Bay Lightning team lived in New Tampa. Although retired former stars (and local media personalities) like 2004 Stanley Cup-winning captain Dave Andreychuk and Chris Dingman still live here, the current crop of players tends to settle elsewhere. But, Tom said the Mulligans love the area and the schools too much to follow suit. There may not be any hockey wives for Kellie to lean on, but they say there is a bustling community in Arbor Greene that rallies together.
âTom travels so much that I wouldnât be able to do what I do without our friends and our community, even if itâs just friends helping meet my kids at the bus if Iâm running late from work,â says Kellie.
Tom Mulligan (center, top) poses with his wife Kellie and his kids (from left) Tyler, 13, Zachary, 10 and Abby, 8. Photo: Courtesy of the Mulligan family.
The Arbor Greene community might be Tomâs biggest fans. While many would most likely gather for Lightning playoff games anyway, a good many do so knowing their neighbor is a part of this yearâs championship-contending team.
âOne of the cool things from last year my wife and I talked about was a few families in the neighborhood getting together and renting a 15-foot blow up projection TV,ââ Tom says. âEveryone was so into it and excited. My wife sent me a few pictures when they did it and I shared them with the team. That was pretty cool.â
At our press time, the Lightning had advanced all the way to the NHLâs Eastern Conference finals, where a best-of-7 series against the Pittsburgh Penguins is all that stands between the team and a second straight appearance in the Stanley Cup finals.
Tom, a Quinnipiac College (now University) in Hamden, CT, graduate with a B.S. in Physical Therapy and a minor in Biology, has played a big role in helping the team get here, helping all of those injured Lightning players get healthy and ready. Heck, even the most fervent Bolts fan might make the case that Tom holds the key to the teamâs Stanley Cup chances, considering the questions the New Bedford, MA, native has been asked this postseason.
âIs Steven Stamkos going to make it back from a blood clot in time?â
âIs Anton Stralman ready to return from his broken leg?â
âHow are the âupper bodyâ injuries that have been keeping JT Brown and Erik Condra sidelined coming along? Oh, and by the way, just between usâŠ.what exactly are those upper body injuries?â
The return of each of the aforementioned players would certainly bolster Tampa Bayâs championship hopes, and Tom, the longtime Lightning trainer, would love to see it happen.
But, heâs not saying.
âYou get the questions, but the people that we are close to and friends that we have in the area and in the neighborhood, they understand that I canât talk much about that,ââ Tom says. âYou hear the questions. I wish I could give them the answers.â
This yearâs Lightning team has already surpassed the expectations that were tempered when the injuries piled up near the end of the regular season. Tom and his staff are working hard to get the Lightningâs key players back on the ice.
âI mean, a lot of the credit goes to the whole training staff and itâs led by Tom and they are the best around,ââ says Stralman, a defenseman who broke his left leg on March 25 before finally returning for the Pittsburgh series. âItâs a long season and they keep our bodies in the best condition they can be. This time of the year, everyone is hurting but the training staff keeps us close to 100 percent. We all owe a lot to the trainers here.â
Tom, a former varsity defenseman in high school back in New Bedford, landed the job as the Lightningâs trainer by chance. In the summer of 2002, when Tom was the head trainer of the Providence Bruins (Bostonâs American Hockey League affiliate), he happened to call an old friend who told him that the Lightning trainer at the time was taking a job with the Florida Panthers.
Tom decided to apply and ended up getting the Lightning job.
A Dream Come True
It didnât take long for him to experience the goal of anybody working in hockey â being part of Tampa Bayâs Stanley Cup-winning celebration in 2004.
âThat was my second year with the team when we won the Cup, and everything just happened so fast,ââ Tom said. âHopefully you think youâll get another chance, then 12 years go by and you start to wonder if it will ever happen again.â
In the grand tradition of the Stanley Cup, each member of the organization gets to spend a day with the most famous trophy in sports. Tom took the Cup over to his parentsâ house in New Bedford for a small celebration. A picture with Tyler, who was then 16 months old, actually sitting in the Cup made the cover of the local newspaper.
âI wasnât necessarily the coolest (kid on the block), but the Cup was,ââ Tom says.
Since the Lightningâs only Cup win, Tom has traveled to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Helsinki, Finland, as a trainer for the USAâs World Championship teams in 2008 and 2012, and was a trainer on the USA team which lost in the Bronze medal game (to Finland) at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
However, heâd love another Cup so his kids could enjoy it, even though it extends his time away from his family.
âWith playoffs, it can be so unpredictable that itâs hard,ââ Kellie said. âAnd for Tom, even on off days, heâs going in for treatments. The cool thing is, itâs so exciting to be part of the playoffs. As a family, we get to share in that and the kids are part of it. It makes all the sacrifices worth it.â
Cheddar’s, the growing, Texas-based chain with 100 company-owned restaurants and 65 franchises (including Brandon and Pinellas Park), will open in front of the Tampa Premium Outlets (TPO) mall (at 2391 Sun Vista Dr., off S.R. 56) on Monday, June 6.
