Tampa Bay's first Wawa drive-thru is for sale, Blind Tiger is headed to Ybor, and more local foodie news

Coming soon

Blind Tiger Coffee Roster  After almost 10 years, the original Blind Tiger Coffee Roaster has outgrown its location. Owner Roberto Torres has signed a new lease at 1823 E 7th Ave., where Blind Tiger will take over the space formerly home to dive bar Boneyard, which closed last month after nearly three decades in the historic district. Tampa Bay Business Journal says Torres expects to open by the end of the year. The original Blind Tiger has been open in its 1,300 square-foot, location at 1901 E 7th Ave. just a block away since 2014. The move nearly doubles the space for the coffee business, with 4,000 square feet, and also features new menu additions, including breakfast, appetizers, and happy hour drinks. 1823 E 7th Ave., Ybor City, @blindtigercoffee on Instagram

Drive Thru Wawa  Now's your chance to lord over a Wawa. Last month, City Commissioner Michael Smith confirmed that Florida's first Wawa drive-thru would soon debut in Largo. The property, located at 2530 East Bay Dr., will replace a vacant KFC drive-thru and be the popular gas station chain's third drive-thru in the nation. While the new Wawa drive-thru is expected to open before the end of the year, the building itself is currently on the market for $3,222,000. According to the listing, the 2,016-square-foot space comes with a 10-year corporate-backed lease agreement from Wawa, a scheduled 7% rent increase, land ownership and "zero landlord responsibilities." The new concept will not have gas or pre-packaged items found at typical Wawas, but instead will have a limited menu centered around the chain's deli sandwiches, wraps and breakfast Sizzlies. 2530 East Bay Dr., Largo, @wawa on Instagram—Colin Wolf

Events

Pepsi "Dig In Day"  As part of National Black Business Month, Pepsi’s annual “Dig In Day” is once again picking up the tab for Tampa Bay foodies next weekend. This year, 7th + Grove—located at 1930 E 7th Ave. in Ybor City—and its adjacent cafe Madame Fortune Dessert + HiFi Parlour will offer free meals to Tampa residents on Saturday, Aug. 19. 7th + Grove’s free dish will be fried catfish on a bed of linguini noodles, Grove-made tomato sauce, lump crab meat served with garlic cuban toast. Madame Fortune Dessert + HiFi Parlour will serve "The Zion," sweetberry toast, scrambled eggs, bacon and crispy home fries.This year, Tampa is one of 12 cities featured in the event. 1930 E 7th Ave., Ybor City, @7thandgrove on Instagram

Lucid Zero Proof Lounge's Five Course Tasting Menu & Zero Proof Pairing Fancy, fine dining meals always taste better with a beverage pairing, and Valrico’s Lucid Zero Proof Lounge is creating an NA-friendly environment to do that in. This weekend features two nights of five-course tasting menus with zero-proof pairings, feature dishes like oyster and escargot rockefeller, stuffed zucchini ribbons over confited tomato and sweet pepper, surf and turf risotto and sticky toffee pudding for dessert—all with their accompanying mocktails. Once you purchase your $75 ticket, you can call the lounge at (813)-278-5213 to reserve your date and time. Lucid Zero Proof Lounge debuted in Valrico late last year, and is dedicated to serving tasty and realistic mocktails in a laid-back, yet entertaining atmosphere.Tickets to Lucid Zero Proof Lounge's Five Course Tasting Menu & Zero Proof Pairing. on Friday-Saturday, Aug. 11-12 are $75. 3102 Lithia Pinecrest Rd., Valrico, @lucidzeroprooflounge on Instagram—Kyla Fields

813 Popup @ L.P.C.X. Cafe Tampa’s  L.P.C.X. Cafe is already one of the best low-key ways to experience Colombian food and culture, but this weekend two local chefs—Hassan Lewis and Guillermo Quezada, who’ve both cooked at Rooster & the Till under Michelin-Bib chef Ferrell Alvarez—have curated a sandwich menu as a love letter to their adopted hometown of Tampa, Florida. The guys, products of Leto's culinary arts program, have prepared a chorizo-beef blend “Don Chimi” with fried cheese, guava, and chimichurri cabbage, plus their takes on banh mi, and two different katsu sandwiches featuring Daliana Conti’s Rising Sol milk bread. L.P.C.X. will handle drinks and coffees while Janelly Vintage Cakes does sweets. The pop-up, which will a no cover event on Aug. 13 from 6 p.m.-9 p.m., is "about showing what we can do but also showing how much Tampa has taught us," Lewis said. "The menu draws influence from many of the places we love to eat and what we’ve learned working in kitchens most of our professional lives. Our challenge was how do we pull from those influences and put our own spin on it." 6402 N. Armenia Ave., Tampa, @lpcxcafe on Instagram—Ray Roa

ICYMI

Florida breweries are pushing for self distribution  Florida’s first brewery, La Tropical, opened in Ybor City in 1896. Prohibition arrived 24 years later. The end of prohibition in 1933 brought with it laws that allowed states to regulate the way liquor, including beer, was sold and distributed. And while a reborn La Tropical now brews out of Miami, craft breweries across the state still operate under similar laws. The Florida Brewers Guild wants to change that. “Most of these laws have been in effect since the 1930s, well before the recent and growing boom in craft beer in our state,” the Guild writes on its Freedom For Beer website. Reform, the guild says, would “update the current Three-Tier System of alcoholic beverage laws to better serve not just manufacturers, but retailers, and distributors for the benefit of Florida consumers.”The Guild says licensing fees—which a brewer needs to make and sell their beer—should be determined on a sliding scale based on production, not the flat, “one-size-fits-all” approach that forces a small brewer to pay the same fee as a large, sometimes multinational, brewer. At the heart of the Guild’s issues, however, is distribution. Florida law requires breweries to work with beer distributors, which make profit by getting beer from breweries to stores, bars, and restaurants where the guild says consumers see a markup (the distributor brought it there, after all). The Guild says franchise laws should be limited to breweries of certain sizes based on production capacity. “These changes would continue to protect distributors from losing large manufacturers that comprise the majority of their sales and affect the stability of their business, while allowing smaller breweries to negotiate their contracts based on their specific needs for the benefit of both parties,” the Guild writes. And while Florida brewers caught a break this year when State Reps. Lindsay Cross (a Democrat from St. Petersburg) and Brad Yeager (a Republican from New Port Richey) got Gov. Ron DeSantis to sign a bill that limits branding fees brewers pay the state to only those sold to distributors, the Guild wants more reform in 2024.—RR

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