The Official Tampa Bay Tour Co.’s new jaunt through Ybor City offers a taste, actually several tastes, of the iconic neighborhood’s cuisine and culture.
The Ybor City Food Tour is the latest offering from the family-owned tour company behind the popular history and ghost walking tours through the historic district.
“We know that Ybor City has a great flavor and a very unique culture,” says Max Herman of The Official Tampa Bay Tour Co. “We wanted to highlight some of the family-owned places around here and show people the places where the locals like to hang out.”
Launched in July, the new tour hits BarrieHaus Beer Co., Hotel Haya’s Flor Fina restaurant, Cheeseology, Due Amici pizza and pasta and Nicahabana Cigars.
Herman says the tour showcases Ybor’s variety. There’s the award-winning family-owned brewery, the boutique hotel that helped launch an ongoing wave of redevelopment and historic renovation and the unique artisanal cheese-making experience.
“Then, we make sure to include the Italian influence because the Italians helped build this whole own,” Herman says. “We go to Due Amici to bring you the flavors of Italy. We talk a little about the underbelly of Ybor City, some of the mafia that came this way. We end at a local cigar shop. There are a million great cigar shops in Ybor City but we’re trying to help out a local one that rolls their own cigars and has amazing coffee. You get a coffee and a cigar at the end.”
The food tour also delves into Ybor’s history and culture with stops at the historic Cuban Club, the centerpiece of the award-winning Ybor City Ghost Tour, and Jose Marti Park, a piece of Cuban soil in the heart of Tampa.
“We give the history of how the town came together, why people came here from all over the world and what makes it so unique” that it is one of the only National Historic Landmark Districts in Florida, Herman says.
The Ybor City Food Tour is offered seven days a week from 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Private group tours are also available for booking.
For more information, go to The Official Tampa Bay Tour Co
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