1983
South MacDill restaurant, bar and arcade from a Tampa hospitality group. Publishes Bucs and Gators schedules, NFL and college football all season, and Premier League on weekends. Says it has 80 TVs.
7th + Grove
7th + Grove sits on East Seventh Avenue in Ybor City and describes itself as the flagship of the 7th + Grove Hospitality group. The cooking is Southern comfort food crossed with Guyanese flavours, served with what the site calls creatively crafted cocktails, and the room runs late on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. It is one of the Ybor rooms Creative Loafing Tampa Bay lists among Tampa Bay's restaurants, and it leans into events... a Saturday day party with hookahs and small bites, NFL Sundays, private parties and catering.
Angry Chair Brewing
Angry Chair is a Seminole Heights brewery known well beyond Tampa for big pastry stouts, but its own line about itself is about the name: everybody has an angry chair, work or traffic or whatever, and the beer is the getting away from it. The brewery says it does not always brew to style and calls its beers forward thinking, then notes drily that it won a gold medal for its pilsner, so it can follow the rules if it wants to. The taproom is on North Florida Avenue, has its own food menu and takes private event bookings.
Armature Works
Armature Works is a 1910 streetcar barn on the Hillsborough River in Tampa Heights, rebuilt into the Heights Public Market with close to twenty independent food counters under one roof. Above the market are private event rooms and Rooftop 220, which looks back at the downtown skyline. The lawn outside it runs down to the Riverwalk, and Creative Loafing lists it as a kid stop for the giant chess boards and the family events it runs through the week. Chill Bros keeps an ice cream counter inside.
BellyUp! to Tampa’s Best Bars
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23 spots
Coppertail Brewing Co.
Coppertail brews inside a historic industrial building on East Second Avenue in Ybor City, a 34,000 square foot production brewery with a five vessel brewhouse and more than 1,000 barrels of fermentation capacity. The two-story Tap Room and Kitchen sits in front of it, with exposed brick and steel, a second-storey loft that looks toward downtown, and a patio. The kitchen smokes its own meats and makes its own sausages, and the taps carry Coppertail beer alongside Fallen Fruit Hard Cider and High Dive THC Seltzer. The brewery also runs tours and keeps a live music and events calendar.
Forbici Modern Italian
Forbici sits on Snow Avenue in Hyde Park Village and takes its name from the Italian word for scissors. Its own story is about a family table rather than a chef: sharing meals was our family's language of love, and the restaurant is meant to put guests at that table. Practically, it runs Italian food and pizza with handcrafted cocktails and live entertainment through the week, opening at 10 for weekend service. There is a second Forbici at 183 2nd Ave N in St. Petersburg, which is Pinellas and out of scope for this property.
Gaspar's Grotto
Gaspar's Grotto sits on Seventh Avenue in the middle of Ybor City and builds its whole identity on Jose Gaspar, the legendary Gulf pirate Tampa throws Gasparilla for every January. Its own site says the bar pays homage to the legendary local pirate Jose Gaspar and celebrates Tampa's immigrant past. There is an indoor bar and dining room plus two outdoor patios with live entertainment weekly, and Sunday brunch has become the thing it is known for. The bar also runs a pig roast, a VIP bottle lounge, weddings and its own Ybor Gift Company merchandise shop.
Hula Bay Club
Hula Bay sits on the water at the end of Tyson Avenue in the Westshore Marina District, and its own site bills it as Tampa's premier waterfront restaurant with Hawaiian leanings. The complex runs a waterfront bar alongside the dining room and a second bar, Duke's Retired Surfers Bar, which shares its reservation system. It posts live music and a brunch service.
Jerk Hut Island Grille & Beach Club
The Fowler Avenue room with the bright teal roof is the flagship of four Jerk Hut locations, all of them in Tampa, and it is the only one that is a full restaurant rather than a carryout window. It runs a Jamaican lunch buffet Monday through Friday and a Sunday brunch buffet with live reggae, alongside a full liquor bar and a separate carryout counter. On Friday nights the patio turns into a market of Tampa Bay vendors with live cooking stations that runs to midnight, and the ladies' night behind it goes to 3am. The Tampa Bay Times included Jerk Hut in its list of Tampa Bay's 25 most iconic restaurants, a list that required at least a decade in business to qualify.
LALA Tampa
LALA gives SoHo a built-in activity instead of another stand-and-talk bar. Book one of eight themed private karaoke rooms or use the open mic in the main room. Tampa hours reach 3am Thursday through Saturday, and the late-night menu runs until 2am Friday and Saturday.
Longbar Pub & Grill
A neighborhood sports pub that says it has 25+ TVs for college, NFL, Lightning and MLB games, plus pool, darts and shuffleboard. Happy hour is Monday to Friday 11 to 5 and Saturday 11 to 3. Open until 2:30 am.
Magnanimous Brewing (Seminole Heights)
The newer and larger of Magnanimous's two Tampa taprooms, on the corner of Sligh and Nebraska, with 24 rotating taps and a room built for sticking around: classic arcade games and pinball, cornhole, board games, a projector with sound for games, a covered outdoor patio and a free parking lot. Sliceadelic Wizard Pizza parks there Tuesday through Sunday. The brewery says this is where most of its events and live music happen.
Mr. Dunderbak's
Dunderbak's has been serving Tampa since 1974 and sits in the Oak Ramble Shopping Center on Bruce B Downs, which is a plain strip plaza and exactly the point: this is a German beer hall, brewery, deli and European market behind a strip-mall storefront. It started as one of about 30 franchise locations nationally, and co-owners James and Christina Ellis bought this one in the 1990s; the franchise folded and they turned it into a brewery with a dozen or so house beers on tap, told to That's So Tampa. The kitchen cooks from family recipes, with the potato pancakes made fresh every morning from James's Oma's recipe and the coleslaw from his mother's. Live polka plays on weekends, the beer hall room on the left seats 32 for private bookings, and the site's own parking advice is to arrive by 6pm on a Friday if you want a space.
