Sep 30 – Oct 7, 2021

Sep 30 - Oct 7, 2021 / Vol. 34 / No. 39
It’s here. The Best of Tampa Bay, according to both Creative Loafing Tampa Bay readers and critics. Thanks for being awesome. Grab a copy and keep it somewhere close to help you find amazing businesses, artists and locals to support all year long. Thanks for all the votes and support, everyone!

Best pandemic byproduct

Thai Temple drive-thru Palm River’s Wat Mongkolratanaram Buddhist Temple is the number one place in Tampa to seek tranquility as you stir your bowl of pho (skinny noodle, please) with a spring roll—but like so many other things, the pandemic took it away. Until last March, that is, when the Wat started drive-thru service complete…

Best place to flash the white power sign with little to no consequence

(Tie) Bad Monkey or New Port Richey Wanna express your free speech by throwing the “OK” sign in public spaces without much pushback? There are at least two places in Tampa Bay to do that. One is Bad Monkey in Ybor City where post-Trumparilla reveler Don Cini screamed “white power” during a VIP event. Despite…

Best sign that change is good

They Hate Change Clearwater duo They Hate Change was already on many a hip-hop head’s radar thanks to '666 Central Ave.,' its recent release on the Godmode imprint, but Dre and Vonne took it to a new level this year when the band signed to indie-label giant Jagjaguwar, which released They Hate Change's mind-boggling new…

Best Bay area debut Kanye took away

Jay Electronica The show was announced less than a month before it was supposed to happen, so maybe we shouldn’t have been surprised when Jay Electronica’s Tampa debut got postponed. It wasn’t COVID that got the legendary rapper, however. Nope, Jay had to bail on Tampa after doors were already open at Crowbar because none…

Most resilient record store

Daddy Kool Records This beloved shop survived the near extinction of record stores a decade or so back. Daddy Kool was a fixture on the 600 Block of St. Pete’s Central Avenue for a decade, but escalating rents pushed it out. No biggie. In April 2019, owner Tony Rifugiato and the man who mans it,…

Best way to support black businesses with minimal effort

Candy Lowe’s Black business bus tour Green Book of Tampa Bay is the definitive local guide to buying Black locally, but if you don’t want to thumb through the listings, just hop on a bus hailed by Candy Lowe whose Tampa bus tour takes riders to over half a dozen businesses in East Tampa, Ybor…


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