Tampa's first residential suburb, platted in 1883 on the bluff north of downtown, and now the city's busiest food corridor. A 1910 streetcar repair shop is a food hall, the Ulele spring still runs beside the river, and the blocks around Ola Avenue hold more new kitchens than anywhere else in the city.
Cafe Hey is the small coffee and sandwich room on North Franklin Street that Tampa Heights has used for years, and Creative Loafing calls it a Tampa Heights staple. It runs a vegan brunch every Sunday until it sells out, which sits oddly and happily next to a menu of meaty sandwiches. Thursday night is open mic, and the bill is musicians, comedians, poets and whoever else signs up.
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.
