I was excited to see a sign posted next to Fine Ink Studios (the former location of Pinot’s Palette) that Haraz Coffee House was “Brewing Soon” at 1722 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., in the Publix-anchored Shoppes at New Tampa of Wesley Chapel plaza.
I’ll admit that I’d never heard of Haraz before, but any coffee shop that isn’t Starbucks that opens in our area is definitely worth a try and Haraz’s website says that the brand and founder Hamzah Nasser are “on a mission to share the rich heritage of Yemeni coffee with the world. By sourcing the finest beans and honoring traditional craftsmanship, we bring the bold, authentic flavors of Yemen to every cup. As we expand across the U.S., we’re committed to creating unforgettable coffee experiences that connect communities and celebrate culture.”
Since starting off in Detroit in 2021, Haraz has grown to 31 locations in 13 states (with the closest one to us, and the only one in Florida, in Orlando), with 185 more “in the pipeline.”
Whether you like traditional lattes or cappuccinos or prefer Turkish, Saudi, French Press or cold brew coffee, or even coffee with cardamom, ginger or other spices, Haraz has got you covered.
There’s also hot chocolate, green and matcha tea and pistachio and saffron lattes. Haraz also features milk cakes, cheesecake & cinnamon rolls, and sells items like coffeemakers and bulk coffee.
I called the Orlando location but they said the Wesley Chapel shop is owned by another franchisee, so they had no idea when our Haraz is expected to open. Of course, we’ll keep you posted, both in these pages and on our Facebook page.
When I read on Facebook that Double Branch Artisanal Ales, located at 5956 Wesley Grove Blvd. in The Village at The Grove, was under new ownership, I was excited to meet the new owner and learn about his plans for the place — even though I’ve never been a big beer drinker.
Well, after meeting the new owner, who goes by Dee (shown here with his friendly bartender/team member Jenna), and seeing how he’s already opened up Double Branch’s interior, including creating a window into the sizable working brewery, added more TVs (including a 190” projection screen) and upgraded the entire look of the place, I have to say that Dee is on the right track.
He’s also added several more beer taps (with a rotating selection of excellent craft beers and “a new commitment to sustainable brewing practices”), with live entertainment, trivia nights, brewery tours and fun community events all coming up soon.
Dee also says that although you can bring in food from The Grove’s restaurants and enjoy them with his tasty beers, seltzers, ciders and white, red and rose wines on tap, he plans to bring in “maybe 20-30 total items” from Falabella Family Bistro across the way sometime in the future. In the meantime, he also plans to host a Grand Opening event sometime later this month, but had not yet announced it as we went to press with this issue, so check our “Neighborhood News” Facebook page for that announcement soon.
For more info about Double Branch Artisanal Ales, which is open every day except Monday (although Dee says he does plan to open Mondays for Monday Night Football games), call (813) 492-880 or visit DoubleBranch.beer — and please tell Dee I sent you!
Taylor Gardner Gutters owner Taylor Gardner is proud of his new location in Dade City, but he and his crew (photos below) are still installing and repairing gutters at homes and businesses in Wesley Chapel and New Tampa, too. (Photo by Charmaine George)
Although Gardner Gutters had been serving the Tampa Bay area since Ed Gardner established it as a small business in Lutz in 2000, Ed’s son Taylor has grown the business immensely since taking it over in 2020 and renaming it Taylor Gardner Gutters.
It’s grown so much, in fact, that the business outgrew its previous location in Land O’Lakes and recently moved to four acres in Dade City.
“We have 15 vehicles on the road every day,” Taylor says. “Our front two acres are filled with trucks, trailers and an employee parking area. It’s more space than we need right now, but I know we’ll end up growing into it.”
Taylor Gardner Gutters installs and repairs gutters, soffits and facias, and also offers gutter cleaning, which keeps the gutters on your home or business working properly and in good repair.
Taylor says that adding gutters is the least expensive thing you can do to protect the value of your home, ensuring that Florida’s famous summer downpours don’t destroy its foundation or even its aesthetic upgrades.
