A photograph of speaker Manny Leto giving a presentation at the venue Shuffle in Tampa, Florida, on July 15, 2025. The image is shot with a shallow depth of field, featuring a heavily blurred foreground filled with the silhouettes of audience members, glass bottles, and bar items illuminated by warm bokeh lights. In the sharp midground, the individual stands holding a microphone, wearing a dark short-sleeved t-shirt and a dark baseball cap. Behind them, a bright projector screen displays a black-and-white historical photograph of a storefront and a group of people. The background is dimly lit with pinkish hues, highlighting a wall with a white geometric textured pattern and a framed piece of artwork hanging to the right. — Manny Leto at Shuffle in Tampa, Florida on July 15, 2025. Credit: Photo by Dave Decker / Creative Loafing Tampa Bay

There’s a lot to love, and a few things to loathe, about Tampa. Manny Leto expects to help history lovers through all of those emotions and more when his now infamous Drunk Tampa History Talk returns to Shuffle this month.

After launching to much fanfare in 2024, the show was forced into a ticketed format in 2025 and sold-out yet again thanks in no small part to Leto’s ability to give a no-holds-barred, wholly entertaining, and intelligent (not belligerent!) presentation in between shots and beer.

It’s everything natives and newbies want to know about the city without getting too deep—and without playing nice just to be police.

“I’m not representing any particular organization, so there’s a certain freedom in that,” Leto, a lifelong Tampeño who is now Executive Director at Preserve the ‘Burg, told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.

Just looking at the past for what it is on paper doesn’t tell a community how it got to the present.

“We study history to understand what’s happening today,” Leto added. “We study history to understand what’s happening today. That’s the goal—making those connections.

Last year’s lecture included a broad overview of Tampa history, with short deviations into details and easter eggs not included in 2024. Leto told CL that guests this year will get primer info, noting that his 2026 presentation may dig into how the Hillsborough River acts as a connective thread running through Tampa’s history.

“From early First Peoples, to the establishment of Fort Brooke, to neighborhoods like West Tampa on the west side of the river, Seminole Heights along the river, Sulfur Springs—you can see the city growing up along the river as its spine,” he said.

And yes, the mobsters, pirates, corruption will all be mixed in there with the pro wrestlers and death metal bands because in Tampa all those things are somehow connected.

Tickets for Drunk Tampa History: Tampa’s 139th Birthday Party happening Wednesday, July 15 at Shuffle Tampa are still available for $10. There will be raffles, trivia, prizes, and, of course, cake.

This writer will play emcee and host.