BellyUp! to Tampa’s Best Bars

West Tampa

Cigar City Brewing is named for Ybor City's cigar industry and has brewed on West Spruce Street since 2009. Its own site calls the Spruce Street brewery and taproom 'CCB's home base since batch number one', and says the beers are 'steeped in the unique culture and history of Tampa'. Jai Alai IPA, the beer it is best known for, takes its name from the Basque game the Ybor and West Tampa social clubs played. The taproom pours exclusive draft beer inside the working brewery and has its own food menu.

Ybor City

Club Prana runs five floors on Seventh Avenue, each with its own room and name: the Lounge, the Mezzanine, the Sanctuary, the Night Club and, on top, the rooftop Sky Bar with private cabanas. The first two floors open on Thursdays with open format music; Fridays and Saturdays all five run, with Top 40, hip hop, Caribbean reggae, Latin, Afrobeats and dance. There are more than 30 VIP tables across the building, and floors can be rented individually. Smoking is allowed only on the fifth floor.

Ybor City · new american, bbq

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.

Ybor City · american, cuban, sandwiches

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.

Palma Ceia · $$ · american, pizza, burgers

Henderson's is the neighbourhood bar next door to The Blind Goat on Henderson Boulevard. Its website is gone, and its own Instagram now goes by Henderson Live and calls the room an entertainment bar in South Tampa, with open mic night every Monday at 7 p.m. The newest post we could date is from 19 September 2026.

Hyde Park · new american, coffee, tea

The building went up in 1891 across the street from Henry B. Plant's Tampa Bay Hotel, held an arcade of local shops from the 1920s, then sat empty for decades until the century-old brickwork was restored. Brother and sister Blake Casper and Allison Adams reopened it as Oxford Exchange on September 24, 2012, and Casper's line for how it started is that it started with a bookstore and an office. Under one roof now are the restaurant, the bookstore and shop, a coffee bar, the TeBella Tea Bar, a champagne bar, the Commerce Club membership workspace, and the OE Studio and podcast room. The design takes its cue from the old London clubs and shops, and the stated intent was a place to belong.