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Episode 20 – A Very Special Christmas Special

Episode 20 - A Very Special Christmas Special

Alexa,
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Show Notes

In this episode, we share listener and reader suggestions for all the great things to go and see during the holiday season.  Christmas Light Displays galore!

Transcript at the bottom of this page!

Holiday Events and Things To Do

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Nearly destitute towards the end of his life, Grant was saved by Mark Twain when he purchased the rights to his memoirs on the condition that Grant gets to keep all of the royalties.

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Transcript

Welcome to “Great Things Tampa Bay,” the podcast about great eats, great places and great people in the greater Tampa Bay area. I’m your host Kyle Sasser, a Tampa Bay native and realtor. This is the great places feed of the “Great Things Tampa Bay” podcast, where you will only hear episodes related to parks, stores, events, shows, and things to do about town. In our main podcast which you’ll find under Great Things Tampa Bay, in addition to these chats about entertainment and events, we also cover great eateries and delicious grub, as well as interviews from the great people, movers and shakers in the area.

You can find our main feed at greatthingstb.com, that’s greatthingstb.com, or you can subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play just by doing a search for “Great Things Tampa Bay.” Thank you and enjoy.

This is Episode 20 and gonna bring you a little holiday cheer this episode. Basically, I just wanna cover a bunch of the great holiday things to do around the Tampa Bay area. We’re gonna be covering from St. Petersburg all the way over to Plant City, so stay tuned. You will probably find something that you didn’t know about and you can take the folks, the families, or the loved one out there, bring a little holiday cheer in your life. I did actually put this question out to the public, so all of these things were recommended by either listeners, or people in the Facebook group, or on the Tampa or St. Petersburg subreddits, so I would like to thank all of you all for your submissions.

I definitely couldn’t have done this episode without you. There’s just way too much stuff out there to know about. So without further ado, I figure we’ll start in my current hometown of St. Petersburg, Florida. Just wanna start off with the Illuminated Bike Parade, which caught us out on the way downtown yesterday. We were sitting there waiting for 10 minutes, while this massive procession of bikes just continue to go past us. They had lights on the handlebars, and, you know, in the wheels, those were the cool ones.

I didn’t see any of the big, old, like 1920s bikes that stand, like, 10 feet tall off the ground, but, you know, maybe next year. Maybe next year. So, yes, it’s the Illuminated Bike Parade. That was kinda new, but as I saw yesterday, it’s very popular. The Illuminated Boat Parade, which is also over here in St. Petersburg had a lot of recommendations. The Jingle Bell Run, people really like that one as well. There’s also a Santa Parade and lots of botanical gardens and things like that that set up Christmas light displays.

MetLamb13, he loves the Florida Botanical Gardens up off of Walsigham up in Largo. Had quite a few recommendations for that one. I see that one’s supposed to be beautiful. Personally, I’ve never been up there to see it, but I did hear from a few people saying that it was a pretty good thing to go check out. Very cool.

[Inaudible 00:03:15], another Reddit user, he likes to go to the Christmas tree lighting in downtown St. Petersburg with his family. He says that it’s a little hokey. There’s a school kids who sing horribly on the stage, and, you know, the old mayor gets up there and makes a speech. But for him that really rings in Christmas season for him. He also says that the American Stage does a great…It’s a wonderful live radio play. American Stage is kind of a local theater troupe. They have a space downtown St. Petersburg here across from the bus stop where the old bus depot used to be.

Also another user, they love walking around Largo Central Park. Says they have crazy good light displays. Also leads into the lights of Lake Park States, which, yes, I had multiple people tell me about that. It’s also featured in the newspaper. Apparently, a sight to behold, so Abbie and I are definitely gonna be making it up there to check that out this year. Christmasdisplay.org, it goes by quite a few names. If you’ve dined at any of the local spots over here in St. Petersburg, you might have seen this little flyer. I’m gonna loop around onto that one a little bit later, but it’s pretty bananas.

That kind of covers Pinellas County stuff. Moving over to Tampa. [Inaudible 00:04:26] Mall has a pretty big display, a synchronized light show that a user on the Tama subreddit likes to go to. He likes get a drink from the Starbucks there, and people watch with the families, wait for the show to start, and then, you know, grab some food from Noble Crust. Always a good time. I’m definitely a fan of Noble Crust. Tampa Theater is also currently closed for restoration, but they are doing free holiday movies in Curtis Hixon Park in downtown Tampa. So maybe cool just to, kind of, hang out there and, you know, catch a holiday movie.

Me, personally, over in Tampa I know when I was a kid, I’m not sure if they still do this, but on Swinger Road there at U.S. 19 and a [inaudible 00:05:06] kind of between Mackintosh and Bransford Road, they used to have a pretty big light display. I’m not sure if they do that still, you know, so please don’t make the drive out there solely on my word. And also, I’m gonna be putting all of this in the show notes, so don’t fret. You know, if you wanna link for any of these or just, kind of, a reminder, just go to the website, www.greatthingstb.com, episode 20. We will have all of the links.

The Christmas display down in Driftwood over here, it’s kinda St. Petersburg, but a little bit south of St. Pete. So this place has been featured on “HTTV,” the “Today Show.” “Today Show” actually named it as one of the top three Christmas lights displays in the U.S.A., and this is all from their website too, by the way. They’ve been featured on basically every, you know, TV channel here in the area, all sorts of magazines. And the “St. Pete Times” described it as, “A mega display. Look. Be amazed. Defies belief and description.”

So I haven’t actually seen this during the holidays, but real estate, I’m kinda all over the place and I have been by this place during the day. And, you know, you kinda look at it and you’re like… ou know, “Somebody there really likes Christmas.” But I’ve only seen a YouTube video. We’re actually gonna head down there here this week to check out the actual display when it’s all lit. I did watch a YouTube video and it’s bananas. They do have a few statistics here. The tallest Christmas tree array is 70 feet. There are four giant Christmas trees on the roof of the house. Total number of lights, including fiber optics are over 609,000. Over 700 moving and animated objects.

They have something ridiculous, like 18 trains, so to see this thing…And it has like its own section. Watching the YouTube, it had like, you know, the stuffed animal section and then like, you know, like, the 18 trains running around. Looks absolutely bonkers. The address for this place is 2709 Oakdale Street South, in St. Petersburg, Florida. Website is christmasdisplay.org. Go there, take a look. Yeah, I feel like this is definitely something that needs to be seen in person to believe. Check out the YouTube video that we will post on our shownotes. It’s bananas.

Continuing on here and wrapping up, now that christmasdisplay.org, which is on Oakdale South, St. Petersburg, I’ve also seen it listed as the Kresge Mega Light Display, I believe. “Tampa Bay Times” has it at over 10 trailer truck loads of lights. Might wanna put that one on your GPS and head down there. So they’re open the day after Thanksgiving through Tuesday, January 3rd, 2018 between 6:00 and 10:00 p.m.

Also, the Bella Garden Lane light show, which is out in Plant City, so a feel about that direction. And if you’re not aware, this features more than 35,000 lights and, you know, synchronized music and all this good stuff. Good times, so that’s 3212 Bella Garden Lane. And they have some lights from the old Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights, and they also have some decorations previously used at Disney World. And again, that’s at 3212 Bella Garden Lane. It begins at sundown December 31st according to this.

And the next one is the Wilderness Wonderland, which is up in the Jay B. Starkey Wilderness Park, so that’s up north in New Port Richey out there. And that’s one where you drive through and you tune the radio there, listen to some music, drive through, look at the lights, lots of good times. If there is something here that I have missed, please let me know because I’m pretty much gonna do one of these every year.

So if you have someplace that you go every Christmas or some event that you go to, you know, maybe it’s ice skating. I know St. Pete, here they put the fake ice skating rink downtown so you can go out there and skate. They also do, you know, one for the kids where the put the snow slide up and, you know, kids can slide down. If there’s something like that that you do and you do it every year and it just kinda rings the holiday in for you, please drop me a note on the website, greatthingstb.com, and I would love to feature that next year on the 2018 Christmas Special.

Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant was nearly broke and he was in very ill health, and he was worried about leaving his wife, you know, with not enough to live on. So what he did, he wrote a memoir and, unfortunately, the only contracts he could get were only offering a 10% royalty. But luckily, S. Grant’s friend, one Mark Twain, knew how bad Grant’s financial situation was and made him an offer for his memoirs which paid an unheard of 75% royalty. And this very generous offer from Mark Twain allowed Ulysses S. Grant’s family to continue on being provided for and all that good stuff. So hats off Mark Twain. You were a pretty cool dude over all.

So I wanna thank you for sharing “Great Things Tampa Bay” with your friends and family. You can share us by going to our website, greatthingstb.com. There you’ll find a share button on nearly every page you share us on Twitter, Facebook, all that good stuff. If you’re looking for your own great place in Tampa Bay, I am also a licensed realtor specializing in deep knowledge of Hillsborough and Pinellas County. So if you wanna talk real estate, you can give me a call at 727-300-2111, or you can send me an email at kyle@sassergroup.com, that’s kyle@sassergroup.com, and I’d be more than happy to help you find your next home here in Tampa Bay.