“Protecting the foundation of your home is the main purpose of gutters,” he says, “but they also protect your paint and will help your grass and sod last longer, too. Gutters protect anything on the outside of your house to help it stay in great shape for as long as possible.”
Without gutters, Taylor says water is much more likely to settle at the base of your home’s foundation. With that saturation, the water can cause erosion to the side of the home, leading to cracks in the stucco and window ledges and forming unsightly trenches. Water under the home also can cause wood floors in the home to pucker or pop.
Taylor first joined the business to help his father after serving in the Marines for nine years, including a tour of duty in Iraq. He used his experience and his Business Administration degree from Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA, to start a different career, but came home when his dad needed his help after receiving a cancer diagnosis.
Taylor took over the business when Ed passed away, and Taylor’s older brother, Brandon, who had decades of experience working with their dad, led installations. Unfortunately, Brandon was then diagnosed with cancer as well and passed away just eight months later.
So now, Taylor continues the legacies of his dad and older brother, running the business in a way that would make them both proud.
Photo provided by Taylor Gardner
“Our installers are great, and we have several who have been with the company more than 15 years,” Taylor explains. “They know exactly what they’re doing.”
That’s important to Taylor because his company offers a lifetime warranty on its installations. He says this is what sets Taylor Gardner Gutters apart from its competitors.
Company policy is that any customer who experiences a warranty issue will have the problem inspected within 48 hours and fixed as soon as possible — no matter how many years it’s been since the gutters were originally installed.
“One of reasons we’ve been successful in this business is because we always answer the phone, especially if there’s a problem after installation,” Taylor explains.
He contrasts that with many of his competitors, who are often just one-person companies doing as many jobs as they can, without employees to keep up with other things, such as going back and fixing something if it isn’t right.
“My focus from the beginning has been to really hit customer service as our number one priority,” Taylor says. “We give people what they ask for at a very reasonable price.”
Taylor says some of his customers have been coming back to the company for two decades, since his dad first started the business.
The company’s lifetime no-leak guarantee is a another unique way Taylor builds those lifelong relationships.
“All gutters will leak eventually,” he says. “Mine won’t leak for at least 10 years, but if they do and you still live in that house, call us and we’ll fix it.”
He has one team that is dedicated to only doing repair work, even if it’s not a job originally done by Taylor Gardner Gutters. The repair team also handles any warranty calls that come in.
“After the hurricanes last year, that team was very busy,” Taylor says, with homes that had a gutter or piece of soffit that came down. “Nine times out of ten, it’s not something we did wrong — sometimes it’s because a customer has done no maintenance — but as a courtesy we still take care of the problem. They then tell their neighbors how much they love us and how good we are, and that’s really good for our business.”
It’s also good for his business that there is such a construction boom in our area. Taylor Gardner Gutters also works with several homebuilders to install gutters on newly built homes, including many of the new neighborhoods in Wesley Chapel, such as The Ridge, Winding Ridge, Valencia Ridge and all David Weekley Homes throughout the area.
Photo provided by Taylor Gardner
Those builders are growing in other areas, too, such as further north in and around Brooksville. And, Taylor says his business is expanding into Lakeland, which he describes as “even crazier in construction than Wesley Chapel.”
In addition to helping homeowners, the company installs, repairs and cleans gutters on commercial building for business owners.
Taylor Gardner Gutters just did its largest job ever, replacing gutters at the CENTCOM building at MacDill Air Force Base.
“It was a huge job on a seven-story building that took us four weeks,” Taylor says.
Taylor Gardner Gutters has 200+ reviews on Google, with an average rating of 4.8 stars out of 5. Recently, Scott Hutchison said the company’s crew “arrived on time and did a fantastic, professional, careful, and respectful job of adding new gutters to my two-story metal roof.”
Scott added that he highly recommends Taylor Gardner Gutters, writing, “[The] house looks great! No more water pooling up near my foundation.”