Rick's on the River
Ricks on the River is a bar and grille sitting directly on the Hillsborough River off North Willow Avenue, with a marina and wet slips so guests can arrive by boat. Its own site describes live music daily, fresh oysters at its own oyster bar and cold drinks on the water. It stays open to 1am every day and to 3am on Friday and Saturday, which is genuinely late by Tampa standards. Creative Loafing put it on its kid-friendly list because children watch for dolphins from the riverside deck.
Showbar Ybor
Showbar is a dueling piano bar on Seventh Avenue that runs an all-request show every Friday and Saturday, with singalongs, comedy and crowd battles. The rest of the week it turns into a DJ room: open format inside and Latin on the outdoor patio on Tuesdays, a $500 beer pong tournament on House Party Wednesdays, and early 2000s throwbacks on Retro Rewind Sundays. There is a late-night food menu of tacos and wings. It closes at 2:45am every night it opens.
Shuffle
Shuffle is a bar on North Tampa Street in Tampa Heights built around shuffleboard courts, with a full kitchen, six rotating taps and an outdoor stage that carries live music at least weekly. Brunch is a fixture, and the menu is straightforward bar food rather than anything precious. Creative Loafing lists it as a place families can actually use, because the backyard gives children somewhere to be while the adults eat.
Skipper's Smokehouse
Skipper's has been on Skipper Road north of the University area since 1980, a tin-roofed compound of weathered wood that calls itself a world class music venue and cooks Floribbean seafood to go with it. The kitchen's best known plate is the blackened grouper Reuben, which the site notes was featured on the Travel Channel's Best Sandwich in America, and there is an oyster bar alongside it. Music runs in the yard behind the restaurant, with free live music on Sunday afternoons in addition to the ticketed calendar. In January 2026 the venue announced a partnership with the Straz Center for the Performing Arts, which is an unusual pairing for a smokehouse under live oaks.
Stones Throw
Stones Throw is the open riverfront pavilion at the Armature Works end of the Heights waterfront, a short walk along the Riverwalk from downtown. It runs on oysters, seafood and craft cocktails, with sunset happy hours, weekend lunch, Taco Tuesdays and live music on the water. The pavilion sits on the Hillsborough River with the boardwalk and the boat slips right there.
Sunset Rodeo
Sunset Rodeo is the country night on South Howard. The room has live bands, line dancing, late DJs, a patio, and a mechanical bull. It is 23 and over except for its 21 and over Thursday program. The current event calendar carries live music through October 2026, and posted hours run to 3am from Tuesday through Sunday.
Tampa Burgers & Pirates
A pirate-themed sports bar and burger spot on N Ashley Dr, across the street from the University of Tampa. Its own pages list UFC nights, Lightning and Bucs game deals, weekday happy hour and live music on Fridays.
The Bricks Ybor
The Bricks opened in 2010 at the corner of East Seventh Avenue and North 14th Street, which Ybor City also calls Avenida Republica de Cuba. It was started by a local team in partnership with the Skate Park of Tampa, and the idea was a hangout for skaters, artists and musicians rather than a bar chasing the Seventh Avenue club crowd. There are two performance spaces ... an open-air courtyard and a small Cafe Stage that overlooks the bar and the front windows ... and most shows are listed with no cover.
The Independent Bar & Cafe
The Independent has been the beer bar of Seminole Heights for about fifteen years, a European-inspired pub on North Florida Avenue with a cafe attached that serves the same kitchen menu plus coffee and baked goods. The draft list is built from imported and American craft beer, and the kitchen runs from Bavarian brat platters to tempeh reubens. Visit Tampa Bay records 50 seats indoors and a total capacity of 150 with the outdoor space, and lists live music, gallery openings and beer and wine events as the regular calendar. The bar stays open to 1am at weekends, which in this stretch of Seminole Heights is unusual.
The Orpheum
The Orpheum spent most of two decades as an Ybor City rock club and has moved north: it now runs out of 14802 North Nebraska Avenue, minutes from the University of South Florida. The booking has not softened, running to punk, metal and hardcore several nights a week, and the venue also books a second room it calls Oscura.
The Patio Tampa
A South Tampa neighbourhood bar that calls itself Tampa's best local bar, with a full bar, darts and games, a food truck instead of a kitchen, and live music. It leans hard on sport, billing itself as the home for UFC, Bucs, Lightning, Bills and Sabres games, and runs weekly and monthly promotions and viewing parties.
The RITZ Ybor
The RITZ is the big room on Seventh Avenue, a 1917 theatre that has been a cinema, a church and a nightclub and now runs as Ybor City's main concert hall under Sunset Events. It takes VIP table reservations and runs a guest list, and the same company puts on Sunset on the River and Holiday Riverfest. With Crowbar closed since August 2026, it is the largest live music room left in the district.
The Sapphire Supper Club & Lounge
The Sapphire opened in May 2026 near the stadium as a supper club built on the 1950s idea of one: dinner, a band and a late night in the same room. Its own writing promises live bands, DJs and tableside flair alongside the cooking, with private dining suites bookable from 11 in the morning even though the main room does not open until 6 in the evening. On Friday and Saturday it runs to 3 AM, which makes it one of the few rooms in this part of the city with genuinely late posted hours.
Thomas P's Sports Bar & Patio
A sports bar whose Instagram bio says 42 TVs, a pet friendly outdoor patio and live music Monday, Thursday and Friday. The Tampa Ravens Flock lists it as an official 2026 watch bar.
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