I also need your feedback. I need you to tell me where we should be going and what we should be eating and who we should be talking to. So please go to our website, greatthingstb.com, where you can hit either the “Contact us” link at the top, or the get social links also at the top. If you wanna be a cool guy or a cool girl, you can call our voicemail number, which is 727-440-4455 and leave us a message. I’d love to hear from you.

So thanks for listening, and I’ll see you next time. And oh, by the way, if you don’t want to miss the next episode, please subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play. That’ll guarantee that you get the next episode delivered straight to your mobile device of choice. Thank you so much, and I’ll talk to you next time.

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Category Episode Great People Great Places Location St Pete Tampa

Episode 19 – Markets for Makers

Episode 19 - Markets for Makers Interview

Alexa,
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Show Notes

Markets and Pop-Ups are all the rage nowadays, and in Episode 19 I interview Natalie and Trista of Markets for Makers who are KILLING IT with local markets in Clearwater (Pierce St Market), Night Market in Tampa at Ferg’s, Orange Blossom Market out in Lake Wales, and a special Holiday Markets in Tampa and Los Angeles.

Transcript at the bottom of this page!

Markets for Makers

Markets for Makers

Upcoming Markets

All of Markets for Makers……. Markets

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Transcript

Kyle: Welcome to Great Things Tampa Bay. We podcast about great eats, great places, and great people in the Greater Tampa Bay Area. I’m your host, Kyle Sasser, a Tampa Bay native and realtor. This is episode 19, Markets for Makers.

This is the Great Places feed of the Great Things Tampa Bay podcast where you will only hear episodes related to parks, stores, events, shows, and things to do about town. In our main podcast, which you’ll find under Great Things Tampa Bay, in addition to these chats about entertainment and events, we also cover great eateries and delicious grub as well as interviews from the great people, movers and shakers in the area. You can find our main feed at greatthingstb.com or you can subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play just by doing a search for Great Things Tampa Bay. Thank you and enjoy.

This is Kyle Sasser with Great things Tampa Bay and I’m here with…

Natalie: Trista Tripp and Natalie Nagengast.

Kyle: Of?

Natalie: Of Markets for Makers.

Kyle: There we go. Yeah. So I found you all on social media and you all are doing some pretty cool and great things in the area. I even overheard, and I’m sorry but I got ears, but you all are looking to expand all the way out to like Lake Wales. Was that it true?

Natalie: Yeah, we’re doing a little, tiny market out there. We’ve been working with other festivals. So it’s been fun. Whenever we get to put a little…even if it’s a tiny amount of local, we always jump at the opportunity.

Kyle: So if you’re anywhere in Tampa Bay, all the way out there, and including Tampa and St. Petersburg, you’ll definitely wanna listen to this, because it’ll be some good stuff. So tell us a little bit about what you all do.

Natalie: Yeah, so we run markets, so we run a lot of local markets in the Tampa Bay area. We’re kind of focusing more as we get bigger on bigger markets less often. So we have a lot of handmade, and we have all kinds of items you can find in the markets. A lot of them are a lot of mom and pop shops and food trucks, etc.

Kyle: So this definitely isn’t like the crap fair, as my wife calls it.

Natalie: No, and it’s not a farmers’ market. That’s where a lot of people get that wrong.

Kyle: Like a lot of markets you go to, you go and everything is basically sourced from China…

Natalie: We do a lot of boutiques because we feel like those have been hand curated and so it’s fun because we get to pick out boots that are not just handmade but they’ve put something together, they took something and they upcycled it, making something better.

Trista: It’s different. We really curate our markets.

Natalie: Sometimes people don’t necessarily hand make it themselves, but they’ll design a T-shirt and then they get it printed.

Kyle: So you all do actually vet the people that you have at your markets. You’re not just taking all comers…

Natalie: Oh, it’s funny. In the first 2 years, we had about 1200 applications and I think we rotated about 400 to 500 out of that 1200.

Kyle: That’s impressive actually.

Natalie: We are very picky but we look at a lot of aspects to each person and each booth and that has been part of the success of our company.

Kyle: No scrubs at the Markets for Makers.

Natalie: No, it’s really hard.

Kyle: How did you all get started with this?

Natalie: I had a handmade jewelry company a while back and I was attending a lot of markets in St. Pete and Tampa, and there weren’t any in Clearwater. And so, I kind of had this idea of, “Oh, let me just put something together, like 40 booths and that way I don’t have to drive so far.” And so, I put something together and it was October of 2015. And I had the first market, we hit 60 vendors, and I found this perfect spot in Downtown Clearwater. And the city was amazing in getting us started and it exploded. It went amazing. So many people turned out because my background is marketing. Basically I had 60 booths and then by November, we had another huge turnout. By December, I went in front of the Downtown Development Board and asked for funding. So they gave us $15,000 right off the bat to get us going and we put all of it into marketing.

Kyle: Very nice.

Natalie: I know. It was awesome. So we got huge.

Kyle: Was there a name for that market? Would people know it?

Natalie: Yeah, it’s Pierce Street Market. So it was on the waterfront in Downtown Clearwater. Basically, we got so big after two years that the city put the whole market out for a public bid because it was of a certain size. And so that’s when I brought Trista on. She came in to kind of…first of all, I had to figure out, “Okay, how are we gonna win the bid or not win the bid, and if we don’t, what are we gonna do?” And Trista’s background was in consulting, go ahead.

Trista: So I basically had a background in consulting for businesses and I was doing that in Hawaii at the beginning of this year, which was really fun and really nice but…

Natalie: She got a really nice tan.

Trista: I had a great tan. I really liked it. But Natalie came up to me and basically, the timing was just perfect. And I was done with the job I was working in Hawaii and she needed help, and I loved the whole idea of it. Because this again is like helping small businesses and it’s helping bring the community together and that’s something that I was just very passionate about. So I came in. I also have a background in fashion as well, which I know is kind of interesting but because of that, a background in PR and helping with that aspect of things. So coming on here, I could bring what I knew about all of that previous stuff into this.

Natalie: And she’s from LA, so she brings a whole big city vibe to our company. I’m from the Midwest. I’m from Indiana, so like, “What do I wear? What do I wear for this TV shoot or photo shoots?”

Kyle: And you’re the, “Uh-uh. Uh-uh.”

Natalie: She knows it inside and out. My style has gotten 10 times better. The girl boss vibe is on point.

Trista: On fleek, as I like to say.

Natalie: Yeah, on fleek. [inaudible 00:06:19]. And so she and I together, we’re able to transition the company over to basically doing a lot of night markets. We got that started before we found out about what direction the company was gonna go in and we’ve just been hustling like crazy.

Kyle: So you started with the one in Clearwater. What markets are you running currently?

Natalie: What happened with the public bid was that two other companies bid and unfortunately we didn’t win the bid, which for us was incredible because that pushed us forward as a company. So what it did was we weren’t even really thinking about night markets. So when we found out that the company could be moving and transitioning into something else, we started the night markets. And so that’s at Ferg’s and the last one was in December.

Kyle: And that’s Ferg’s in Tampa, right?

Natalie: Yeah, downtown across from the Amalie which they’re gonna be moving because of the whole Water Street project. It’s gonna be interesting but everything has exploded for us. We have to be careful with how much we promote now because of how many people come out. Our fire marshal doesn’t like too many occupancy in a small area.

Trista: Exactly. It’s been so successful to the point where we just don’t have to barely market at all. We still put a lot into it because it’s important to us but the fact that we don’t have to is kinda cool.

Natalie: We’ve gotten this reputation and that’s been amazing. And so when we found out about Pierce Street with her, we’re like, “Okay, what do we want to do as a company? Do we wanna just do night markets? Do we wanna try to find a new location for Pierce Street?” I actually was vetting a lot of options for Pierce Street to see if we wanted to move it, but the truth is, is we’ve never been about trying to compete with any other markets. I want there to be more markets. I want all my vendors to do amazing. I don’t ever want to be the reason why someone doesn’t do well, like I had to call a vendor and…do you get what I’m saying? It’s just not what we’re about.

Kyle: High tide lifts all boats.

Trista: Exactly. That’s what we want.

Natalie: Exactly. And we never wanna be the reason why someone doesn’t do well. So the plan was to figure out what we wanted to do and we found a couple of markets that grabbed our attention, like the Renegade Craft Fair is huge all around the U.S. and unique in a way.

Kyle: I’m not familiar. Tell me about it.

Natalie: Yeah. There’s West Coast Crafts. It’s these large scale indoor markets where the booths are more expensive or they charge a door fee, and they are less often but bigger. So that’s kind of…

Trista: Highly curated.

Natalie: Highly curated and what’s great is that they’re not as often so that you can get better vendors, you can do a lot with those. So we basically decided as a company, instead of trying to get so much quantity, let’s work on quality, because we wanted to hire more people and when we looked at having lots of staff and lots of salaries, and we wanna pay people well. Our staff, we wanna make sure that they’re not just minimum when working for us. They’re supporting themselves. This is something that they get to do that they love but also be able to support their families. So we looked at it and this was the future for us. So Trista was incredible and found this warehouse in Ybor, which we’re sitting in Ybor right now because we have a huge holiday market this weekend.

