Trying Tampa on for Size

My opinion of Florida is no secret. I am, typically, my most curmudgeonly there – short-tempered, rashy, eternally bitching about strip malls and sand flies.

I’ve felt this way for so long that it’s become a punch line within my family; my mom spends time in Florida, one of my brothers recently took his family to a timeshare there, and Emmett would love a sunshine state sojourn, if only he weren’t so oppressed by my antipathy. 

I lean into the inside-joke drama of it all because I like to commit to the bit, but the truth is: I’ve secretly softened on Florida lately. I like Miami’s stark whites, its sun-bleached art deco facades, and its lively homages to Havana. I’m charmed by Key West, too. In a world that expects cerebral stuff to happen exclusively in cities and saddles beach towns with presumptions of bimbo-dom, Key West resists easy categorization. It’s both literary and lazy.

So when I went to Tampa for work a few days ago, I may have gotten on the plane eye-rolling on the outside, but on the inside, I was nurturing the hope that I’d like it.

The trip was a whirlwind – less than 36 hours, much of it absorbed by pitch rehearsals and meetings – but I approached it with the fervor of my Uncle Ross, a man capable of whipping through a dozen tourists attractions in as many hours. If I was going to make up my mind about a city in a single day, I figured, I had to give it a fair shot.

I began my time in Tampa somewhat incongruously by leaving it – grabbing a half-hour cab from my hotel in Ybor City to St. Pete, Tampa’s sister city and home of The Dali Museum, which, architecturally, gives off billionaire supervillain vibes. I learned that Dali painted much more than melting clocks and stilt-legged animals, but only lingered long enough to justify the $29 admission fee. I had stuff to see, after all!

Next, I walked west along Central Avenue, dense with boutiques, bookstores, and restaurants. This hip little stretch of city was my St. Pete high point and made me realize – I think I like Florida most when it doesn’t feel particularly like Florida. I got great memoir and merlot recommendations at Book + Bottle, fell in love with Tombolo Books, and ate well at The Floribbean before heading back to Ybor with quick stops at Oxford Exchange, the Henry B. Plant Museum, and the Tampa Theater along the way. By then my phone was dead and I had work to do, so I didn’t get out again until dinnertime with my colleagues. The food and flamenco at Columbia, Florida’s oldest restaurant, was just alright, but the space itself was beautiful – old woods, ornate tilework, soaring ceilings, and gorgeous, time-worn floors. It’s in its fourth or fifth generation of family ownership (depending on what waiter’s making the speech), there are 14 dining rooms, and the kitchen alone is 5,000 square feet – as restaurants go, it’s a juggernaut.

The next morning I woke up even earlier than the roosters that roam historic Ybor for a run along the Bayshore Linear Park Trail, which claims to be the world’s longest continuous sidewalk. And though I mocked ‘world’s longest continuous sidewalk’ as a designation so specific as to be almost meaningless, it WAS a lovely place to jog. Later, post-pitch and ravenous, I went to Al’s, a famous barbecue joint that I can still smell on my clothes, then wandered aimlessly among the neighborhood’s cigar sellers and pot shops looking for a place to buy my kids some sunshine state souvenirs. 

Then I jetted back to New York, feeling like 36 hours was wonderful, but also enough.