TAMPA, Fla. — Once upon a time, Ybor City’s New World Brewery was the alternative to the alternative. For more than 20 years, the converted service station on 8th Avenue served up craft beer and local music before they were cool. New World was the place to go if you thought the dance clubs were lame, that Ybor was turning into Bourbon Street—or worse, Downtown Disney—or that the formerly edgy district was losing, well, its edge.

Then another round of development hit the up-and-coming area, and in September of 2017, owner Steve Bird and his cohort of amiable misfits bid adieu to the space, which, infuriatingly to some, stood standing for months while its new owners untangled the miles of red tape involved in real estate.


What You Need To Know

  • New World Brewery fostered local music and community in Ybor City for more than 20 years

  • The venue and restaurant's new location at 810 East Skagway Avenue is now open

Eventually, the building was razed, but not before Bird went looking for a new place to continue celebrating the community that New World didn’t create, but certainly helped foster over the years.

The new space, at 810 East Skagway Avenue, just around the corner from the I-275 Busch Boulevard exit in Tampa, seems like the fulfillment of a vision. With a huge courtyard featuring socially distant tables and an acoustic stage as well as an indoor concert room that will hold approximately 300 patrons once the COVID madness is over, the new New World Brewery is, really, a playground for those who love great beer, great food and local live music.

New World’s rebirth wasn’t without its problems. It took Bird and his crew more than two years to find the location and get it into shape. According to Bird, the venue was originally the Matterhorn, a German-themed beer hall; over the years, it’s been known under a few other names, like The Supa D’s Tropical Bar N Grill, which made the papers fairly frequently for parking-lot violence. But now he’s got ample free parking (always a problem in Ybor City), and plenty of room to introduce crowds to the best that local live music has to offer.

The venue is already hosting local shows, in conformance with CDC guidelines, but these months have been tough for local concert halls, which were only recently allowed to open at drastically reduced occupancies.

“We were able to open February 12 and that was, like, we had to get some revenue coming in,” Bird says.

They weren’t doing live music at that time, and when the state shut down the bars again a month or so later, the New World turned to takeout food and drink. When they were finally able to reopen to social events, they staged outdoor acoustic acts and adhered strictly to the guidelines.

“We do free music on Saturdays, and socially distance, and so forth,” says General Manager Clay Parkinson. “Sit down and stay seated, mask up again when you get up.”

The venue has moved a few shows inside the new indoor concert hall during inclement weather; it recently hosted a show by local band Tribal Style that sold out, and has a few big events scheduled in the coming months, like an October 21 Breast Cancer Awareness event co-sponsored by favored craft beer brand Delirium Tremens and a pumpkin carving on October 24 hosted by Tampa Bay Brewing Company. But they’re taking baby steps, and taking care of their customers, and just looking forward to a time when they can fill their rooms and their beer gardens again with loyal locals.

“You know, you could hear it from the office when that conversation starting boiling up,” says Bird of the Ybor days. “It’s like no one wants to leave, and you can’t really do that [right now] when everyone is standing six feet apart.”