Kyle: And if you all have been wondering about all of the noise in the background, we’re actually at the bunker down here at Ybor City. Lovely coffee shop.

Natalie: If we’re not in Clearwater in our office, we’re in some coffee shop in Tampa. We have a list of our favorites all over the area.

Kyle: This one’s pretty good.

Natalie: Oh, we love the [crosstalk 00:09:34].

Kyle: Also, I like The Hall on Franklin. I just did an episode on that.

Natalie: And then you got the Foundation Coffee.

Kyle: Yeah, that too.

Trista: And we have a great…what was thing that we always get there?

Natalie: Foundation?

Trista: A coffee that we get…it’s not coffee, it’s a tea. What’s this right here?

Natalie: Chai tea?

Trista: They have really good chai tea latte.

Kyle: They’ve got magical tea?

Natalie: Exactly. So we now have the holiday market happening this weekend. So we’re gonna have about 100 vendors for 2 days. And then, we’re bringing in now full beer and wine which goes 100% to a nonprofit. Yeah, we’re working on that one with the educational, it will go towards entrepreneur and entrepreneurs’ college, so that’s gonna be exciting. It’s our future. After December, we might do some night markets but the hope will be is that we have a night market on Friday nights and then we find a great location for Saturday and Sunday. So we’ll just ride out the weekend.

We have a holiday market that we’re gonna probably be doing annually and then anyone that wants to check us out, go check out our website which is marketsformakers.com. And we’re probably going to have, quarterly, a large market in the Tampa Bay Area. We found this amazing warehouse in Ybor, so the longer we can have it, we might do something every other month. At this point, we’ll try to…because we’ve painted the whole place. It has been quite a project.

Kyle: Put the heart into it.

Natalie: Oh, my gosh, and we’re so happy because it looks so amazing now. And so, we’ve that one and then we have an LA market.

Trista: We do.

Kyle: Exciting, exciting.

Trista: Yeah, we’re on bose [SP] coasts. I just said bose coasts, I meant to say both coasts.

Kyle: I felt that was like the cool new term.

Trista: Oh yeah, I just create new terms as I go.

Natalie: But we’re trying to expand into major cities so that way, we can have our own footprint in the big city.

Kyle: For a long time, listeners of the podcast, you might remember Alessandro and the Aoki Family, they’ve also been out in LA and New York and stuff like that. So I’m gonna try to hook you all up and you all can collaborate and…

Natalie: Oh, I love it. I love it.

Trista: I would love that.

Kyle: Get something done. There’s some good guys over there.

Natalie: Oh, yeah, it’s so much fun. Yeah, that’s our future. It’s is going to be hopefully all over the U.S. and lots of big markets less often.

Kyle: I love it. What do you feel is your most successful failure?

Trista: I think this will be our greatest learning experience and probably the thing that we’ll look back on as being so happy for it having happened.

Natalie: Yeah, it was a bit of a shock because for me, you create something, you put your heart and soul into it for a few years and to hear that it was going to be changing than what I had expected before. And I think that at some point though, I looked at it and was like, “You know what? I’m a little bit outgrowing this.” At the moment, it didn’t necessarily…it was a bit of a, “Oh, my gosh, what happened?” And then afterward, I looked at it and went, “Okay, this is a great opportunity for someone else to hopefully grow their business and then this allows me to take that next forward.”

But as far as small, little failures, we fight generators every night market. And that’s always fun.

Trista: When the lights are going on/off, on/off. Why won’t it stay?

Natalie: I know our favorite amazing failure.

Trista: What?

Natalie: I talked Trista into getting a trailer. And we’re like, “Okay, we’re gonna get this trailer. We’re gonna pull up to all of our markets…”

Trista: And I was really not into it by the way. I was like, “Convince me, Natalie, convince me.”

Natalie: It was like a $5000 trailer. I’m like, “Okay, it’s so cute. It’s vintage. We’re going to get made. It’s gonna be amazing. We’re going to have all of our outside markets…” This was before we decided to the less often markets, so I was like, “Okay, we have to go.” And we only got a couple days to get there. So we literally were driving up to Chattanooga where this trailer is being built.

Kyle: Now, that’s a good drive.

Natalie: And there is a hurricane coming.

Trista: We were trying to outrun the hurricane.

Natalie: This was that hurricane that hit Alabama. It was like the fourth hurricane that came through. So we’re trying to outrun all of this hurricane and the wind. We drive up to Alabama…not Alabama, Chattanooga. We drive up to Chattanooga and we’re doing like 95 miles an hour to get there. It still took another like four hours. I feel like…

Trista: Every time we stopped to get gas, it added an hour.

Natalie: It did. Every time we stop for like 10 minutes, it was like, “Okay, another 45 minutes to get there.” So we go to pick this thing up and we buy all these tarps and we wrap it up, and there’s this like…

Trista: It looks like a narwhal.

Natalie: I know. There’s this huge pole sticking out the back, and we had to wrap the whole thing. We’re exhausted and we’re driving like…we were really ready to be…

Trista: We looked like complete white trash [crosstalk 00:14:01].

Natalie: Well, I had my slippers on and I had my…like I just looked terrible. So we drive up there, we wrap this whole thing, and then the brake lights keep going out. We’re driving it back.

Trista: So slow.

Natalie: It took twice as long to get home. We’re at the Florida and Georgia line, and it’s a two-way act.

Trista: We’re trying to outrun the hurricane coming at 20 miles an hour.

Natalie: And it’s the weekend… All the kids are graduating, so every single hotel is totally booked out. And so it was a nightmare and it was something where it’s still sitting in a warehouse of one [crosstalk 00:14:33] Shout out for Rockin’ Rhino which is an amazing company because they do collectibles, because they have been housing this trailer for a month. And we’re gonna have to drive the whole trailer back up, because we have to like put the skins on and we have to paint it. And we’ll probably just sell it because at this point, we’re not going to be doing as many outdoor markets.

Trista: It’s not what we’re gonna do. So it was a little bit of a waste.

Kyle: Yeah, but the one truth about being an entrepreneur and owning your own business is things never…you never end up where you think you’re gonna be. [crosstalk 00:15:03]

Natalie: The other thing was was the tarp kept ripping. So we duct taped it…

Trista: There was so much duct tape on this thing, we looked like crazy people.

Natalie: [crosstalk 00:15:11] I’ll send you a picture, because we duct taped everything. And then, we were fighting over the fact, like, “Oh no, you need more here.” These wires…

Trista: We kept 10 rolls of duct tape by the way. You can get the idea of how much duct tape was used.

Kyle: If you send that to me, I’ll put that up on the show notes, I’m sure some people will wanna…

Natalie: I will send you the picture. We looked like [crosstalk 00:15:31] a little smiley face on the back. One day it’ll be beautiful but we have to drive this whole thing back up to Chattanooga. And I’m like we’re just staying there for a few days and enjoying that beautiful area.

Kyle: Yeah, there’s lots of good stuff up there.

Natalie: Yeah, so that was probably the one time in which we came home after 25 hours of driving.

Trista: We wanted to kill each other.

Kyle: Yeah, that’s probably was not the best use…

Natalie: Yeah, we needed to take a moment after and…there were certain points when I’m like, “Let’s just put a Book on Tape on for a long time and podcasts.”

Kyle: There you go.

Natalie: It’s a really cute vintage trailer. If we could figure out what to do with it, we would keep it. I think we’re gonna probably fix it up and…

Kyle: Well, if anybody is in the market for some interesting trailer and they like the looks of it…

Natalie: It looks like an old Shasta. So cute.

Kyle: So where do you see yourself in five years?

Natalie: Our year plan this year would be to do at least five or six markets.

Trista: Major markets.

Natalie: Yeah.

Kyle: That’s 2018, right?

Natalie: That’s 2018 and we wanna be able to do at least 2 or 3 holiday markets, 3 different cities in December, and then more probably the next year. It’s a matter of how many can be done without going down in quality. So we are always slowly adding people to our team and it’s a lot to bring in a new market. It’s like starting a whole new company because you have to go, vet a lot of new vendors. But as we get bigger and bigger, we hope that our reputation gets better and better as it has been. We’ve exploded this past year and a half.

Kyle: Yeah, it sounds like it.

Natalie: No, 2 years we’ve been in business and we have now 50,000 plus followers.

Kyle: I’m still working to figuring out that section and space.

Trista: Oh, we love social media. That’s definitely our forte.

Natalie: Yeah, it’s a lot of constant…posting all of the time.

Kyle: So my forte is tenacity and follow-up, as you all probably know, because I sent out quite a few follow-up emails. [crosstalk 00:17:17]

Trista: So we appreciate that, we appreciate that..

Natalie: When you’re juggling…I don’t know, I probably answer around 100 to 150 emails a day.

