The Tampa Tea 🍵(January 12)

Welcome to The Tampa Tea!

In today’s Gasparilla Edition:

• Best places to go for Gasparilla - ticketed events, brunches, bar crawls

• What to expect on Gasparilla

• Event of the week in Tampa

• And more…

Introduction

First of all, I want to say welcome to the newsletter!

I’ve put out dozens of Tampa TikToks over the past year…

And I get questions about Tampa all of the time…

“What are the best bars in Tampa to go out to in my late 20s?”

“Where’s the best neighborhood to move in Tampa?”

“Best gyms to join?”

“Where can I go to meet people since I’m new here?”

So I figured what better way to give tips about Tampa than start a newsletter?

Honestly I’m a little pissed it took me this long to think of the idea, but it is what it is…

Better late than never.

Anyways, the goal of this newsletter is to keep you updated on the best events and things to do around Tampa, do restaurant & bar spotlights, mix in an espresso martini review here and there, and given the name of the newsletter…

Share some funny stories submitted by YOU (if you have a funny story from a night out, a bad date you went on, or anything that’s worth sharing, respond back and I’ll share it in next week’s newsletter!)

And what better way to kick things off than with a Gasparilla rundown?

Let’s dive in:

Places to be on Gasparilla

This will be my 4th Gasparilla, and the best plan in my opinion is to hit a pregame or a brunch, go to the parade route on Bayshore early afternoon, then get to a bar later in the afternoon.

Brunches:

American Social - Definitely on the pricier side, but AmSo is doing bottomless brunch, a full buffet, and open bar from 10 AM - 3 PM… And you’ll get the best seat in the house of the pirate invasion!

Bar Crawl & Brunch - The Gasparilla Bar Crawl is a much cheaper option for brunch - you’ll get bottomless mimosas and brunch from 9 AM - 12 PM.

The nice part about this ticket is you get access to the following bars all day:

• Haiku

• Yeoman’s

• The Patio

• District Tavern

• Corazon Bar

• Showbar Ybor

• The Grove Soho

• Maloney’s Irish Pub

It looks like you’ll get bottomless brunch at whichever location you choose fro your ticket, then your wristband will get you into any of these spots, with a free shot, all day.

MacDinton’s Kegs and Eggs - Macdits in Soho is opening at 9 AM for complementary breakfast, and staying open until 3 AM (lol)

Some brave soul should show up at 9 and do 18 straight hours at Macdits and see how long they survive, I would love to see this LOL

If you’re looking for a nice brunch and bottomless drinks, I’d go for either of the first 2 options - but the nice thing is you do get all day access with re-entry!

Pregames - If you’d rather stay home and start the day with your group, I’d honestly recommend this too… Party starts early and anything goes on Gaspy so get some music blasting at 8 AM and let it rip early!

Parade Route:

The parade route goes all the way up Bayshore, and it’s a mad house the entire way.

Based on the Gasparilla website, looks like the Bayshore parade goes from 2 PM until 5:30 PM, so you’ll have plenty of time to party before showing up to Bayshore.

The ACTUAL invasion on the water is 1130 - 1 PM, with the ship docking at the Events Center at 1 PM. This is why Amso brunch is great, you get the best seat in the house with an open bar.

The parade on Bayshore are just parade floats… Be ready to catch some beads!

Here’s a great map of the parade route:

Bars:

If you want the best day possible on Gaspy, I’d highly recommend buying a ticket for a bar.

Since MacDinton’s is open for an absurd amount of time and going from breakfast until late night, use the link above for their ticket.

Plus, Soho is walkable from the parade route, so bouncing from Bayshore to Hwrd or MacDits is an easy move.

Bar Hwrd - I will personally be at Bar Hwrd for their block party. They have a ton of space, and they put up a massive tent over their parking lot so you aren’t cramped into a tiny bar with a million people.

Soho Saloon - Slightly cheaper than Bar Hwrd, but much less room to party. If you’re gonna spend the money, might as well do Bar Hwrd IMO.

Look, I’m not the biggest fan of Soho by any means. I’ll make an appearance 2 times a year when I wanna get a little greasy.

But on Gasparilla, it’s the place to be during the day. Simple as that.

After late afternoon in Soho, if you’re still alive, bounce to 511, M.Bird or somewhere downtown for a nightcap since there isn’t a Lightning game this year.

You should be able to get into any of the hot spots if you get there early enough.

511 had a line a mile long last year at night, plan accordingly.

What to Expect on Gasparilla

If this is your first Gaspy, here’s what to expect:

• There will be little to no cell service all day because of how many people are in the city. Finding your friends, getting Ubers, etc will be very tricky unless you have wifi. Adds to the fun!

• Ubers are near impossible because no service and road closures, so plan to walk a SHIT TON - wear comfy shoes that won’t give you blisters (I’m talking to you ladies)

• It starts early - I’m talking 9 AM heavy boozing. Pace yourself and drink some damn water!

• Wear anything white or black or Bucs colored - pirate attire is cool but you aren’t gonna look out of place with a regular fit on! I’d plan to dress warm, and let the booze blanket carry you the rest of the way.

• It’s a complete free for all and shit show in the best way. If you wanna throw a crazy party or pregame, this is the day to do it! Noise complaints / Karen neighbors are out of the equation.

• Stack up on beads! Fellas you may just get a girl to kiss you in exchange for some beads. Just sayin

If you have ANY other questions about Gasparilla, what to do, where to go, what to expect… respond back to this email and I’m happy to help!

Event of the week

Unfortunately, Gasparilla is still 13 days away…

In the meantime, the event of the week in Tampa:

🏒 TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING HOCKEY ⚡

The Lightning have back to back home games Thursday and Saturday, and to be honest there isn’t anything better than a Saturday night hockey game.

Pregame a bit at Yard House, hit the Party Deck in between periods, go out after the game.

And if ya can’t make Saturday, you can watch the boys crush the Ducks Thursday night.

Grab tickets HERE

The Tampa Tea

I wanna wrap each newsletter with a funny story submitted by one of you…

Sort of like a Reddit forum for funny Tampa stories.

This series will only be as good as the submissions I get, so submit your craziest story and we’ll see if it catches on.

Your story will be anonymous, of course!

This will only get better as time goes on and I get more organized with the content every week…

Excited for next week’s edition.

-Christian

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