Taylor Gardner Gutters is now located at 10301 U.S. Hwy. 301 in Dade City and serves homeowners in Hillsborough, Pasco, Hernando, Polk and Citrus counties, including New Tampa and Wesley Chapel. For more info, visit TaylorGardnerGutters.com or call or text (813) 515-0844.
School letter grades in Wesley Chapel are up overall this year, according to a report released by the Florida Department of Education in July.
Four of Wesley Chapel’s nine elementary schools improved by a letter grade, including Sand Pine, which moved from a “B” to an “A.”
“We are thrilled,” says Sand Pine principal Angie Shauger. “For me, this A grade is more than a letter. It’s a celebration of what’s possible when a school unites around a shared mission to do what’s best for our students. I could not be prouder of our students, staff, and school community that has led us here.”
The other three elementary schools that improved their letter grades from the 2023-24 school year to 2024-25 are Double Branch, Quail Hollow and Veterans, all of which moved from a “C” to a “B.”
At Quail Hollow, both principal Norman Graham and assistant principal Nicole Sciarratta joined the school for the 2023-24 school year, and they agree that it’s rare for a school to have a complete turnover of the administrative team all at once. Last year, they say they experienced “typical growing pains,” while this year they were able to establish new expectations and increase the staff’s focus on student achievement.
“Our teachers focused on setting specific goals with every student in reading and math, so they were able to help students make growth in very specific areas,” says Sciarratta. “We saw tremendous growth in proficiency and learning gains this year, and we were just one point from an A.”
All of the elementary schools that improved their grades were quick to express their pride in their school and the importance of hard work by both teachers and students, and the support of parents and the community.
“I am super proud of our community pulling together,” says principal Lisa Grimsley at Double Branch Elementary. “Not just the teachers, but our fantastic PTA and even our PLACE [after-school program] staff, where they have time for homework and support our academic needs.”
While the principals are pleased with the higher grades, they are keeping an eye toward further growth.
“As we look ahead to the new school year, we are energized and committed to reaching an A,” says Melissa Bidgood, the principal at Veterans Elementary, who says this year’s success “stems from a laser-sharp focus on data, identifying areas of need, and closely monitoring student growth.”
Seven Oaks Elementary maintained its A, while Wesley Chapel and Wiregrass elementaries maintained their Bs.
Two Wesley Chapel elementary schools dropped a letter grade, including Watergrass, which fell from a B to a C, and New River, which dropped from a C to a D. Neither New River principal Kelly Wisneski nor Watergrass principal Andrea Altman were reached for comments about their school’s respective grades.
Meanwhile, the new Kirkland Ranch K-8 school received an A as its first ever letter grade.
All of Wesley Chapel’s other K-8 and middle schools maintained their previous letter grades, including As for John Long, Pinecrest Academy, and Union Park Charter Academy, while Cypress Creek, Innovation Prep and Weightman middle schools all earned Bs.
At the high school level, Cypress Creek High earned its first-ever A after earning consistent B ratings since it opened for the 2017-18 school year.
Kirkland Ranch Academy of Innovation and Wiregrass Ranch High both maintained their As from the previous year, and Pinecrest Academy’s high school showed the largest increase of any Wesley Chapel school, as it moved from a C last year (its first year receiving a grade) to an A this year.
Even high-achieving schools recognize that boiling so many measurements into just one letter can be problematic, and may not represent all of the complexities of an entire school and all of the students within it. The letter grades take into account various measurements to represent student achievement, learning gains, graduation, acceleration success, and maintaining a focus on students who need the most support.
Quail Hollow’s Graham expresses it this way. “At the end of the day, we want each one of our kids to be successful,” he says. “We want to look at each student as an individual and help them get what they need.”
