Volume 32 Issue 1 January 9, 2024 Scan the QR code to your left with your phone to access our website!
Our Editor’s 2023 Dining Favorites Revealed! The Grill at Morris Bridge, Stonewood & Via Italia Repeat As Gary’s Top-3 In New Tampa! By GARY NAGER Every year, after our readers’ favorite restaurants in New Tampa and Wesley Chapel are published, I like to provide our readers with my own list of favorites — and there are always lots of differences between your choices and mine. I also always have a few haters every year who say that my reviews aren’t “real,” that I only pick my favorites based on which restaurants advertise with me and/or give me free food, that I have no taste whatsoever, etc. The primary thing these haters don’t seem (or want) to understand or believe is that the restaurants I tell you about in my annual “Gary’s Favorites” are not just the places I like the most, they’re also the places where I spend the most of my own money. And yes, when you consider that there are literally dozens of restaurants named on pgs. 34-38 of this issue, Jannah and I do spend a lot of our money dining out (and taking out food) — I’m betting more than just about anyone else in our two distribution areas, especially when you take into consideration our combined annual income. The haters also don’t seem to “get” the other reason I give my opinions on local eateries every year is that I so appreciate the feedback — both positive and negative — I get after my “Gary’s Favorites” are published each year. I can’t even tell you how many people come up to me and Jannah when we’re sitting at the bar at The Grill at Morris Bridge, TrebleMakers, Stonewood, Zukku-San, Azteca D’Oro or any of our other favorite eateries to tell me The only tomahawk ribeye steak you’ll find on a menu in New Tampa is at The Grill at Morris Bridge, which is what they think of my opinions. The vast majority of them say things like, “I Neighborhood News editor Gary Nager’s favorite restaurant in New Tampa for the second year in a row. only even tried this place because of what you wrote about them” or “I didn’t really love this place the first time I tried it, but I decided to give it another try are 100% real. And, unlike the online trolls who think they’re dining “critics” because they tell their few followers that they hated something they ate (or the service they received) at a particular place, I tell every because of you.” If you’ve never felt that kind of love from absolute strangers before, I promise you that it’s one of the things that most makes the long hours restaurant owner in our area that when I write a review of their eatery, I will tell more than 170,000 of my “closest friends” (that’s the total possible number of readers we reach in print) everything I like about I still put in 30 years since I first started doing this job worthwhile. their place. Anything I don’t like I will tell the restaurant owner about — and pretty much all of them apAnd yes, a few people also come up to me to tell me that they totally disagree with my assessment of one restaurant or another. Others also tell me preciate this approach a lot more then online trolls who cause their overall online ratings to drop. So, check out pgs. 34-38 to see my 2023 Favorite Restaurants in our areas and feel free to that they read my reviews “even though I know they aren’t real.” But the fact is that whether my haters believe it or not, my dining reviews continue telling me — whether online, by email or in person — what you think! Happy New Year!
EDITORIAL
Celebrating our editor’s 30 years of Neighborhood News! See page 3
LOOKING BACK AT 2023!
A look back at the top-five news stories in New Tampa and Wesley Chapel! See pages 4-9
CONGRATULATIONS, KARL!
What’s your New Year’s resolution? Local man loses 300 lbs. without surgery! See page 10
GET READY FOR THE BIG GAME!
Last year’s “Big Game Squares” contest was a big hit. Here’s your chance to enter this year! See page 33
Here’s Some New Deliciousness For You! Check out the Leonidas Chocolates Café on pg. 40!
1 For Advertising Information, Call 813-910-2575 • New Tampa Neighborhood News • Volume 32, Issue 1 • January 9, 2024 • NeighborhoodNewsOnline.net
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