Kyle: The one rule in sales is most sales…and I consider this sales because I still do on interviewing, but most sales happen on the ninth or more contact.

Natalie: Ninth or tenth, yeah, I read that.

Trista: As entrepreneurs, as business owners, we appreciate that. There’s so much going on all the time and it’s so nonstop. It’s the person that keeps persisting and keep going for it.

Natalie: That’s how we are, too.

Trista: Those are people who, like, yeah, we need to do this.

Kyle: Or have the software to remind you, which is my case. Is there one problem that you wish that you could solve right now?

Trista: More hours in a day.

Natalie: Oh, my gosh, that’s…

Trista: If we could figure out how to get more hours in a day. We’re doing so many things that [inaudible 00:18:04]

Natalie: Well, the thing…I don’t know if you’ve ever had this with emails, but you come to your email box, check, “Okay, great. I have 75 emails I need to get to today.” You answer them all and then you’re like, “Oh, my gosh, you still have 75 emails.” Because everybody answers you back. That’s why I love answering at night and I love answering on airplanes.

Kyle: Personally, I keep a zero mailbox policy. So I look at it two or three times a day. So like what my real estate clients would tell you, like I tell them, “If you send me an email, I’ll get to it but it’s not going to be immediate.” I just zero it out every day. I don’t usually read stuff. I just delete it if it’s not pertinent, just ruthlessly.

Natalie: I’m a believer in unsubscribe. Any time I get something I’m on a list, I’m quickly like “unsubscribe.”

Kyle: But please don’t unsubscribe to the Great Things Tampa Bay newsletter please.

Natalie: Oh, no way.

Trista: No.

Natalie: [crosstalk 00:18:48] That’s when I haven’t signed up for it and somehow they sign me up for some random investment something.

Trista: It happens more often than I like.

Natalie: It’s some random person in Kentucky trying to sell me houses or something…

Kyle: It’s true. I know, like me personally, because I have a list that I built over the years and whenever I start up something new, I use the list for that. I apologize but sorry, not sorry.

Trista: [inaudible 00:19:15] sorry, not sorry.

Kyle: Any memorable booths you’ve had to reject or cancel?

Natalie: There’s a lot of booths that are an amazing fit for our company but I don’t know, like there are some that are terrible, that we don’t really know what they did, they are like upcycling something and they have no idea what they’re doing.

Kyle: Like hot-gluing shells on the things or something?

Natalie: That’s a big one. That’s a really big one is like hot-gluing shells on to random items which sometimes have no purpose. But what I say is that there’s a lot of markets out there and sometimes they’re just not a good fit. I know our target market and I know the right fit for our target market is women between 20 and 40. And so I happen to be one of those women and so I put items in the market that I would personally buy. Sometimes I put items that I would maybe buy for my parents too, but I really don’t have any grandparents around, so I don’t really know what they would buy or not buy. So we tend to stick to specific types of vendors that do all kinds of different things like candles and…

Trista: Totally, all of that. We also find that between 20 and 40, I just wanna touch on that, those are the people that are buying the most as well, spending a lot of money.

Natalie: For us, we have a lot of boutiques. We have a lot of, like I said, candles.

Kyle: I don’t think about going to markets other than the times that my wife is like, “Yeah, let’s go,” and I’m like, “Uh, all right.”

Natalie: Exactly. So we try to put some men’s items in there. We have beard care and…

Kyle: It’s appreciated.

Trista: We do think about you guys.

Natalie: What’s been great about the night markets is there’s a bar. So the guys go to the bar and the women…

Trista: Yeah. So it’s kind of a win-win.

Natalie: But you know what’s funny, because there’s a lot of amazing artists, like fine artists, and they try to get into our markets and they’re not the right fit because most of people, they’ll spend anywhere from $10 to $50. So when you bring in a couple of $100 item, they’re just not gonna buy it.

Kyle: Yeah, it’s tough. I couldn’t imagine dropping $2000 or something on a piece of fine art.

Natalie: Hey, that’s when you have made it and I feel you don’t really make it until, unless you’re really lucky, until you’re 40 or 50. But even then, it’s like, I don’t know, for us, if you have a lot of money and you are our age, you’re gonna be investing it into real estate.

Kyle: Please give me a call.

Natalie: Exactly. [inaudible 00:21:20] Most people, if they had a great following and they’ve got some really great products, that’s awesome. Sometimes, there’s fair food, and we don’t really… We just know who we are.

Kyle: No fried butter at Markets for Makers?

Natalie: No, not with us but you can go to the state fairgrounds. [crosstalk 00:21:36] experience. So you need to know who you are and embrace it.

Kyle: Yeah. Gotta hit the market.

Natalie: Exactly.

Kyle: So what exactly does it take to get a booth at your market?

Natalie: So our website, marketsformakers.com, has all of the markets listed and then you can apply. Some of the applications have a small fee, anywhere from $15 to $25, but others are free depending on our timeline. And if it’s a newer market we tend to try to incentivize people in and once we fill up, we’re full, that’s why we have a little bit of a fee is because it covers a lot of administrative costs.

Kyle: Yeah, and there’s always administrative costs.

Natalie: Oh, and try to make sure people are really serious about the fact that they really wanna be in the market because we don’t want people applying and then we never hear back from them. And so when we’re looking at a booth, we’re looking at their overall layout, their products. We look at their social media. The first thing I do, I don’t even look at the photos they sent me. I go directly to their Instagram and their Facebook. And I’m looking at how many followers do they have and how often do they post.

Trista: And it kinda shows us how serious they are about it. You know what I mean?

Natalie: Yeah, a person that’s more serious in trying to build their brand is going to be a higher priority for us to put in the market than somebody that it’s just a side hustle. If somebody has left their job…I remember there was this one company that was like, “We left our jobs to do this.” That was the company name. I was like, “What is this? What is it that you’re selling?” I don’t know if they’re still in business. I just know that they weren’t quite the right fit for us, but we love the passion.

Kyle: And honestly, I’m intrigued that you all actually curate your booths like that.

Natalie: It’s having a really amazing selection of vendors and then it’s also, for us, we’ve been really focusing on the vendor experience. And so we have, like for this next market that we have, huge Instagram walls, we have a whole Christmas wrapping station for free.

Kyle: Awesome.

Natalie: Yeah. So when somebody comes in the door, even though we have a ticket sale, then they feel like they’re coming in for a memorable experience. They’re supporting the entire market. What that allows us to do when we have a ticket as well for any of our markets is we get to take all of those vendor fees and dump it right back into marketing and helping promote those businesses inside the market. So that way, it incentivizes us as owners to get a lot of people through the door and so it’s a really great strategy that seems to be working really well for us.

We have our market this coming weekend and we have presold over 1000 tickets and e expect thousands of people out for the night.

Kyle: That’s pretty good. It’s almost like a self-driving machine almost.

Natalie: I’ll tell you about my [inaudible 00:23:59] I have to hustle in order to make sure that you’ve got people here. So your money is safe with me, it’s going into the user experience, it’s going into marketing and…

Kyle: And they can see where it’s going.

Natalie: Exactly and I love it. It’s so great. We want it to be something where someone walks in the market and it uplifts them, and we’re lifting an entire community. That’s the part of our game plan since day one, is know we could work…there’s a lot of different types of jobs out there and it’s great. Especially for you, you’re helping people find a new home and that helps the entire community.

Kyle: So two final questions. First up, wind or rain, what is the mortal enemy of outdoor markets?

Natalie: Definitely wind. You cannot have a market with wind. You can have a market with rain.

Kyle: Yeah. Those sandbags can only do so much.

Natalie: Oh, my gosh. You can’t even set up a table sometimes. Especially in Clearwater, it was just insane.

Kyle: What’s the funnest part about getting an outdoor market permitted, with the various cities and municipalities?

Trista: There’s fire… Oh, what is funnest part?

Natalie: There’s a lot of hoops to jump through and there’s a lot of people that could just say, “No, you can’t have this market.” We try to make sure we get the whole city on board with the entire idea of what we’re doing.

Trista: The funnest part is when we get the permit.

Natalie: Yeah, that’s the best part.

Kyle: You’re just like, phew.

Natalie: It’s literally like, “Please tell me we’re good to go.” I almost had a heart attack because we needed to make sure that we had the fire sprinklers in place for this big warehouse and it was [crosstalk 00:25:26].

Kyle: Fire marshals are always fun.

Natalie: It’s scary but it’s also one of those things where you have to, as a business owner, understand their job is to keep everyone safe.

Kyle: For those who aren’t familiar with it, if a fire marshal finds something an issue, it’s usually going to be $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 to… [crosstalk 00:25:42]

Natalie: It’s like, “Oh, by the way, you need to fix your sprinklers this time. Yeah, that’ll be $50,000.

Kyle: And it’s not like you need to add a whole new zone. It’s, “Hey, this needs to be four inches over this way.” I have had experience.

Natalie: Yeah, you get it. I think the one great thing about us as a business is that we understand that they are there for everyone’s safety. And if we can keep everyone’s safety our number one priority and really acknowledge that and tell them that’s what we’re about, they are a lot more easier to work with than trying to fight them. So we try to create a really great relationship with the community including anyone that is there because, for us anyone that’s in police and fire, we’re so thankful.

