Well, it’s the best grocery store sign ever in my opinion, anyway.
Category: Tampa Bay
My hunch that Trader Joe’s Tampa would be a ghost town last night during Super Bowl LV’s half-time paid off. It was the perfect time to make a quick but important grocery run, as you can see from the photo I took while at the cashier (see above).
This run was important because there are better-than-even odds that we’ll experience a COVID-19 spike, thanks to Super Bowl superspreader gatherings like the one in the picture below, taken in Ybor City on Saturday night…
This is officially the wildest I’ve ever seen Ybor. EVER. 1:40am. pic.twitter.com/7LTC9NvEfE
— Luis Santana (@LuisSantana) February 7, 2021
…and covered in the following articles:
- Washington Post — Thousands of maskless Tampa fans flooded the streets, celebrating the Super Bowl win while risking a superspreader event
- New York Times — In Tampa, Super Bowl Celebrations Bring Superspreader Concerns
- WFTS Tampa Bay — Tampa crowds, dance parties spark superspreader concerns over Super Bowl weekend
- Medscape — Superspreader Sunday: The Super Bowl With COVID Variants Afoot
My advice: Be particularly careful over the next couple of weeks, because a lot of people were careless over the past couple of days.
It was a great morning for a bike ride in Tampa, what with temperatures of 24°C/75°F and plenty of sunshine. Here’s what I saw as I biked past the our yard and got today’s workout.
Last year, we had a problem with a household who in addition to keeping chickens in their yard, also kept a rooster. I have no problems with neighbors keeping chickens, but the rooster was a big problem at the crack of dawn, for reasons that should be obvious if you’ve ever been to a farm or rural town. That problem was solved by identifying the household and going through the appropriate City of Tampa code enforcement channels. Urban chickens are legal, but a roosters aren’t.
Over the past few days, we’ve been woken by a rooster again, and this time, we think it’s a free roamer, which isn’t uncommon here in the Sunshine State, and part of the scene in Ybor City, just a couple of miles south of our neighborhood.
Anyhow, all this had led to the most “Florida” conversation I’ve ever had on Facebook chat with my neighbor Jennifer, as pictured above.
It looks like Seminole Heights is going to get another speciality chicken place. In addition to King of the Coop, whose signature dish is Nashville hot chicken, we’re about to get Gangchu, whose stock in trade is Korean fried chicken. I enjoyed eating “K-fry” back in Toronto, and I’m looking forward to having a place in the neighborhood where I can get my fix.
Ganchu is located at 6618 North Nebraska Avenue, just south of Gott Glass and the Sulphur Springs Post Office, and across the street from 7venth Sun Brewery, who’ve come up with a custom beer to go along with your Korean fried chicken: K-Hop IPA!
Badass Korean provides this translation for the word gangchu:
Roughly equivalent to the English “it rocks,” this expression is an abbreviation of gangryok chucheon, meaning to strongly recommend something. Gangchu started online in internet chat rooms by young people, but is now used in everyday conversations. Similar to “It’s the shit!”
Gangchu is the creation of the other Filipino who’s made his mark on Seminole Heights: Noel Cruz, who’s behind Tampa Bay mainstays Ichicoro Ramen, Ichicoro Ane, and Ichicoro Imoto, c. 1949, and The Corners pizza at Sparkman Wharf.
The folks at Gangchu have been pretty tight-lipped about when they’re going to open. Your best best to keep up with their activities right now is to follow their Instagram account, @eatgangchu. I’m looking forward to their grand opening!
Today in the Tampa Bay Times: Coronavirus cases are up in Tampa Bay care centers since Thanksgiving.
If only someone had warned us that treating Thanksgiving as a “business as usual” affair would have serious consequences!
Oh, wait…
Categories
Tampa’s messed-up intersections
I’ve lived here for almost 7 years (my anniversary will be in March), and I can say I’ve driven across most of the messed-up intersections on this poster. It’s almost as if Tampa’s roads were designed as a challenge by the designers of the Grand Theft Auto videogames rather than competent civil engineers.
(Source: /r/Tampa)