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.

Tampa Heights

Hidden Springs opened to the public on 18 September 2015, but the first beer was made in the garage of Josh and Jacqui Garman after Josh's mother Marsha gave them a Mr. Beer kit one Christmas. She died soon after, and the brewery still tells that story. It is family owned and run, on Franklin Street in Tampa Heights, and the tasting room is bookable. Its manifesto is printed on the site: 'Hidden Springs is a place where we abide no hatred and exist to create community, great tastes, and connections.'

Tampa Heights · sushi

Kosen is a twelve-seat omakase counter on West Palm Avenue in Tampa Heights, running a menu of more than twenty courses. The kitchen keeps an in-house fermentation program and buys from local regenerative farms, and a Japanese-inspired cocktail lounge called Tanto sits alongside the counter under a director of beverage and sustainability. It has held one MICHELIN star in every Florida selection since 2024 and displays the 2026 star on its own site. Rocca, another one star room, is a few doors along the same block.

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.

Tampa Heights

This is the original Magnanimous taproom, on Florida Avenue a short walk from Armature Works, and the brewery is known around Tampa Bay for hazy IPAs, especially its Juice Lord. Twenty taps rotate, there is a package cooler for cans and bottles to go, and there is a free shuffleboard table and several TVs. The brewery has no kitchen: you bring your own food or order delivery.

Tampa Heights · $ · american, bar food

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.

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.