It's Not There Anymore

I can recall the first time I ever went to Clearwater Beach. It was way back in the late 80s when my mother was still driving her cool white Mercury Cougar. We drove all the way from the orange groves of Valrico (a once lovely suburb of Tampa) on what was known as Highway 60 across the Courtney Campbell Causeway bridge straight through to the beach. Then we'd get a table at the closest hotel with a deck for beach viewing, and listen to the steel drums clanging in splendid calypso music as the sun would set, a gorgeous pink cotton candy sky before us. Those were happy times.

Sometimes we'd stop at the t-shirt shop that used to have pastel pink and blue paint on the outside walls and a million signs advertising "Three T's for Five Bucks". It was there for over a decade, right across the street from the still standing there Budget Motel. The T-shirt shoppe is not there anymore.

I moved to Clearwater in 2010, and since then I've gotten to know the area a lot more than I did in the late 80s or early 90s. The past decade I have seen some really great ideas and businesses come and go. It's somewhat sad.

I'd like to take this article to comprise a list of bygone businesses that I either had the pleasure of enjoying briefly or that I noticed and never even got to try. Way back then in the late 80s/early 90s there was a place called The TexMex Cantina. It was on the way over on that ride from Tampa to the beach. It was an amazing mexican restaurant. It's not there anymore.

There was a restaurant in the Pinellas Park area right on U.S Hwy 19 called the Texas Cattle Company. My husband and I ate there and we had the most delicious gator bites for the first time and steaks that were so big we couldn't finish them. That restaurant is not there anymore.

On the weekends when we had a little extra cash to blow we used to go to Wagon Wheel Flea Market and look at all the vendors and see what kind of neat stuff we could bring home. The building and the sign are still there, but the Flea Market is not there anymore.

Near Ruth Eckerd Hall, where entertainers have come to visit and please audiences for decades there was a wonderful music store: Sam Ash. The building with all it's great architecture and fancy statues still stands, but the Sam Ash store that once sold violins and guitars is not there anymore.

Off Belcher Road, near the Shell gas station is a little old plaza that has seen more businesses come and go than any other I can recall. The only thing there that seems a safe bet is The Copper Mug pub. I really thought that the French Bistro had a strong chance to make it there. Nothing else like that around, but it's not there anymore.

I don't know how long they lasted, but I did get to see and try a place that I thought was a brilliant idea - Fair Food. It was so cool because we could drive through and get a sausage and peppers hoagie off the grill plus cotton candy, pretzels, and sugar coated elephant ears. We didn't have to pay to go to the overcrowded and noisy Fair, but now it's not there anymore.

A restaurant that seemed to have picked a practical location on Gulf to Bay in between the Clearwater Inn and the Days Inn was opened and called "Egg Beaters". We ate there one time and the next month I noticed it's not there anymore.

I'm sure there are a lot of Tampa Bay and Clearwater residents who can makes lists like this longer than mine as they probably have seen and remember more of these types of incidents. I try to pay attention, but most of the time I'm too poor to pay attention. I stay home more than I go out. But the more we stay home, the more these great places disappear. And it makes me wonder if that continues as a trend, will there be anything to go out for at all? Or will it all just be not there anymore?