Advertisement

New trend hits Ybor: Businesses moving out

 
Published Aug. 4, 1999|Updated Sept. 29, 2005

Peter Nason picked up his McDonald's race car phone on Tuesday and asked Tampa Electric to cut off the power.

His baby boomer memorabilia store, Culture Shock, was about to join a growing list of businesses on Ybor City's main drag that have closed their doors in the last two months.

The last band played July 23 at the Rubb, a mainstay live music club across Seventh Avenue from Culture Shock. Upscale restaurant Boca ended a three-year run the same weekend. Other casualties are a Cha Cha Coconuts restaurant, Panini's Bar and Grill and Decades a Go-Go, which sold '50s and '60s furniture and collectibles.

"It's a shocker what's going on here," said Nason, who moved his collectibles shop from Ybor Square two years ago. "It's a very bizarre time in Ybor City."

The miniexodus has sparked speculation about the future of an entertainment strip that is in flux. But there isn't a single reason for the closings.

Two owners cite complaints that are common among Ybor merchants: the parking crunch caused by a wave of construction, and the growing crowd of underage revelers who are squeezing out older, more affluent customers. But other owners of closed businesses point to individual decisions.

Laura Pastroff wants to try something else after running Decades a Go-Go for 10 years. Associates said Michael Tubbs, an heir to the Gatorade fortune, put the Rubb up for sale because he's engaged to marry and is headed back to school. Nason found out his collectibles sold faster and fetched better prices over the Internet.

"I don't think there's an easy or short answer," said A.J. Grimaldi, chairman of the Ybor City Chamber of Commerce. "It's not a panic situation by any means. We're going through a transition period."

He and other boosters insist Ybor's business district will emerge much stronger with completion of the $40-million Centro Ybor mall, some 450 luxury apartments and a 1,200-space city parking garage.

In the meantime, though, restaurateurs, bar owners and retailers will gripe that the city isn't doing more to limit damage to their bottom lines.

Boca owner Harriet Raitano said business was up 22 percent over last year until city officials leased the lot behind her for valet parking, at $10 a car. The city took over the lot last month but kept the price the same.

Some 1,200 parking spaces disappeared in recent weeks when construction began on the Camden Subsidiary apartments north of the entertainment district and the city started paving a nearby Sheriff's Office lot. Rates on private lots also have jumped to as much as $10 on Saturday nights.

Summers are typically slow, said Raitano, but this year the restaurant's business plummeted 75 percent.

"My customers couldn't find a (reasonable) place to put their damn cars," she said. "At 11 at night, the lots fill up with carloads of kids . . . and only half have enough money to buy a drink."

Some of Boca's customers asked the restaurant to take the $10 parking fee off their bills or called and said they'd be back when the prices came down, Raitano said.

Nearby Castillo's Cafe closed its kitchen at 6 p.m. two months ago because the weekend parking rates shooed away the dinner crowd, said owner Gil Castillo. Now he relies on lunch and the evening bar trade, like other restaurants which do not have their own lots.

"Nobody is willing to pay $7 or $8 to park for dinner," Castillo said. "It's caused a lot of restaurants to lose their dinner crowd on Friday and Saturday night."

Cha Cha Coconuts came to Ybor nearly three years ago hoping the district would attract an older crowd, said Guy Campbell, chief executive of the chain owned by Richard Gonzmart of Columbia Restaurant fame.

"It didn't happen," he said. "The crowd is getting younger. You don't see a lot of people who want to pay to park and fight the young crowd."

Castillo and others have criticized the city for not enforcing its teen curfew with enough vigor in Ybor. Some merchants also hope a noise ordinance going before the City Council next month will make Seventh Avenue more appealing to 30- and 40-somethings.

Cha Cha Coconuts couldn't wait. The company decided the chain's niche was casual dining and closed the Ybor location a month ago, Campbell said. Its sixth restaurant will be located next year at the opposite end of the entertainment spectrum: across from Citrus Park Town Center.

The problems of Ybor were far from Nason's mind when he decided to close the doors of Culture Shock. His business of selling kitschy toys and knickknacks was going well, but then the entrepreneur who didn't use e-mail as late as this spring suddenly discovered the power of Internet selling.

He put his wares up for auctions on services like eBay and tapped into a new world of buyers. A jigsaw puzzle of Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa sat in the store for months at $5. In a week, it was snapped up in an Internet auction for $26, Nason said.

"In the store, I had more sales but less profit," he said. "I never thought there would be a Wal-Mart in the collectibles business. But we do, and it's eBay. My overhead is less and I can sell it for more."