In Northwest Tampa’s Westchase area, a neighborhood gathering place for wine and beer drinkers recently arrived at the residential-meets-commercial community that is Highland Park. But make no mistake: The Fountainhead, named for its location at 11595 Fountainhead Drive, isn’t looking to be classified as your average bar.
“We kinda want you, when you come in, to have an experience of, 'I’ve never had that beer before — tell me about it.' Or, 'I’ve never had this wine — tell me about it,'” said co-owner Chip Orr.
“We’ve been able to educate our people on that so that you feel like you got not just a night out, but a little education on whatever you’re drinking, and an atmosphere.”
Featuring 155 seats inside and out, The Fountainhead is the brainchild of Orr, Brent Balch and Dr. Clayton Ricks. General contractor Balch and Orr, a partner in practitioner-assisted stretching business StretchPros, met in the dorms of the University of Florida in 1989. According to Orr, while Balch has wanted to launch a venture like their young watering hole for years, it needed to be the right opportunity; when apartments and a commercial component were added to Highland Park, Balch jumped at the chance to secure The Fountainhead’s 4,000-or-so-square-foot property.
The bar quietly opened its doors at the beginning of November and has been rockin’ — sometimes at an overwhelmingly busy rate — ever since.
Balch recruited his dentist, Dr. Ricks, whose office is close by, to come on board as their resident craft beer connoisseur. The doc is great at introducing patrons to the craft counterparts of their favorite domestics or imports.
“We want to have something for everybody,” Orr said, “the more discerning palates and someone who maybe is a Miller Lite drinker.”
That’s why local and big-name brews are offered on tap — from pilsners to ambers and everything in between — alongside gluten-free, stalwart and hard-to-find bottles. The same is true of the wine selection, a sommelier-curated mix of crowd-pleasing and eclectic, minus the lavish price tag.
The staff has fun playing with house-made sangria behind the bar as well. Although the white’s core recipe hasn’t changed much since opening day, they’ve featured at least four variations on the red, including stone fruit. There’s even frosé — a drink order that continues to grow in popularity around town — but, lately, the weather hasn’t been particularly ideal for the alcoholic slushie.
When it is, though? The patio out back is quite a draw. It’s a kid- and pooch-friendly area that guests can enjoy over a game of cornhole, or while listening to live music among tables shaded with umbrellas.
“We’re trying to make it so that — outside of liquor, because we do not do full liquor — if you want to go out and watch a game, you want to sit and have a quiet glass of wine with someone, or you want to have a cigar, you can come here and feel comfortable,” Orr said of the patio, which extends toward the front of the building.
The cozy, cool interior ain’t too shabby, either. Tufted couches and banquettes, high-tops and nailhead-accented chairs mingle with iconic shots taken all over Highland Park by photographer Robin Reiss, TVs for sports fans and plenty of natural light. The Fountainhead describes the vibe as “casually upscale.”
Another highlight is the private room, filled with wine racks and one big wooden community table. This is where the owners regularly host a lineup of affordable beer and wine tastings, which are intended to become bimonthly; the next one, spotlighting sparklers, is scheduled for 7 p.m. Feb. 7. The room can also be rented out for other events — think holiday parties and birthday celebrations.
To keep patrons from cutting their merriment short in search of food, the bar sources a menu from its across-the-street sibling, Atlas Gourmet Pizza, which Brent Balch owns with chef Graham Mahlman (Balch, as Orr puts it, is a fan of the two Ayn Rand books you’re probably thinking of). The savvy collaboration allows Mahlman to whip up items such as charcuterie trays, wings and one-off pizzas for hungry imbibers who put in a ticket through The Fountainhead’s self-ordering kiosk. The takeout-driven Atlas then delivers the grub in a timely fashion, just like that.
“It’s more like pizza that I like and was hoping other people would like, too, because I don’t think pizza has to be at an Italian restaurant or Italian,” the chef said of Atlas’s specialty.
Orr added: “What we see a lot of people doing who live here is they’ll come here, order their food if they want to take it home, and then they’ll have a beer or two. So it kills two birds — they got to have a beer, and they got food for the family.”