(L.-r.) Reggie, Ryder, Erica & Ryleigh invite you to check out Final Touch Quality Cleaners, which will make sure every inch of your home, apartment, business or Airbnb will be sparkling when they leave. (All photos by Charmaine George)
Reggie Wakefield and Erica Poniatowski, the owners of Final Touch Quality Cleaners, have become mine and Jannah’s friends over the course of the last two years, since they took over cleaning our previous apartment and especially, since they have been cleaning our larger, new apartment at the Silversaw Apartments.
Jannah first met both Erica and Reggie at her Business Networking International (BNI) meetings. Erica joined the group and we all hit it off instantly.
Both Erica and Reggie have cleaned our place, but Erica is more focused on her career as a Realtor® with Great Western Realty in Tampa, while Reggie…well, I’ll let him tell you.
“I was cleaning houses and apartments in New York City when I was seven or eight years old, when my mom used to take me and one of my sisters (Brittany) with her. We were both young, so we thought she was just doing favors for our neighbors, but we later found out she had made a business out of it!”
He adds, “We were both kind of chunky kids, so we loved cleaning food trucks because they would pay us with free food!,” he laughs.
And, although Reggie got into the home alarm business when he and Erica graduated from the same high school in southern New Jersey, he says, “I’ve just always loved to clean! I get a feeling of satisfaction when I leave someone’s home or business sparkling.”
So, when both he and Erica made the decision to move from New Jersey to Florida, after both of them left different alarm companies, it was Reggie who pushed for them to start their own cleaning service in the Sunshine State, especially since Brittany, the sister he used to clean with when they were kids, already owned a successful “sister” cleaning company in Norfolk, VA.
The couple ultimately settled in nearby Lutz and Erica became the public face of the new Final Touch Quality Cleaners — despite Reggie’s winning smile and hard-to-resist personality — so he could focus on the cleaning side while she ran the business and handled the billing and marketing.
“Even though she’s great at it, I know that cleaning isn’t Erica’s thing,” Reggie says. “When Erica said she wanted to get her real estate license, I was happy for her to go for it.”
In the meantime, Final Touch has continued to grow, with all-5-star reviews on 16 reviews on Google. Customer Jackie P., in a 5-star Google review, says, “I’ve used Final Touch Quality Cleaners for everything I have! My home and my business! They do phenomenal work and their detailed approach is very reassuring. They also make our appliances look like new each time they leave and we always have a great smelling house afterwards. 10/10. Will always recommend and use.”
One thing I’ve noticed when Reggie cleans our apartment is how methodical he is. We haven’t had an actual office for him to clean, but I can imagine how he would be able to expand what he does for us for a much larger space.
Speaking of larger spaces, after Erica and Reggie met Rock & Brews general manager Kareem Nelson at a BNI function at the restaurant a year ago, they immediately were hired to clean it.
“Kareem told me they had an in-house cleaning crew they weren’t happy with,” Reggie says. “I told him ‘I got you’ and we’ve been cleaning it ever since. I’m sad they’re closing it, not just because we’re losing a commercial client, but because Kareem has been so great to work with.”
So, as of now, Reggie says he and Erica are focused on finding another big commercial account to replace Rock & Brews.
“We have a crew and we all work the commercial accounts together to get it done — not just fast, but right!,” he says. “We’ll always make sure your office, restaurant or other place of business always looks as good as your home when we finish cleaning.” Reggie and Erica also are happy to clean your Airbnb, and provide move-in, move-out and post-construction cleans, too.
Final Touch also is looking to hire additional cleaners after an amazing occurrence with part of their crew. “We had a couple working for us but they recently won a million dollars on a scratch-off ticket!,” Reggie says. “At first, they said they would keep on working…after all, a million dollars isn’t worth as much today as it once was… but they ended up leaving anyway.”
Erica and Reggie have a daughter named Ryleigh and a son named Ryder and you can see how much they love their little family.
“We’ve got to make it work for them,” Reggie says, “and I have no doubt we will.”
New clients who mention this storywill receive 10% off their first clean with Final Touch Quality Cleaners. For more information and a free estimate, call (813) 530-5591 or email FinalTouchQC@gmail.com.