Kyle: Good stuff, good stuff. All right. Well, thank you so much, Trista and Natalie, for being on. If you people wanna know more, where should they go?

Natalie: marketsformakers.com.

Kyle: And we’ll have all this information in our show notes as well as I’m imagining a hilarious picture of a trailer that was towed all the way back from Chattanooga.

Natalie: Oh, yeah. Oh, my god.

Trista: Oh, we got a narwhal to show you.

Kyle: Well, thank you so much and check them out.

So I want to take a little bit here towards the end of the episode, just going to give a little information on what we’re doing. We’re lining up some new things for the new year here. One of the things we’re doing is reaching out to local bands and musicians, asking them to submit music that they would like featured on the podcast. We’ll probably put it in the lead-in and give a shout out to them in the show notes and also on the audio here. Pretty excited about that. I had a lot of great feedback in my initial asking who everyone would like to hear.

Things should be going pretty well here towards the new year. We’re going to be having some new episodes out. Specifically, there’s gonna be a Christmas episode coming out. So keep an eye out for that. And that’s going to be full of great stuff like where to go to see some cool lights, just holiday events, where to go ice skating, all sorts of cool things like that to make it feel like the holidays.

Segment 2. In England, there is a hereditary office known as the Queen’s Champion, and his job is to defend the monarch against any challengers. Whenever you hear the phrase “throwing down the gauntlet,” that is what this guy actually did. Historically from what I read, he would throw down the gauntlet three times during the coronation and he would basically call people out and challenge them to a fight if they wanted to try to challenge the claim of the new king or queen. And they also are the standard bearers, so whenever the king or queen goes into battle, this would be the guy next to him with the flag on the pennant and horse charging and all that. This is still an actual position in the English Order. It’s still an actual position and the current heir to the office is an accountant, which is relatively amusing.

Thank you for tuning into the Great Things Tampa Bay podcast. It’s been a lot of fun this year and we’re going to continue having fun next year. I would like to ask that you share a little bit. Just think of one person, just one person. Just share this with them. Just go to the website and share it with them. It’s really going to be through your referrals and your friends how we’re gonna build the following for this and make it into something truly awesome. I’m very appreciative of you all listening and looking forward to 2018.

And before I forget, if you like the podcast and would like to support it, all you need to do, just go to our website, greatthingstb.com. There’s a link there. You’ll see the Amazon logo. Basically, just click on that. That’ll take you to the normal Amazon site and just shop on Amazon as you would normally do. They pay us a little bit of a commission just for sending traffic. So if you’d like more content like this, just go to our website and click on the Amazon link. Thank you so much.

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Category Episode Great Places Location St Pete Tampa

Episode 17 – We’re All Stars Now At The Boat Show

Episode 15 - Get Your Game On! Tampa Bay Club Sports

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Show Notes

There’s water to be found everywhere in Tampa Bay, and water means BOATS.  In this episode, we cover the three major boat shows in the Tampa Bay area and tell you which one to go to if you’re looking for sailboats and which one caters more to the fishing boater in you.

We also read some listener email who talks about the greatest Meatloaf they’ve ever had and finish up with the HMS dolphin who found the deal of a lifetime in the south pacific.

Transcript at the bottom of the page!

Boat Shows

Tampa Bay Boat Show

Florida State Fairgrounds, twice a year.

Free Entry. Mostly small fishing boats and pontoons.

 

Tampa Boat Show

Tampa Convention Center

12$ Entry, Huge selection of power boats and small selection of sailboats on water.

 

St Pete Power and Sailboat Show

Albert Whitted Park, in front of Mahaffey Theater

Around 20$ Entry. Huge selection of power and sailboats, large and small. Easily the best onboard access of any boat show.

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Friendly relations were established between the British sailors of the HMS Dolphin and the South Pacific locals. The relationships became particularly friendly when the sailors discovered that the women were eager to exchange sex for iron. This trade became so extensive that the loss of nails started to threaten Dolphin’s physical integrity.

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Transcript

Welcome to “Great Things Tampa Bay,” the podcast about great eats, great places, and great people in the greater Tampa Bay area. I’m your host, Kyle Sasser, a Tampa Bay native and realtor. This is episode 17, “We’re All Stars Now at the Boat Show.” This is the “Great Places” feed of the “Great Things Tampa Bay” podcast, where you will only hear episodes related to parks, stores, events, shows, and things to do about town. In our main podcast, which you’ll find under “Great Things Tampa Bay,” in addition to these chats about entertainment and events, we also cover great eateries and delicious grub, as well as interview some of the great people, movers and shakers in the area. You can find our main feed at greatthingstb.com. That’s greatthingstb.com, or you can subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play just by doing a search for “Great Things Tampa Bay.” Thank you and enjoy.

So, Tampa Bay, you know, we got water all over the place. We got Tampa Bay Proper, Old Tampa Bay, Hillsborough Bay, Intracoastal Waterway, Gulf of Mexico’s out there. We got the Straits, all that good stuff. So yeah, lots of boats running around, and with that comes a lot of boat stores, and also, boat shows. We’re gonna be covering three boat shows, and these are the primary boat shows in the area. There’s two over in Tampa, and then, there’s one over here in St. Petersburg. They typically happen in the colder parts of the year. Most people do not want to be walking around outdoors when it is blazing hot. So, usually around late August, September, October, November, those are the times where the boat shows are gonna be up and going on.

The largest of the state’s is gonna be down, you know, the Miami/Fort Lauderdale Boat Show, I think maybe the largest in the world. Don’t quote me on that, but it is huge. The boat shows that we have up here are actually very respectable, lots of choices, and each one kinda has a little bit of a different focus. First up, we got Tampa Bay Boat Show, and some of these might have already passed. You know, you can just make a note to remember this for next year, but I have been to each one of these, so I’m happy to give my personal experience with each of these.

So, first up, we got the Tampa Bay Boat Show. Typically, this one is at the end of September. Takes place over at the Florida State Fairgrounds, which is…that’s over there where 301 crosses Interstate 4. That’s where all your concerts and a lot of Hillsborough County High School graduations happen. The nice thing about the Tampa Bay Boat Show at the Florida State Fairgrounds is that pretty much the only cost is parking, which when we went this year, 2017, it was about five bucks. So, the Tampa Bay Boat Show does not have any sailboats, so if you are in the market, or just want to look at sailboats, this is not the one to go to, and even the powerboats, they will be on the smaller end. I think there was maybe one or two that was over the 40-foot mark, and they were on the woodblocks, and all that. Mainly, this is small pleasure crafts, 15 to 30-foot range, lots of fishing boats, pretty good selection of pontoon boats and things like that. So, yeah, so if you’re in the market for something like 15, 30 feet, it’s around late September. Give the Tampa Bay Boat Show a try.

Next up, we have the St. Pete Power and Sailboat Show. This one is my particular favorite. You know, I like sailboats, mostly. This is the show to go for if you are in the market for a sailboat. This one takes place down in front of the Mahaffey Theater and the Dali Museum. They actually build some temporary floating docks over there, kinda up next to the airport. They also have some displays up on land, you know, like, the smaller 10 feet, maybe, like, 20-foot powerboats up on land, but the stars of the show is definitely on the water. And you will see everything from 30-foot Beneteaus up to, you know, like, the 96-power yachts with separate crew quarters, its own little, you know, engine room. So, crazy, crazy stuff. Problem with some of these boat shows as you go, and, like, the really big cool stuff you don’t really see all that much, a lot of times, they’ll want you to set appointments, and blah-blah-blah, and pre-verify your income and all that good stuff. But the good thing about the St. Pete Power and Sailboat Show is the boats are a lot more open, and yeah, you can go tour some really cool stuff.

I think last time we went our favorite was the Beneteau 42. In addition to, you know, just being a brand-new sailboat, which is always awesome, the entire back transom kinda dropped down and made its own swim platform, which is sweet. And I know, you know, some of the old salty sailors don’t really like the Beneteaus and the Jeanneaus all that much. I don’t know, they’re missing that magic wooden something that people go gaga over, but I gotta say, it was pretty awesome. And the other cool thing about the Beneteau was that whenever you went down below decks, like, they didn’t really have the walls dividing up the space. It was just open. It made it feel huge, which was amazing. So, it’s good to see a ton of boats like that because you can really rapidly figure out what you like and what you don’t like. You do have to pay to go to the St. Pete Power and Sailboat Show. It’s usually about $20 each, and you know, there’s parking and stuff like that. It can get slightly crowded. Yeah, it’s not too bad. And, you know, you’re out there walking around on floating docks in the water, so, you know, if you get some motion sickness, sailboat might not be the best thing for you, but just be sure to take your Dramamine or associated motion sickness pills before going out there.

And last up we have the Tampa Boat Show, not to be confused with the Tampa Bay Boat Show. And just as a personal side, it does irritate me when there’s multiple things in the area, and one is the Tampa Bay whatever, and the other one is the Tampa whatever. And then, they get mad when you get them confused. And it’s just like, well, you know, there’s like three letters difference between the two of you. Maybe you should tighten the branding up a little bit.

