UPDATE: It’s a little after 6:30 p.m. on one of the first chilly nights of the fall when Tampa City Council candidate Kelly Benjamin shows up at the Refinery’s upstairs bar. He’s wearing a sportscoat and carrying a bicycle tire, which he hands off to a bartender. (His vintage Raleigh 10-speed is parked below.) He orders a craft beer and we head to the deck, which is already crowded with young couples beginning their weekend.
The Refinery, like Ella’s and The Independent, has become a popular fixture in Seminole Heights over the last year. The restaurants, along with The Front Porch and Cappy’s, have succeeded in giving one of Tampa’s most dynamic neighborhoods the sort of food and drink establishments residents have been demanding for years, but have had a hard time getting constructed.
“When these people went before the City Council and talked about getting a beer and wine license, the current representative [Charlie Miranda] said, ‘Well, I don’t think people really want to get a beer after midnight.’ You know, that’s the kind of mindset that sometimes pervades here,” Benjamin says. “When I go door to door and talk to people in all these neighborhoods, they’re dying for it. They want places that are walkable, that they can take their kids to, that can be a neighborhood hangout, to go and enjoy a game on TV and have beer or sit at dinner.”
This article appears in Nov 18-24, 2010.