Cigar City Brewing no longer pours on Spruce Street. The brewery's own site says its Spruce Street Tap Room is closed. For now, its taprooms at Benchmark International Arena and Tampa International Airport are pouring while a new location is built in Ybor City.
That move makes Ybor the home of Tampa's best-known brewery for the first time. It lands in a year when Ybor's beer scene shrank and its dining scene grew. Over 2026, the oldest brewpub on the Eighth Avenue side of Ybor closed. Cigar City is coming in with the 15-barrel brewhouse it started on, not a bigger one. The biggest builds of the year went into restaurant rooms on Seventh Avenue and 15th Street.
Tampa Bay Brewing Co.'s nearly three decades in Ybor ended on May 31
Tampa Bay Brewing Co.'s Centro Ybor taproom at 1600 E. Eighth Ave. served its last day on Sunday, May 31. Creative Loafing Tampa reported that owner Dave Doble announced the closing in a social media video and didn't give a reason. In the video, Doble said, "It's not the best news, but it's also not terrible news either. It's just time to turn that page."
That page covered a lot of Ybor history. According to Creative Loafing, the brewery had called Ybor home since 1997. It opened first on 15th Street and moved into Centro Ybor in 2006. The Centro Ybor spot was known for its lunch and dinner menu, a big outdoor patio, and live music. In March 2011 it appeared on Guy Fieri's "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" for wings tossed in a cider sauce made with the brewery's Red Eye Amber ale.
The beer itself hasn't left the area. The Tampa Bay Times reported that the Westchase taproom, open since 2015, stays open. Its core lineup includes Reef Donkey, a dry-hopped American pale ale; Coral Head, an IPA; and Old Elephant Foot, a West Coast-style IPA.
The Times story on the closing also gave the national picture. Citing the Brewers Association's annual report, it said total craft beer production fell 5% in 2025 and the number of operating brewpubs dropped by a net 2.5% from 2024 to 2025. Ybor's loss fits that national trend. It didn't come from anything specific to the neighborhood.
Cigar City is coming to Ybor at the size it started
Cigar City opened on Spruce Street in 2009. Over 17 years it grew from one corner of that plaza to the whole campus. Florida Beer News reported that Sunday, September 20 was the last day of service at 3924 West Spruce Street. The brewery held a farewell with vintage bottles, food specials from This Little Pig, and pop-ups from Flour Hustler and Signature Popcorn.
When the brewery first announced the move in November 2025, it explained the reason in plain terms. Florida Beer News published the statement:
"Our lease is up at the Spruce Street Location, so we're moving to Ybor City. Ybor, the original 'Cigar City' seemed like the perfect fit for our new home."
The same announcement said, "Our original 15bbl brewhouse is coming with us." That detail matters more than the move itself. After outgrowing a plaza, the brewery is bringing its original brewhouse to Ybor. In November 2025, the Tampa Bay Times reported the plan as a lease from Cigar City founder Joey Redner, who now runs Cigar City Cider & Mead, at the cider house at 1812 N. 15th St. Cigar City Brewing's parent company is owned by Monster Beverage.
The schedule has already slipped once. The 2025 announcement said Spruce Street would keep brewing and pouring until March 2026. By May, the Times reported that the Spruce Street kitchen had closed earlier in the year while the beer kept pouring. The taproom finally closed in September. The brewery's site now says it is "excited to be building our new Cigar City Brewing location in Ybor City and look forward to welcoming you later this year." The brewery posts updates on Instagram at @cigarcitybrewing.
The year's big builds in Ybor were dining rooms
Beer is getting smaller in Ybor. The bigger investments this year went into restaurants, and three of them opened between May and August.
- Bello Bar + Kitchen, May 1, 1811 N. 15th St. Owner Jason Page reopened Bello, whose downtown location on North Franklin Street closed in November 2023, in the former Barterhouse space. The Tampa Bay Times describes the menu as "modern-American Latin-Caribbean." It lists tuna tostadas on crispy fried plantains for $18 and picanha for $34, plus weekend brunch, DJs, and a dining area separate from the bar and lounge.
- Tommy's Chophouse, July 31, 1622 E. Seventh Ave. An independent steakhouse on the ground floor of the historic Kress building.
- D'Rose Gastrobar, Aug. 13, 2238 E. Seventh Ave. Owner and head chef Victor Lopez and executive chef Osyamil Milian opened a modern Latin gastrobar with Colombian roots. That's So Tampa describes a small-plates menu and a large drinks program.
Tommy's shows the scale of these projects best. The Tampa Bay Times reported that the Kress space began as a five-and-dime more than a century ago. Until the early 2020s, part of the ground floor held a U.S. Customs and Border Protection office. Owner Kenneth Emery's group, Foodi, also runs Ocean Ink Raw Bar in Ybor. Per the Times, it took about three years to bring the steakhouse up to operating code.
The kitchen has no gas and no open flame. It cooks on induction burners and an electric broiler, and the fire wrap for the hood vent cost about $400,000. An old vault in the building is now a private dining room, with a separate entrance and exit through the kitchen.
The menu draws on local suppliers:
- Shrimp from Versaggi Shrimp, a Tampa shrimper that has operated for more than 100 years
- Oysters from Calusa Oyster Company
- Chicken from Red's Farm, a family-owned farm in Riverview
- Domestic Wagyu and prime beef from Snake River Farms in Idaho, including a nine-ounce Wagyu picanha and a 16-ounce prime ribeye
The bar program is run by local sommelier John Isom, formerly general manager at Ichicoro in Seminole Heights. The executive chef is Will Chastain, who previously cooked the line at Ash.
Three years and a $400,000 hood are a long-term bet on one historic building. A brewery bringing its original 15-barrel system is a smaller bet. Both are in Ybor this year.
How the map has changed since spring
Seventh Avenue now has a steakhouse in the Kress building and a Latin gastrobar a few blocks east, at addresses that held neither in the spring. The Times grouped Bello with a growing set of Tampa places that call themselves nightlife destinations and lounges while serving full food menus.
On 15th Street, Bello sits at 1811 N. 15th St. Across the street is 1812, the cider house where the 2025 plan put Cigar City's brewhouse.
On Eighth Avenue, Tampa Bay Brewing Co. served its last pint at 1600 E. Eighth Ave. in Centro Ybor on May 31. That patio was the Ybor brewpub for most of the past two decades.
For a beer this weekend, the options are concrete. Tampa Bay Brewing Co. pours its core beers at the Westchase taproom. Cigar City pours at Benchmark International Arena and Tampa International Airport, with updates on the Ybor location posted to @cigarcitybrewing. For dinner in Ybor, Tommy's and D'Rose are on Seventh Avenue and Bello is on 15th Street.
If you own near Seventh Avenue or 15th Street and want to know how a year of new restaurants and changing storefronts shows up in what your home is worth, Hart Property Advisors can walk you through it. Start with a Free Home Valuation.
