Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

Business Profile: Mc Divot’s Wings and Raw Bar

Location: 10706 Countryway Blvd, Tampa, FL 33626

Phone: 813-814-9394

This place is great. It’s family friendly (like Hooters without the, err well… Hooters!) and has great food. We live close by and frequent this spot regularly. The wait staff is usually friendly, and they always have great sports on.

With 25 televisions and 13 satalite receivers they can get pretty much any game you want, so you’ll never miss your teams game. A large wood bar occupies the entry area, often occupied with NW Tampans cooling off after work. Typical nights find the Golden Tee game stacked with 20-something’s behaving like 10-year-olds.

What makes this spot one of our favorites though is the garlic wings. If you’re brave, the hot garlic are popular, but we aren’t as adventurous and stick with medium garlic flavor. The wife nearly always gets extra sauce - she loves it so much. The other food items are good quality and worth a try once and a while as well.

Stop by this NW Tampa neighborhood bar for good food, good sports, and good times.

The Tampa area is now involved in a major political battle. The Port of Tampa is one of the 20 ports involved in the United Arab Emirates owned Dubai Ports World purchase from Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co.

This has become a major issue. But city officials are continuing to negotiate the contract terms. It will be interesting to see where this leads, with the President threatening a veto of any Congressional attempt to block the sale.

The Upper Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce is accepting nominations for Business of the Year.  The chamber serves Oldsmar, NW Hillsborough, and Town & Country.  Awards will be given in three categories: small business (under $1M in annual sales), medium ($1M - $5M), and large (greater than $5M).

You can nominate a business by calling Jerry Custin at (813) 855-4233 or by filling out this application.  Nominations are open to everyone and applications need to be in by March 24th.
Last years winners were Nielsen Media Research for the large business and Perzel and Lara for the small business.

Editor’s note:  Business spotlight is a new feature on Sticks of Fire.  These are NOT paid advertisements.  Michael will be covering all sorts of local businesses, to tell us about the great folks we have living in Tampa Bay.

If you know of a great local business that should be highlighted, let us know about it.  Likewise, if you have experience with any business in the spotlight, please leave comments.  And you business owners that find yourself here in our spotlight, please consider taking out an ad.

Business Spotlight: Tampa Bay Club Sports

I’ve lived in Tampa for most of my life and I’m always looking for new, different ways to meet cool people and have a good time.  The guys at TampaBayClubSport.com have this one down pat. They organize adult recreational and competitive club sport leagues all around town.

What do they offer?  What are you up for! They’ve got leagues for all skill levels and run seasons several times a year in soccer, football, softball, volleyball, basketball, golf, kickball, and ultimate frisbee.  You can sign up individually or as a team.  And if you don’t know anyone they’ll even find a place for you to play!

The leagues operate in many locations throughout Tampa Bay, from Oldsmar to South Tampa, from St. Pete, to Clearwater.

I’m currently in a softball and football league.  It is very inexpensive (about $55/player for a single sport season).  They have a membership which reduces the cost for each team you register for for the entire year.

This is a quality organization that puts on excellent leagues.  It is a great way to get out and do something different, and even meet some new friends.   If you’re not into league sports, they offer event nights as well.  They have bowling trips, hockey nights, happy hours, and even went out west to ski for a week once.

Give this local business a look.  You’ll be glad you did.

Due to the increase in development in the waterview areas of the Tampa area many of the local spots are disappearing.  There are two articles in today’s Tribune dealing with this issue.

The first, and most sentimental, is about Leverock’s, a local beach bar/restaurant that has been a mainstay on Boca Ciega Bay since the mid-80’s.  The owners are selling out to condo developers.  They will serve the last beer on April 24th.

“One side of me is happy because it was a good deal, financially, for us, but on the other side, I’ll be somewhat sentimental for me,” co-owner George Lewis said Wednesday. “It’s just kind of sad to see you’ve worked on something so hard for so many years and know it’s not going to be there.”

The other article discusses the loss of hotel space due to condo conversions.  We have already lost 8.5% of the counties’ rooms to conversions.  Another 2000 rooms will be converted in 2006-07.  That will decrease our rental capacity by nearly 15%.

Combine this decrease in hotel space with an increase in tourism and you have problems on the horizon.

Despite the losses, the county had a record 5.2 million visitors in 2005, up 2.7 percent from the previous year.

And there was a significant tourism loss from all of the hurricanes.   The loss of these rooms, particularly affordable hotel space, will affect the area in unknown ways in the years to come.

I’m a big fan of development.  My wife owns a Real Estate company.  But we need to control our development or we may grow too quickly and find we’ve lost what made Tampa great to begin with.