So, the Tampa Boat Show takes place usually early October. I think this year it was October 13th through 15th. It was delayed a little bit due to Hurricane Irma, but it takes place at the Tampa Convention Center. You do have to pay to get in. Usually, it’s $12 to $15, somewhere in that neighborhood. They have a pretty good mix of both power and sailboats. So, in the convention hall proper, that’s where you’re gonna find the majority of your powerboats. And honestly, the selection is gonna be larger here than at the state fairgrounds boat show, so yeah, if you’re in the market for a powerboat, they definitely have the selection. They also have a marina section outside, kinda down across from Harbour Island where they have some docks set up. You can go out there and tour. Access isn’t quite as easy as the St. Pete Power and Sailboat Show. It’s also usually a little bit more crowded. Can be tight quarters if you’re trying to access boats out there. They don’t have as large of an on-water section, but they do have a really good selection of large power vessels, and some sailboats.

So, just to recap, you got the Tampa B-A-Y Boat show, which is at the Florida State Fairgrounds, typically at the end of September. You have the Tampa Boat Show, which is at the Tampa Convention Center, and that’s usually late September, early October. And then, the St. Pete Power and Sailboat Show, which is my personal favorite, and that is usually, like, November, December, somewhere around that time.

All of this information is in the show notes, so you can either click on the information button on the podcast app that you’re using, or you can just go to our website, and we’ll have it there. And, as always, if you have any questions, please just send me an email.

We did actually get some listener mail in. This email comes from Wendy, who states that her nine-year-old son claims that the best meatloaf in the world is at Ella’s Folk Art Café over in Tampa. And, for those of you that are not in the know, Ella’s Folk Art Café is on Nebraska Avenue, just south of Hillsborough, and that’s over in Tampa, basically across the street from Green Shift Comics. A little bit of a heads up on Sundays they usually change the menu up. Sundays is usually more of, like, a Southern barbeque sort of thing, and then during the rest of the week, they do, you know, the regular menu. Also, a good place to catch a live band if you’re into, you know, Rockabilly and people playing slap bass, in addition to other genres. But, yeah, it’s a good place to catch a relaxed show while having some delicious food.

Wendy also recommends the Smokehouse in Dunedin, which you longtime listeners know that barbeque is very near and dear to my heart. In the first episode of “Great Things Tampa Bay,” I led off with my favorite restaurant in the area, Urban Brew and BBQ. So, I have eaten at Smokehouse in Dunedin, and yes, they do have very delicious barbeque and sides, so definitely recommend if you’re up in Dunedin. So, thank you for that email, Wendy, and tell your nine-year-old son that he is a culinary genius, but thank you for the email, and please keep them coming.

So, the HMS Dolphin was a 24-gun frigate of the Royal Navy, and yep, she had many adventures. Main claim to fame was that she was the first ship to circumnavigate the world twice. As you can imagine, lots of interesting things happening on this voyage, and quite a few ports to call, one of the more notable ones being Tahiti. But probably the funniest instance that happened on this voyage was just how friendly the crew got with the natives, especially when they learned that the natives were eager to exchange sex for iron. As you can imagine, trade was brisk, eventually to the point to where it was actually threatening the integrity of the ship because the crew had pried so many iron nails out of the wood planks to ensure this goodwill with the locals. Luckily, the captain, you know, had the foresight to put end to all of that. Luckily, they made it back safely. Hats off, I suppose, HMS Dolphin.

So, I want to thank you for sharing “Great Things Tampa Bay” with your friends and family. You can share us by going to our website greatthingstb.com. There you’ll find “share it” buttons on nearly every page. You can share us on Twitter, Facebook, all that good stuff. If you are looking for your own great place in Tampa Bay, I’m also a licensed realtor, specializing in deep knowledge of Hillsborough and Pinellas County. So, if you wanna talk real estate, you can give me a call at 727-300-2111, or you can send me an email at kyle@sassergroup.com. That’s kyle@sassergroup.com, and I’ll be more than happy to help you find your next home here in Tampa Bay.

I also need your feedback. I need you to tell me where we should be going, and what we should be eating, and who we should be talking to. So, please go to our website, greatthingstb.com, and you can hit either the “Contact Us” link at the top or the “Get Social” links, also at the top. If you wanna be a cool guy, or a cool girl, you can call our voicemail number, which is 727-440-4455, and leave us a message. I’d love to hear from yah. So, thanks for listening, and I’ll see you next time.

And, oh, by the way, if you don’t want to miss the next episode, please subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play. That’ll guarantee that you get the next episode delivered straight to your mobile device of choice. Thank you so much, and I’ll talk to you next time.

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Category Clearwater Episode Further Afield Great Places Location St Pete Tampa

Episode 16 – The Great (Movies) Outdoors

Episode 16 - The Great (Movies) Outdoors

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Show Notes

In Episode 16 We tell you all the great places to catch a movie now that the weather has cooled off!  And you can find Drive-Ins or Movies in the Park in every corner of Tampa Bay!

Transcript at the bottom of this page!

Movies Outdoors

St Petersburg at Straub Park

Tampa Channelside with Food Trucks

Tampa at Curtis Hixon Park

Clearwater at Pier 60

Ruskin Drive-In Theater

Silver Moon Drive-In Theater in Lakeland

Fun-Lan Drive-In Theater in Tampa

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Transcript

Welcome to, “Great Things Tampa Bay,” the podcast about great eats, great places, and great people in the Greater Tampa Bay area. I’m your host, Kyle Sasser, a Tampa Bay native and realtor. This is episode 16, “The Great (Movies) Outdoors”.

This is the “Great Places” feed, of “The Great Things Tampa Bay” podcast, where you will only hear episodes related to parks, stores, events, shows, and things to do about town. In our main podcast, which you’ll find under, “Great Things Tampa Bay,” in addition to these chats about entertainment and events, we also cover great eateries and delicious grub, as well as interview some of the great people, movers and shakers in the area.

You can find our main feed at greatthingstb.com, that’s greatthingstb.com, or you can subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play, just by doing a search for “Great Things Tampa Bay”. Thank you, and enjoy.

So, you know, we’re getting a little bit further on in the year here. Things are gonna be cooling down here shortly. I know cool is a relative term here in Tampa Bay, Florida. Fun fact I learned the other day about Tampa, is the temperature has never actually gone above 99 degrees, which is really tough to believe, the reports that I saw swore up and down. It must be the way they measure it with the fact that it’s, you know, at a certain altitude and all that good stuff, because I don’t buy it.

So, since it’s cooling off, people are going to be venturing outdoors a little bit more, spend a little bit more time outdoors enjoying the cooler weather. And what better way to do that than going out and seeing a movie in a park somewhere? So we do actually have quite a few places here in Tampa Bay to partake in a movie in a park. Most of these really get going around October, there’s a couple that do it all year long, but yeah, Saint Pete, Tampa, they usually stick to, you know, the cooler months, October through May, April, something like that.

So without further ado, over in St. Petersburg, in Straub Park, we have movies in the park. And all of this stuff, I’m going to be putting the links in the show notes, so you don’t have to really remember this. Just, you know, pop on the website, it’s got links, you can see what movies are coming up and all that stuff.

So downtown St. Petersburg, there’s movies in the park at Straub Park, which is downtown. Over in Tampa, there’s actually two. There’s one out in Channelside, at the Grand Central, on Kennedy, and this one’s called Flicks and Food Trucks. This one is on the third Thursday of the month, and it goes from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., roundabouts. This is kinda cool because they line up a bunch of food trucks there, so you can kind of go down the line there and sample it. They usually have a couple of Savory guys there, some actual food stuff, and then there’s a sweet truck, maybe some cupcakes or something like that. It’s really a nice place if you’ve never been there, and a cool place to take in a show.

Also in downtown Tampa, the City of Tampa puts on movies in the park, which is at Curtis Hixon, which is down in front of the art museum, you know, where all the water fountains are and stuff like that. They’re starting that up October 7th. They haven’t released the movie schedule yet, but they do have it slated with a October 7 start.

And finally, back over to Pinellas County, at Clearwater Beach is Sunset Cinema at Pier 60. And that one’s actually going on right now. You can go down there this weekend and go watch some movies. It is a little warm, and I say that as a native. But, yeah, if it’s something you wanna do, they’re located at 1 Causeway Blvd, and if you use your noodle a little, bit you can figure out that most of these get started around sundown.

So, besides the movies in the park, what else is there to do? Well, we actually have quite a few drive-in movie theaters hangin’ around. We did use to have one over here in St. Petersburg, it was over on 28th Street. Unfortunately, that closed back in 2000, if I remember correctly, but we do still have three. So the big one that most people know is the Fun Lan Drive-In Theater, which is over 2302 East Hillsborough Avenue. During the day, on the weekend, they usually have a flea market. So if you drive by and you see a flea market, don’t stress, that is the drive-in theater, you just need to come back later.

