What Are You Going to Do..

When Great Food and Fun Runs Wild on You?

Hogan’s Beach

Most everyone knows of Hulk Hogan the wrestling figure, sometimes movie actor and generally an entertaining character. What you may not know is that he has gotten into the restaurant game.

Hogan’s Beach Tampa sounded a little cheesy to me, but my sister said it was good so I thought I’d give the place a try. The service was great, the location is ideal and best of all – the food is outstanding! It is officially on my list of places to eat in Clearwater.

The restaurant sits on the water and has a little beach area out back. It has a lot of outdoor dock space and you can ride your boat or jet-ski up to their dock. Walk along the docks, sit poolside, rent jet skis or just sit and look out over the water. It is a wonderful location with much to offer aside from the menu.

When you walk in the front door, you enter a virtual museum of Hulk’s career – pictures, paraphernalia, articles, belts and video monitors re-playing historic battles. At the end of this ‘hall of hulk history’ is the restaurant itself. There is a huge fish tank with a fantastic assortment of fish that the hostess immediately took the girls over to see. She seated us right by it so they could check it out during the meal. Perfect!

Meanwhile, the food is delicious. The Chef came out and spoke with us at the end of the meal which I think is such a great thing to do. He is Chef Robert Uzzillia, one of Restaurant Forum’s “Annual Top Chefs.” The boast “Fresh-local and flight-fresh seafood” it sure tasted that way! I had blackened fish tacos and the seasoning was outstanding. The fish tasted wonderful with just the right amount of spice without taking over the dish.

We enjoyed it so much that we went back just a few weeks later. The hostess remembered us (a plus in my book) and seated us again at the table by the tank. The girls also enjoyed getting to walk outside and look for dolphins out in the water, while observing herons, gulls and other local sea birds.