Dinner and Dessert in Ybor City...on a Tuesday Evening

Flew in from a business trip, and was meeting Aunt and Uncle and Madre for dinner in Ybor. The trip from TIA to Ybor was not bad considering it was 430 Rush Hour, so many people complain about the traffic, but it was a slow moving ride on I-275 Northbound from the airport to about Dale Mabry Hwy, at least it was moving, then it opened up all the way to Ybor exit off I-4...what Rush Hour traffic? Cars were moving along on the other side of the interstate as well, albeit slow, but moving. Im sure if there was an accident, it would not look good.

In Ybor City, my uncle insisted on Spaghetti Warehouse in the Ybor Square section on the far West End of Ybor. As many great Italian places in Ybor(Laughing Cat is my fav), I had to go to the Warehouse. It's typical chain type place, but very authentic interior, and an actual streetcar in the restaurant that you can dine in. The meals all come with all you can eat salad or soup, the wedding soup had chunks of chicken and little meatballs and was quite tasty, the salads were plain lettuce with a few tomatoes. The meals we had were good, the sauce is a bit sweet and thick for my liking, we had eggplant parmigiana, great without the skin on the eggplant; spicy chicken and mushroom pasta, and spaghetti and meatballs. Again, good meal, great prices, but just good. After dinner, we decided to walk off the meal and walk down to 7th Avenue for dessert, we stopped at La Creperia, and enjoyed two different crepes and coffee. The first crepe had Nutella, fresh strawberries and banana slices in a warm fresh crepe drizzled with chocolate and powdered sugar, the other was a caramel and banana crepe. VERY good, we enjoyed each and every bite, what a great place for dessert.

I will still enjoy coming into Ybor for the great restaurants, and a nice historic setting, many of the shops, and smaller bars/pubs were open, the larger clubs, which are getting few and far between were closed, and are only open on the weekends. The area is going through major changes, innovative small companies are taking up office space, art galleries and smaller, independent retail, and unique restaurants and cafe's are opening up. Seems there are many cigar shops lining the avenue as well. It's time the BIG mega clubs said goodbye(which most already have), and the area grows up. It was sad though to see places like the Jazz Cellar and Cafe Creole closed, Ybor Square was actually a neat place to browse around, now it is offices.