Exhibit A: Xtreme Tacos ToGo, the taco truck that’s a short bike ride from our place.
Tag: Seminole Heights
Last Sunday, Anitra and I went on the annual Old Seminole Heights tour, which gave us the chance to see the insides of some of the houses in our neighborhood. One of the houses on this year’s tour belonged to Susan, our neighbor across the street, whose house turns 100 this year. She and her tour assistants dressed up in 1920s clothing and a local antique car enthusiast brought his 1916 Ford Model T to display in her driveway.
I was chatting with the car’s owner for a little while when he asked if Anitra and I would like to sit in the car. We’ve seen Model Ts before, but we’ve never been in one, so of course we said “yes!”
You can find out more about the Old Seminole Heights Home Tour here:
Common Dialect Beerworks, Seminole Heights’ newest brewpub, held its grand opening this past weekend. Located on Florida Avenue a few blocks south of Hillsborough, it’s the latest brewpub to appear our neighborhood over the past few years.
It’s also a hotly-anticipated arrival. The day I went, Saturday, January 14th, was its second day in operation. It wasn’t just their main parking lot that was full, but both overflow parking lots as well. It helped that it was a bright and sunny (if brisk, by Florida standards — 12° C / 54° F) day. The place was busy, but not uncomfortably so, at least in my extrovert opinion.
Common Dialect is owned by a couple from the neighborhood — Kendra and Mike Conze. If you’re a local dog owner, you probably know Kendra from her other business, Health Mutt, which is probably the most-loved pet food and supply store in Tampa. Health Mutt recently moved from its corner store location on Central Avenue to very spacious digs nearby on Florida Avenue. This gave them a large warehouse space next door, and that space became Common Dialect.
Here’s what I saw when I stepped inside:
The place was hoppin’, even though it wasn’t any time near peak beer hours — I’d arrived at about 3:00 p.m. to check out the place after getting my hair cut just up the street.
One way they’ve decided to make themselves stand out from the other pubs in the area is by being the most brightly-colored of the lot.
Make note of the people in the foreground if you want a sense of the wall mural’s size:
After admiring the mural for a moment, I decided to help the bar fulfill its business purpose and buy a drink.
The line moved pretty quickly, and the staff were friendly and seemed experienced. If they were having opening-weekend issues, I didn’t see them.
With my freshly-acquired beer (alas, they didn’t have any darks or stouts on hand, so I decided to go for vitamin C with a citrus wheat beer), I made my way to the patio.
There isn’t space for a kitchen inside the pub, but there’s a designated area for food trucks, and it appears that they plan to have a different food truck on the premises most nights. On the Saturday I went, they had two: Queen B Ice Cream and the cleverly-named A Boy Named Sous:
I lucked out and a seat on the patio freed up…
…so I set my accordion down (remember, I take it with me to pubs and bars because it’s a magical machine that often turns music into free beer)…
…and proceeded to enjoy my beer and some conversation with the people around me.
There are a number of pubs and bars within cycling distance of our place, including the Corner Club, 7venth Sun, Southern Brewing and Winemaking, The Independent and Ella’s Americana Folk Art Cafe, to name a few, and we’re “regulars” at many of them. Because of this, I’ve become familiar with a lot of neighborhood faces, and there were many unfamiliar faces here.
I struck up conversations (and played tunes for) the people at the tables around me, and they turned out to be new arrivals to the area who’d moved here for the usual selling points: classic houses, tree-lined walkable streets, nearby places to eat and drink, local quirky shops, and so on.
If anything, these new faces are a sign that we haven’t yet hit “peak brewpub” in the neighborhood and all the existing places, each with its own qualities and charms, will be around. One of the reasons we moved here was for the healthy ecosystem of “third places,” and I’m happy to see another player in the mix.
Welcome to the neighborhood, Common Dialect!
Sunday’s my day to check the grounds before my daily 10K bike ride.
Aside from some weeding that I’ll need to do over the coming week, the front yard looked good, so I decided to take some photos.
You can’t go for a bike ride without a bike. After eight years of pretty regular riding — and near-daily riding since the start of the pandemic — my bike was beginning to show its age. It was getting to the point that it would be cheaper to replace than repair it.
The supply chain for new bikes is a bit thin at the moment, but the local Facebook marketplace had a decent-sized selection. Once I’d filtered out the bikes that people got at Walmart (the bikes are so-so, and they’re usually assembled by the associate who drew the short straw), there were a couple of good picks.
I ended up buying relatively gently-used bike pictured above. It had new brakes and tires, and I got it for less than $200 from someone who lived a few blocks away and rode regularly with my go-to bike repair guy, Jorge, whose business is named Bike Haus (which I highly recommend). It rides quite nicely.
I usually drop by the Seminole Heights branch of Spaddy’s — a coffee trailer with patio area — on weekends for a Cuban toast with cheese and a cold brew with condensed milk.
All in all, a nice morning.
The combination of many purple-hued street lights (which are the result of a manufacturing defect) and someone’s runaway pet goat have given my neighborhood, Seminole Heights, a Final Destination or The Omen kind of feel.
Fortunately, I am prepared for this eventuality:
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!
I took this picture after having a couple of friends over for socially-distanced drinks in our front yard on Saturday night.
The temperature was a lovely 24° C (75° in Herr Doktor von Fahrenheit’s old-timey system), we had groovy jazz organ playing on the porch sound system, the company was excellent, and the string lights made our corner lot look so cheerful that we got compliments from the neighbors. (They’re also perfectly timed for Diwali!)
It was a lovely evening all ’round.