In this week’s Giraffe Paper, I’ll share my experience with friends and members of The Total Fitness RunVie Racing Team as we took a road trip to The Cider Press Cafe, my favorite place to eat out in the Tampa Bay area. I’ll share my other favorites down below.
When planning this month’s Healthy Giraffe Event, I had to get creative as scheduling and time management constraints presented a challenge with either Morgan or my racing schedule. So in combination of making it work with those challenges, doing something different, and positive buzz around The Cider Press Cafe by some teammates, it made a great option.
Having been to The Cider Press Cafe several times in the last several weeks I may be getting close to “Norm” status soon. If you are not familiar with the 80s TV show Cheers, Norm basically had his own stool at the bar by being there all the time. In a recent visit, the server asked me, “were you in here a couple days ago?” Well, it’s one of Morgan’s favorite places too so while on Spring Break we ventured over twice and I’ve hosted two work dinners there as well.
So in my last visit I secured a reservation and by request of Jenn to start at 1:30 that was our start time. And only from a group like this it was asked to start at a particular time to ensure there was enough time to work in the morning routine and shower. Love this training group!
By going at 1:30 on Sunday we had the brunch menu option along with a slimmed down regular menu. We were thrown back a bit by them not having mac and cheese available as an experiment went bad prior in the day…ugh. We quickly gathered our composure and all ordered and enjoyed 100% plant-based meals and desserts!
The venue is great, has bar seating, traditional indoor seating and on a nice day they have ample outdoor seating. They offer a variety of wines, beers, kombuchas, burgers, plant-based versions of other favorites and their desserts are crazy good! My personal favorites include: peanut butter waffles (Brunch Menu – “The Elvis”), Mother’s Kombucha on tap (change daily), mac & cheese, Caesar salad, fajitas and almost any burger they have on special and they change them often. Recently on special I had a Cuban sandwich that was fantastic and a couple months ago they offered an Italian burger that was off the charts. For dessert my favorite and pictured below is their salted caramel cheesecake. OK I better stop or I’ll list the entire menu.
To top it all off they have a giraffe standing outside that I am now starting to collect pictures with as you see below. We lost a few members before taking this picture but still a good looking group! It was a great outing with friends. I can’t wait for our next road trip…where will it be???
I’ve added a new page for my favorite restaurants in the Tampa Bay area. Check it out and let me know if there are others I should consider. I was given two places yesterday that I need to try, Consciousness Blossoms and Ozona Pizza. I’ll send an Instagram and Tweet along when I try them out and we’ll see if they make my favorite places to eat in Tampa Bay.
– Add Health to Your Life
The Healthy Giraffe 
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