Write Around Tampa

Blooming Floral Cafe

4408 N Florida Ave

Tampa

Full disclosure: I quickly melted down upon arrival. Not only did I forget both my computer and workbag, leaving at home, the moment I opened the door to the place I found it completely packed. Not one seat empty. There’s a nice outdoor area, but considering I conducted this visit at the beginning of August, I was—like their coffee beans—roasting (there’s a reason this column went on hiatus for the summer). Of course every seat outside was open, so I sat for a moment, debating. I was here, so foul mood aside, I owed it to myself to write about my experience. Not long after making this decision, an indoor seat opened up, so I took a deep breath and ventured inside.

Quality and pricing of food and drink:

Expensive. A dulce leche tea with a shot of vanilla, bottle of water and thin twisty pastry cost me $13. The good news: it was the most delicious cup of tea I ever had in my life. Needed no added sweetener. The pastry was buttery and flaky and also just the right amount of sweetness.

Are there enough outlets?

Not one I could see, and of the six or so laptops I saw none was plugged in. Come fully charged.

How’s the wifi?

Password protected.

Will my muse come out?

Here’s the thing: the place is absolutely gorgeous. Breathtaking. So you’ll want to sit a while and soak it all in. But I had a few issues. The lack of seating is one and one of the owners was at a table doing work on her laptop, taking up precious patron space. There’s a back-breaking stool and stool-acting-as-table lily pad looking setup in the middle of the room that no one other than Kermit the Frog would be able to sit at for longer than ten minutes. Of course that was the table that opened up. The music: 90’s emo-girl whining in the form of bands like Mazzy Star and LeTigre, which I suppose is fine if your goal is to be the next Sylvia Plath or Angela Chase. Seriously, I felt like I was at the Lilith Fair waiting for The Indigo Girls and Cowboy Junkies to take the stage.

How long can I park it?

Until three pm when they close, but unless you brought a book and a pillow to sit on in the corner, good luck with that. I suppose the early bird gets the table, of which there seemed to be three or four. My wish for them is that they open a second, bigger location because they really have the right idea about this coffee shop thing, but can’t accommodate their sit-in writing clientele.

Final rating: 5 out of 5 hopeful future expansion laptops, but only 2 for the current set-up

Rachel Remick’s fiction and non-fiction stories have appeared in various magazines, among them Rosebud, Bluestem and ellipsis . . . literature and art. A frequent contributor to women’s magazine Sasee, her writing has also been published in several volumes of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series of books. She lives in Tampa, Florida.