BellyUp! to Tampa’s Best Bars

Tampa Heights · food hall

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.

Ballast Point & Interbay · seafood, american

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.

Tampa Heights · $$ · caribbean, new american, tapas

M.Bird is the rooftop lounge over Armature Works, four floors up from the food hall, with the Hillsborough River on one side and the downtown skyline on the other. The room is done in an art deco key and the kitchen sends out shareable plates, listed on its own site as Caribbean, American and small plates, alongside tropical cocktails. DJs work the deck and the space takes groups and private events.

Downtown · mediterranean

Predalina is a waterfront Mediterranean restaurant and lounge on East Cumberland Avenue in the Water Street district, a concept by Oxford Commons. It runs dinner, dessert, weekend brunch and a full cocktail and spirit-free drinks list, and it is one of the few MICHELIN-listed rooms in Tampa that stays open past midnight, to 1am on Friday and Saturday. It has been MICHELIN Recommended in both the 2025 and 2026 Florida selections.

North Hyde Park · seafood, american

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.

Ballast Point & Interbay · seafood, caribbean, american

Salt Shack sits on Old Tampa Bay at the end of West Tyson Avenue, a few hundred feet from Hula Bay, and it is built around the view. Its own writing leans hard on sunsets, calling itself a first stop for waterfront sunset dining in Tampa. The cooking is coastal seafood with Caribbean leanings and tropical drinks. Between this and Hula Bay, Tyson Avenue is the closest thing South Tampa has to a waterfront restaurant row.

Tampa Heights · $$ · seafood

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.

Tampa Heights · florida, seafood, new american, southern

Richard Gonzmart of the Columbia Restaurant Group opened Ulele in August 2014 in the old Tampa Water Works building on the Hillsborough River, next to the natural spring the restaurant is named for. He calls it his legacy and points out that it sits four blocks from where his family lived and about 300 yards from where he was born at St. Joseph's Hospital. The kitchen works off a ten foot barbacoa grill and builds the menu from Florida produce, seafood and other proteins, with native-inspired dishes behind the name of the Tocobaga princess Ulele. Ulele Spring Brewery operates inside the building and was the first on-site brewery in Tampa Heights, pouring Rusty Red, Water Works Pale and Hydration Station Lager.