The official promotional logo graphic for Creative Loafing's Best of the Bay 2026 awards. In the top left corner is the red and black Creative Loafing logo. The main text, 'BEST of the BAY 2026', is arranged in a colorful, ransom-note collage style. Each letter of 'BEST' and 'BAY' features a different font and is placed on its own torn, rectangular piece of colored paper, utilizing shades of bright red, green, navy blue, and maroon. The words 'of the' are written in a black cursive script inside a small yellow circle on the left. At the bottom right, the year '2026' is displayed in bold white numbers on a torn black background.
Credit: Design by Jack Spatafora / Creative Loafing Tampa Bay

Tampa Bay’s best local businesses, bartenders, politicians, strippers, friends, friends of strippers, and more will be decided over the summer in the 2026 edition of Creative Loafing’s Best of the Bay awards.

In the reader’s poll, there are over 551 awards to win across nine groups including:

  • Arts
  • Beauty & wellness
  • Drink
  • Entertainment
  • Food
  • Goods
  • People
  • Places
  • Services

The nomination period in Creative Loafing Tampa Bay’s Best of the Bay 2026 reader’s poll runs through midnight June 10 and lives at vote.cltampa.com.

Nominations can be made once a day. The top 15 nominees will move onto the voting round, and winners will be revealed at Creative Loafing’s big Best of the Bay 2026 party happening this fall inside the Hard Rock Event Center at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.

Tickets for Creative Loafing Tampa Bay’s Best of the Bay party happening Wednesday, Oct. 7 inside the Hard Rock Event Center at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Tampa go on sale in August.

More information is at botbtampabay.com.

Pitch in to help make the Tampa Bay Journalism Project a success.

Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.

Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | BlueSky

This article appears in May 14 – 20, 2026.

Read his 2016 intro letter and disclosures from 2022 and 2021. Ray Roa started freelancing for Creative Loafing Tampa in January 2011 and was hired as music editor in August 2016. He became Editor-In-Chief...