I will say that they usually play a little bit more bold movie choices, I guess you could say. They’re not afraid of PG-13s, and all that stuff. Last I checked, they we’re playing “Dunkirk” and that new “Annabelle” movie, yet most of the other ones are gonna be a little more family oriented. With Halloween coming up, you know, go see a scary movie at the drive-in. If you’re a fan of ’80s movies, you know how that turns out.

So, we still have two other drive-in theaters. There’s one in South Hillsborough County, down in Ruskin. It’s called the Ruskin Family Drive In, and that’s located at 5011 U.S. 41. It’s been there since 1952, and they only accept cash, so keep that in mind when you go there. And the third drive-in theater is the Silver Moon out in Lakeland, Florida. And that’s located at 4100 New Tampa Highway, Lakeland, Florida. Silver Moon has been there since 1948, and I can remember as a kid driving by, seeing the big screens with the movies going on and thought it was the coolest thing ever.

I really need to go to more drive-in theaters. I was telling Abbie about this one and she kinda got excited, the Fun Lan over in Tampa. So, we’re definitely gonna be making a point to go. That’s all the fun things to do to watch a outdoor movie. Of course, it isn’t really something you wanna do in the middle of July or August. Just it’s an exercise in being miserable, which I cannot recommend. But as the weather cools off here, definitely check one of these out. And any interest in this, please just go to our website, greatthingstb.com, find the show notes for episode 16 and I’ll have links to all this stuff there.

So, I wanna thank you for sharing “Great Things Tampa Bay’ with your friends and family. You can share us by going to our website, greatthingstb.com. There, you’ll find share buttons on nearly every page. You can share us on Twitter, Facebook, all that good stuff. If you are looking for your own great place in Tampa Bay, I’m also a licensed realtor, specializing in deep knowledge of Hillsborough and Pinellas County. So if you wanna talk real estate, you can give me a call at 727-300-2111, or you can send me an e-mail at kyle@sassergroup.com, that’s kylesassergroup.com, and I’d be more than happy to help you find your next home here in Tampa Bay.

I also need your feedback. I need you to tell me where we should be going, and what we should be eating, and who we should be talking to. So please go to our website, greatthingstb.com, where you can hit either the “Contact Us” link at the top, or the “Get Social Links” also at the top. If you wanna be a cool guy or cool girl, you can call our voicemail number, which is 727-440-4455 and leave us a message. I’d love to hear from you.

So thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time. And, oh, by the way, if you don’t want to miss the next episode, please subscribe to us on iTunes, or Google Play. That’ll guarantee that you get the next episode delivered straight to your mobile device of choice.

Thank you so much, and I’ll talk to you next time.

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Category Clearwater Episode Further Afield Great Places Location St Pete Tampa

Episode 15 – Get Your Game On! Tampa Bay Club Sports

Episode 15 - Get Your Game On! Tampa Bay Club Sports

Alexa,
play Great Things Tampa Bay

Show Notes

Get our there and get active!  In Episode 15 we cover Tampa Bay Club Sports, one of the best ways to burn some calories while having some great fun playing your favorite sports (and some not sports such as Golf or Cornhole).

Transcript at the bottom of this page!

Tampa Bay Club Sport

WWW.TampaBayClubSport.Com

Sports Offered:

  • Soccer
  • Football
  • Softball
  • Volleyball
  • Kickball
  • Basketball
  • Tennis
  • Bowling, Golf, Cornhole, Bar Games

Locations all around the Tampa Bay Area!

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If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.

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Transcript

Welcome to Great Things Tampa Bay, the podcast about great eats, great places and great people in the greater Tampa Bay Area. I’m your host, Kyle Sasser, a Tampa Bay native and realtor. This is Episode 15, Get Your Game On!

I’d like to thank you for giving us your time. I know there’s lots of things vying for your attention and I appreciate you choosing to spend your time listening to me in this podcast. I promise I will do everything I can to bring you something awesome. Also wanna let you know that we now have express feeds. If you’re only interested in our food reviews, just do a search for “Great Bites, Tampa Bay.” If you want more of our interviews with interesting movers and shakers in the area, just look for the feed, “Great People, Tampa Bay.” And for things to do in the area, shops or other events, just do a search for “Great Places, Tampa Bay.” These feeds are listed on our website, greatthingstb.com, under the heading “Express Feeds,” up at the top there.

So, you know, one of the annoying things about getting older, growing up, and all that good stuff, is that, you know, there’s not really anyone around to play games with anymore. Yeah, I’m sure you keep track of one or two, friends over the years, but, you know, the days of going through the neighborhood and be able to throw together a pick-up football, basketball, or soccer game, are many years in the past. Everyone’s just got way too much stuff to do.

Thankfully, we got a little place here, locally, it’s called Tampa Bay Club Sport and it’s a great place for adults, young and old, to get together and play some sports. Those of you that actually know me know that I wasn’t really too big into sports in my younger days, definitely something I’ve grown into as I’ve gotten older. Honestly, I wish that I would have done it a lot sooner, it’s very rewarding and fulfilling. So, if you’re someone who’s just kind of sitting around…honestly, I spent years in front a computer and if you’re doing the same, you know, get out there. Even if you don’t really know what you’re doing, it’s worth it to get out there just to have a little fun and meet some new people.

So, Club Sport was founded in 1995, specifically as an outlet for young adults to play sports. I mean you’re pretty good up through college with being able to throw people together, but once you get past 25, it starts getting really tough, you know, jobs, sleep, kids, career, all that stuff sort of gets in the way.

Tampa Bay Club Sports has locations all around the Bay Area, from Brandon, over on the other side of Tampa, they have some in Tampa. Coquina Key, they don’t have some in the extended area, they have some affiliated clubs down in Sarasota and the like. But, yeah, they more than likely have something close to you. And they cover a wide range of skill levels from recreation, up to intermediate, to competitive. And it can get pretty competitive out there, I can tell you.

Nice thing about it, they do charge a fee, of course, for all this. They paint lines and stuff, it’s not gonna be a pro-level field or anything like that, but they do pay the referees, so you do have someone out there making calls and all that good stuff, which is awesome. They have a ton of sports available. They have soccer, which is my favorite. I currently play every Wednesday, over here in St. Petersburg, at Puryear Park, which is awesome. They also have softball, volleyball, kickball, which my wife played for a couple years there. They also have football, which I’m guessing is of the flag variety, I have not actually signed up for that yet, but I can’t imagine that they would have tackle football. Basketball, tennis, golf, cornhole, which is questionable sports, bowling, and, finally, a Bar Games League, which is Flip Cup…I don’t know if they have Flip Cup, but I know I saw pictures of beer pong. So those last few are definitely more of a game than a sport, but there you go. And, yeah, I know some of you all are probably kinda mad saying that, you know, golf’s a sport, but, yeah, let’s get real. And I say that as someone who loves golf.

So, you don’t actually need a full team to play, so you don’t need to get together, you know, 10 people to play soccer or anything like that. If you just wanna play solo, just give them a call, they will sign you up as a free agent and place you on a team. The team that I’m on, we actually all were free agents, and we started just after the last World Cup. We’re still around, which is pretty good, real good bunch of people. So those on the Moist Towelettes Soccer Team, that are giving us a listen, it’s a lot of fun playing with you guys. So, their website is www.tampabayclubsports.com, and you can go there and it’ll display all the leagues and give you all the options, and all that good stuff. Or, if you just rather just call them, their phone number is 877-820-2582.

Segment 2, “Tell ’em Twain.” Mark Twain is one of the most quoted Americans of all time. I saw this one the other day. Thought it was rather appropriate for our new modern age of yellow journalism, and it goes a little something like this, “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re misinformed.”

I wanna thank you for sharing Great Things Tampa Bay with your friends and family. You can share us by going to our website, greatthingstb.com. There you’ll find share buttons on nearly every page. You can share us on Twitter, Facebook, all that good stuff. If you are looking for your own great place in Tampa Bay, I’m also a licensed realtor, specializing in deep knowledge of Hillsborough/Pinellas County. So if you wanna talk real estate, you can give me a call at 727-300-2111, or you can send me an email at kyle@sassergroup.com. That’s kyle-S-A-S-S-E-R-G-R-O-U-P.com, and I’d be more than happy to help you find your next home here in Tampa Bay.

I also need your feedback. I need you to tell me where we should be going, and what we should be eating, and who we should be talking to. So, please go to our website, greatthingstb.com. Or, you can hit either the “Contact Us” link at the top or the “Get Social Links,” also at the top. If you wanna be a cool guy or a cool girl, you can call our voicemail number, which is 727-440-4455, and leave us a message. I’d love to hear from you.

So, thanks for listening, and I’ll see you next time. And, oh, by the way, if you don’t want to miss the next episode, please subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play, that’ll guarantee that you get the next episode delivered straight to your mobile device of choice.

Thank you so much and I’ll talk to you next time.

