The bottom floor of Ybor City’s historic Kress Contemporary building started as a five and dime store over a century ago. Up until the early 2020s, a section of the ground floor housed a U.S. Customs and Border Protection office. And now, the space has been transformed into a new restaurant.
Tommy’s Chophouse, an independent steakhouse that has reimagined the landmark space, officially opened its doors July 31.
Owner and operator Kenneth Emery and his restaurant group, Foodi, run Ocean Ink Raw Bar in Ybor and had a hand in the recently shuttered Barterhouse a few blocks away.
The group got its start by opening Burwell’s Stone Fire Grill in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2012, which also occupies a historically unique space: a late-19th century Charleston single house married with a 1950s-era block building. Emery remembers handing out business cards on the busier end of Market Street when they opened to get patrons in the door to his fledgling restaurant.
In the Ybor restaurant’s opening weeks, Emery stepped behind the line to work the grill during dinner service. We caught up with him to get some details about the new spot.
It took about three years to get Tommy’s up to operating code, from inception to opening. The steakhouse is cooking with induction burners and an electric broiler — no gas, no flame — with a hood vent that cost around $400,000 to cover with fire wrap.
Also on tap: A large vault in the building has been converted into a private dining room, with a discreet entrance and exit through the kitchen. Emery is partnering with local seafood purveyors like Versaggi Shrimp, an over 100-year-old Tampa-based shrimper, and Calusa Oyster Company. Meat is being sourced from Idaho’s Snake River Farms for domestic Wagyu and prime beef.
The bar program is directed by local sommelier John Isom, the former general manager at Ichicoro in Seminole Heights. Will Chastain, formerly a line cook at Ash, is the executive chef.
Tommy’s offers beef cuts like nine-ounce Wagyu picanha and hanger steak, alongside 14-ounce New York strip and 16-ounce prime ribeye. Dishes like Florida Red Snapper, Lasagna Rotolo with bolognese and Red’s Farm Chicken, sourced from the eponymously named family-owned farm in Riverview dot the main courses.
Chef Chastain and the team use a plancha (metal iron) to cook the wagyu, which reaches around 750 degrees. They render the fat while cooking the meat on the plancha so it can sit in it and soak it up.
Emery is no stranger to the vagaries of the restaurant business. He opened his first spot, Market Cafe, in Hillsborough County in the mid-1990s. It was a fast food rotisserie chicken place that was forced to rethink its business model after Publix opened across the street, offering similar chicken for a cheaper price.
With Tommy’s, he’s aiming for approachability. The atmosphere is casual, with no dress code or white tablecloths.
The restaurant is named for the late Thomas Lamb, a close friend of Emery’s and a Tampa-based architect and designer. The friends never found a chance to collaborate, so Emery built Tommy’s in Lamb’s honor.
Emery and his group are one of several actors in Ybor City’s current redevelopment.
Among them: Daryl Shaw, who owns lots of buildings in Ybor and is spearheading the forthcoming Gasworx development; Joshua Pardue, a local commercial real estate developer who just purchased and revamped The Bricks; Maryann Ferenc and chef Marty Blitz of seminal fine dining institution Mise en Place, who just moved their restaurant to Ybor; Orlando-based restaurateurs Jimmy and Johnny Tung, opening rooftop bar Tokyo Swim Club this fall; and chefs and partners Victor Lopez and Osyamil Milian of the just-opened D’Rose Gastrobar on Seventh Avenue.
After decades of decline from a disappearing cigar industry and urban flight, Ybor City had a slow-starting resurgence in the 1980s.
An influx of artists were attracted to the area’s cheap rent, romantic history and night life. That combined with the extant predominantly-Black demographic of Ybor at the time helped shape the Seventh Avenue we see today, with both groups supporting a wealth of nighttime entertainment and bars.
Seventh Avenue “is the most historic street ever,” Emery said, and he would like to see more diversity in the types of businesses that populate the street as Ybor’s redevelopment continues.
1622 E. Seventh Ave., Tampa. @tommyschophouse.com.
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