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From the innovative minds at Datz Restaurant Group, Donovan’s Modern American Meatery is a new take on the steakhouse experience. An expansive menu features dishes like Lobster Mac & Cheese, King Crab Legs, Cauliflower Alfredo and Butternut Squash Ravioli. With both traditional steakhouse offerings and creative dishes, Donovan’s boasts options to satisfy carnivores and vegetarians alike. And at this stylish new joint, almost everything is cooked over white oak timber.Donovan’s is the realization of owners Suzanne and Roger Perry’s dream to open an approachable steakhouse in Tampa. The restaurant’s name is an homage to Roger’s late father, Russell “Donovan” Perry, who was a farmer in rural Ohio. On the farm, what you raised and harvested was what you ate.Similarly, the menu at Donovan’s offers lots of fresh quality meats, vegetables, seafood and wild game, all cooked over a live fire.
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While running for reelection in 2012, Obama spent a lot of time in Tampa Bay, which hosted that year’s Republican National Convention. The Democratic president visited the Tampa Bay area no fewer than five times that year, including three times in September and October. During one of those visits, he stopped by the West Tampa Sandwich Shop for a Cuban and about 45 minutes of politicking.
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While reservations are insanely hard to get, and book up months in advance, the bar seating area is first-come, first-serve. This means, you need to show up early and hope for the best. Considering much of his presidency overlapped with his brother Jeb’s stint as Florida’s governor, perhaps it’s no surprise no recent president has spent more time in Tampa Bay than Bush. He came to the area at least 15 times as president — including, famously, on Sept. 11, 2001, when he was reading to a class of schoolchildren in Sarasota when he learned terrorists had attacked the World Trade Center. Speaking of COVID-19, one of Trump’s four presidential trips to Tampa Bay came on July 31, 2020, when, following a news conference at Belleair’s Pelican Golf Club, a journalist covering his visit tested positive for the coronavirus.
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St. Petersburg-based Star Trolley filled a void when it started in 2021, providing festive transportation for weddings. Owner Richard Novikas started it after he inherited a fleet of trolleys and busses from his family’s business in New Jersey. Once business started booming, Novikas considered a plan for his 44-passenger transit bus. Inspired by a trip to The Ringling Museum in Sarasota where he saw an antique circus train car, he turned it into a 1920s speakeasy.
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The Laxers served dishes prepared using the freshest, and best, ingredients in their small restaurant. On Sundays, Gert rested while Bern continued to produce his four-page garden newsletter. Before long, the luncheonette added hot breakfasts and lunches, fresh eggs and homemade doughnuts under the new name Bern and Gert’s Little Midway. After 66 years, Bern’s still serves hundreds of guests, night after night, sharing important milestones or just a great evening out. Dry-aged Prime steaks are hand cut to order and available in any size you can imagine. Tampa’s most famous restaurant, Bern’s Steak House, also makes this list.

You could not ask for more information and it is very useful and may well lead you to make a great decision you might have overlooked. I have covered restaurants for decades and especially steakhouses, and there are a lot of great ones in the U.S., where cities like New York, Las Vegas and Dallas each have a dozen or more that would qualify as exceptional. But nonetheless, there are several things that make Bern’s notably different from every other venerable steakhouse you can visit, and puts it in a very elite group atop the red meat pantheon.
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During another, he attended a high-dollar South Tampa fundraiser with celebrity chef Tyler Florence and Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder. This is a campaign stop, not an official White House visit, meaning it’s not primarily taxpayer-funded. But it is Biden’s second visit to Tampa as president, and approximately the 30th local stop by a sitting president this century. (We’re mostly just counting Hillsborough and Pinellas County visits, though we did include a couple of stops in other nearby counties.) Presidents have also dropped into Tampa Bay before they reached the White House, or after they left. But it’s always a much bigger deal anytime Air Force One touches down. In the front, Bodega is the go-to for Cuban food and fresh juices in St. Petersburg’s Edge District.
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Nightly, guests can enjoy a red, white, sparkling or fortified wine either by the bottle or from over 150 selections by the glass, inclusive of our extensive dessert wine and port by the glass selections. Many options are available in current vintage releases as well as older, rarer offerings. In all, Obama visited Tampa Bay at least eight times as president. In 2010, he came to the University of Tampa alongside then-Vice President Biden for a discussion on high-speed rail funding. He spent the night here in 2014, sleeping at a Hilton in downtown Tampa before meeting with military brass at MacDill and popping in for a visit at Tinker Elementary School.
Bern's Steak House in Tampa is temporarily closed for renovations - Tampa Bay Times
Bern's Steak House in Tampa is temporarily closed for renovations.
Posted: Thu, 06 Jul 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
In 2001, he helped build an east Tampa home for Habitat for Humanity. In 2006, he took questions from residents in Sun City Center. In 2006, while in town for a fundraiser for then-state Rep. Gus Bilirakis’ first congressional campaign, he stopped by the Buccaneers’ practice facility, signing footballs and talking with players and head coach Jon Gruden. Designed as an ideal retreat, Epicurean’s 188 guest rooms and suites are a luxurious blend of urban chic and comfort. Our Tampa hotel is decorated to reflect our culinary heritage and unique flavor of the area.
Waugh was a famed British wine merchant and on one trip, Bern visited him for dinner in his London home. After the entrée, Waugh suggested they adjourn to another room for dessert, port and cigars, and Bern loved the idea. He loved it so much that when he returned to Tampa he turned the upstairs into the Harry Waugh Dessert Room, with 48 private booths, each made from a repurposed redwood wine cask. Today when you first take your seat at dinner, the waiter asks if you would like to book a booth upstairs for dessert and you simply must say yes. Bern’s perennially wins the highest possible Wine Spectator Grand Award of Excellence, which less than 100 places in the world receive, and has won it ever year for more than four decades. They also won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Wine Program, and the cellars are so extensive and impressive that they offer guests guided tours with dinner, something that stopped in the pandemic and is being re-introduced shortly.
Bern and Gert always planned to be equal partners and, therefore, share equal billing in the name of their new bar. However, in order to save money, they salvaged letters from the existing Beer Haven sign and bought an “S” to create “Bern’s.” They eventually added “Steak House” because the phone company wouldn’t allow single name listings. In 1951, Bern and Gert planned to move to California, but they first wanted to visit Bern’s aunt in Tampa. After watching his aunt labor tirelessly in the Chinese restaurant she owned for nearly 40 years, Bern vowed never to enter the restaurant business.
But peek around a barn-style door in the back and find Bar Chica. Try one of the signature cocktails, like the Florida Sour, concocted of Whistle Pig Whiskey, “Piggyback” 6-year rye, orange, lemon, rosemary simple syrup and a red wine float. Very few steakhouses, even the best, dry age their own meat in house, and even fewer do it for ... After dinner, every table gets a tour through the kitchen and wine cellar that’s stocked with over 100,000 bottles, along with a trip to the dessert parlor upstairs. That’s where you’ll slide into your own private wine-cask cubby and try the banana cream cheese pie and a deconstructed chocolate sundae as a pianist plays anything you want. Bern’s stores its collection, containing over half a million bottles and 6500 labels from all over the world, in both its on site 50° working cellar as well as its own temperature controlled warehouse.
Located in Riverview, Donovan’s is the destination for flavorful starters, delectable cuts of steak and rich sides. It is our policy to only seat complete parties as delayed guests impact following reservations. These elements have combined since 1956 to provide our guests with a unique culinary experience. Our prime steaks are cut to order, and dry-aged in house for 5-8 weeks.