WHY WE LOVE LIVING IN TAMPA

Shawna Ellis
Jul 14, 2017
3 min read

When we moved to Tampa in 2013, we didn’t really know too much about it. I had a partnership opportunity that made sense at the time, so we made the leap from Orlando to Tampa. We had only been in Orlando for a year so the move was not too traumatic. We rented a small house in Bayshore Beautiful, two blocks from Bayshore Blvd. We weren’t exactly sure where in Tampa to live or where we would play, so we rented to get a better idea of where to settle down. Bayshore Blvd totally captivated us. We didn’t care about the condition of the house or its size; we just wanted to be near the water. We couldn’t wait to ride our bikes and run along the Bay. As a girl from sunny Los Angeles, living in Alabama for the last five years had me feeling landlocked. Bayshore was a breath of fresh air that excited us.

Two days later, we find out that our new kitchen is infested with roaches. It takes over three weeks to fully remedy the situation and we continued to itch for another month. It was a disaster. The stove and refrigerator had to be replaced. Two extermination companies had to come in to spray. We had to continue to spray and clean every night get rid of the dead carcasses. But the great part about those three weeks was that it forced us to eat out every night. We used this time to really explore South Tampa, meet new people and build memories. We tried about 20 different restaurants over those three weeks.

One of the strange quirks about my husband is that he strongly prefers to sit at the bar, “because they give the best service”. He will sit at a table, if I beg, but usually, we sit at the bar. For years, I disliked sitting at the bar because I was socially awkward. We couldn’t just sit at the bar, eat and leave. We had to engage. My husband is the life of the party, a social butterfly. I wanted to spend time talking to my husband, not strangers that might judge me or say weird things. But I discover quickly that the social interaction forced me to come out my shell. One day my husband commented, “Who knew you were so funny?” Haha! All these years later, I have grown to really love sitting at the bar.

The bar is hands down the best place to meet people. Travelling business people, single people, fun couples and the regulars all sit at the bar. The energy at the bar is usually upbeat. If you get bored watching TV or the bartender work, it is easy to join a conversation between a patron and the bartender. On our first night without a kitchen, we went to Roux on South MacDill. We met a wonderful couple who had been married 20 years. She was about 45 and he was easily 65 which first sparked our interest. They were warm, funny and incredibly engaging; we could have talked with them for hours. They were so lovely that we exchanged cell numbers.

Beautiful bar at Roux.

The next night at Irish 31, my husband found his second home. The bartenders were fun, the waitresses were chatty and the guests all seemed to know one another. To this day, Irish 31 is a weekly, sometimes daily event where we have met most of our friends. Every restaurant we hit on our three weeks without a kitchen, we made friends. South Tampa started to feel more and more like our home.

Pacquiao vs Mayweather fight at Irish 31... Met a couple from Nevis

After settling in, we wanted to make the most of our new city. We wanted to explore, we wanted to be entertained and we wanted to experience some fun. Tampa has been everything we had hope and much more than we had expected. Tampa is our home.

Check out some of the reason we love living in South Tampa. I apologize for all the couples selfies, in advance. We love us as much as we love Tampa.