Categories
Category Episode Great Places Location St Pete

Episode 14 – Deflate Things Tampa Bay (Places to Avoid)

Episode 14 - Deflate Things Tampa Bay ( Places to Avoid)

Alexa,
play Great Things Tampa Bay

Show Notes

Things aren’t always sunny in Tampa Bay.  Rain falls.  Lightning crashes.

While it’s good to know what places are great, it’s also valuable to know what places to absolutely avoid.

Dayton Andrews Jeep on 34th in St Pete is one such place, and in this episode I give my personal experiences dealing with them.

Transcript at the bottom of this page!

Dayton Andrews Jeep
St Petersburg

Dayton Andrews Dodge Chrysler Jeep Ram

2301 34th St N, St. Petersburg, FL 33713

  • Poor Service
  • Unknowledgable Sales Staff
  • Unhelpful Staff
  • Used Vehicles interior not cleaned

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Transcript

Welcome to Great Things Tampa Bay, the podcast about great eats, great places and great people in the greater Tampa Bay area. I’m your host, Kyle Sasser, a Tampa Bay native and realtor. This is Episode 14 “Deflate Things Tampa Bay.” I’d like to thank you for giving us your time. I know there’s lots of things vying for your attention, and I appreciate you choosing to spend your time listening to me and this podcast. I promise I will do everything I can to bring you something awesome. I also want to let you know that we now have express feeds. If you’re only interested in our food reviews, just do a search for “Great Bites Tampa Bay.” If you want more of our interviews with interesting movers and shakers in the area, just look for the feed “Great People Tampa Bay,” and for things to do in the area shops or other events, just do a search for “Great Places Tampa Bay.” These feeds are listed on our website greatthingstb.com under the heading Express Feeds up at the top there.

So this episode, we are going to come at things from a little bit different angle. Obviously, we’ve had 13 episodes so far, and we’ve featured a great thing on every episode. But, you know, I wouldn’t be truthful if I said that everything about Tampa Bay was great. You know, a lot of times it’s just as important to know where not to go as where to go. A lot of times certain types of businesses, you know, if you have a bad experience then, you know, it can be real bad. So anyway, I thought in this episode we would cover one of those. This is from my personal experience, and just so you know, I don’t do this if I just have one bad experience. You know, I don’t think it’s worthwhile to judge a place based on one interaction with it because, you know, sometimes people have bad days or, you know, certain circumstances can align to make things bad. Let’s just take, for example, if you’ve not had a lot of rain and then, you know, you want to go take a canoe down the Alafia River, you can’t get too mad because there’s not enough rain to run the river. So, it’s all about circumstances and all that.

But, my personal belief is that if you have a few interactions with a park or a place and each one just leaves you thinking, “Man, this place is horrible,” then, you know, it’s probably a good thing to let other people know so that they can avoid it and they don’t have to waste their time. So with that in mind, in those caveats, so my wife and I, Abbie, we went to, you know, we were just curious driving around looking at Jeeps, specifically Jeep Wranglers. So we went to Dayton Andrew Jeep on 34th Street North. That’s U.S. 19 and like 23rd. We’ve been there a few times. This story is our most recent experience there, but the other two times that we have been there it was a very, very similar experience, so, and we were looking at two different vehicles each time. The first time we were looking at a Jeep Grand Cherokee and this last time we were looking for Jeep Wranglers. Specifically, you know, used Jeep Wranglers, manual transmission.

So we pull into the Dayton Andrew Jeep dealership, you know, they have a little…I can only call it a guard tower. It basically looks, you know, like they’re trying to patrol a prison there or something. I’m assuming it’s so they can see, you know, the buyers, you know, walking the lots and they can coordinate and all this stuff. When we pulled up there, there was no one on top of the tower and there was a guy sitting underneath the tower. Basically, you know, covered in sweat, very disheveled, sweat-soaked shirt. Honestly, I thought it was one of the guys that wash the cars that was just kind of taking a break. But then he, you know, popped up a little bit and said, “Hey, how can I help you?” Then confirmed that he was a used-car salesman. We then asked, we were like, “Hey, you know, we’re looking for a Jeep Wrangler, manual transmission.” He’s like, “Well, Jeep Wranglers are over there. Stick your head in to see if they’re manual transmission or not.”

Now, those of you that might not be familiar with Jeep Wranglers, they’re near and dear to many people’s hearts. They’re kind of like, what’s similar, so like motorcycles. They have, like, similar culture, like Jeep owners will wave at each other on the road. Almost like the, you know, the reverence of like say the BMW 3 Series or the Porsche. So, it’s not unusual to ask for a manual Jeep Wrangler. Now, they don’t make so many of them but, you know, it is something that people actually look for pretty regularly, and I would think that they would know what on the lot is manual and what isn’t. It’s not like they have 5,000 of them, they had about maybe six, five or six. So anyway, the salesman just kind of pointed in the general direction of the Wranglers. So we went and looked, opened the doors. The cars themselves were in pretty bad shape, like, the carpets were filthy, just, you know, looked maybe they hadn’t been vacuumed at all. The outsides were actually fine, but the interiors were, let’s just say, not the most care given to it. And I come to find out after we looked on our own, that they did not actually have a manual Jeep Wrangler.

Now, we then went over and looked at the new cars, thinking that maybe they would have a manual over there because honestly, I hadn’t really been in a Wrangler since, I don’t know, high school, which was 1990, I’m not going to tell you. Yeah, but just to say that it has been quite a while since I’ve been inside of one. You know, I was just curious of what they look like nowadays and how they drove and all that good stuff. So we go over to the new car side of the lot there, thinking that, you know, maybe they would be a little bit more knowledgeable and be able to point us in the right direction. They did have a row of about 25 Jeep Wranglers there. We then went to the new sales guy and basically the same thing, it’s like, “Hey just, you know, walking around, checking out stuff and we’re looking for a manual Wrangler. Do you have any?” And he said, “They’re all locked, but stick your head through the window, you know, look through the window and you can see if they’re manual or not.” So we walked down the 25, 30 cars there. None of them were manual. And as we were doing this, he didn’t even, like, help us look into the windows. He basically just walked, kind of, like, down the fronts, and basically just, kind of, through real salesy questions at us.

We got to one Jeep Wrangler that was this lime green. Nothing against lime green or, you know, those neon colors, but they weren’t exactly what we were looking for. But yeah, he just kept pounding on us. He was like, “Hey, you know, it’s a really great deal on this. You’re never going to find the cheaper one, blah, bah, blah, blah, blah,” and we just kept repeating like, “Listen, we don’t like the color. We’re not interested in the color.” He was just like, “Well, you could probably just paint it for like 300 bucks. A few hundred bucks you can get a new paint job on it.” Which is absolutely ridiculous. Like, I’m not going to buy a new car, you know, just to put a new paint job on it, just because some schlub tells me that it’s the best deal ever.

So that was our experience looking for the Jeep Wrangler. As I said, whenever we were looking for the Grand Cherokee a couple of years ago, it was pretty much the same experience. It’s one of those things where you get in the car and you drive away just like, “Man, I never ever want to go back there. I don’t want anyone to ever go there.” So this was my personal experience, and I would love for them to listen to this or, you know, to kind of take stock of their customer service and turn things around. But basically, as it stands, I cannot recommend them in the least. If you are interested in purchasing a Jeep I would recommend driving up to Fitzgerald’s Countryside Chrysler Jeep, which is up 19. It’s north of Clearwater and all of that stuff, so it’s a little out of the way for most people in Tampa Bay, but it’s absolutely worth it. The staff there is very knowledgeable. They’re all fans and Jeep advocates and enthusiasts themselves. If you head up there ask for Steve Flescher. He was very nice, showed us a couple Jeeps, was very knowledgeable, answered all of our questions. All around, just a good standup guy.

So our two thumbs down to Dayton Andrew Jeep on 34th street, just, I can’t recommend them. Anyway, if you have any comments or other horror stories on places you like to absolutely avoid at all costs, just drop us a message. You can find us on Facebook, or you can just send me an email Kyle@greatthingstb.com.

So I want to thank you for sharing Great Things Tampa Bay with your friends and family. You can share us by going to our website, greatthingstb.com. There you’ll find share buttons on nearly every page. You can share us on Twitter, Facebook, all that good stuff. If you’re looking for your own great place in Tampa Bay, I’m also a licensed realtor specializing in deep knowledge of Hillsborough and Pinellas County. So if you want to talk real estate, you can give me a call at 727-300-2111 or you can send me an email at kyle@sassergroup.com, that’s, K-Y-L-E, S-A-S-S-E-R-G-R-O-U-P, dot com, and I would be more than happy to help you find your next home here in Tampa Bay. I also need your feedback. I need you to tell me where we should be going, what we should be eating, and who we should be talking to, so please go to our website, greatthingstb.com, and you can hit either the Contact Us link at the top or, the Get Social link also at the top. If you want to be a cool guy or a cool girl, you can call our voicemail number which is 727-440-4455 and leave us a message. I’d love to hear from you.

So thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time. Oh, by the way, if you don’t want to miss the next episode, please subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play. That’ll guarantee that you get the next episode delivered straight to your mobile device of choice. Thank you so much and I’ll talk to you next time.