Gasparilla Distillery

Lei Chaurelle7 months ago

7 months ago

“Welcome,<br>Florida's Original Pirate Rum<br>The Gasparilla Distillery &amp; Cocktail Bar, located in Ybor City is known to be there oldest rum distillery in Tampa Florida.<br>The Locals say the ghost of Jose Gaspar and his marauding pirate crew can still be felt within the ancient walls of the distillery.”☠️👻

Bob Beste8 months ago

8 months ago

This place is a must see when in Ybor City. Michaela & Melvin made the whole experience and visit worthwhile. The fact that the rum's that they make tasted wonderful was more like icing on the cake. The place was decorated in a pirate theme and Halloween which gave it an extra oompf. The explanation of the rum making process and seeing the barrel / fermentation room was great. I rated the food high although they do not serve food due to when asked Michaela recommended Barrios and explained how to order it to get it there. I just can't say enough about the people and place.

kyyuhl11 months ago

11 months ago

BEWARE TO THOSE LOOKING TO PARK: The parking lot on the backside of Gasparilla is a paid parking lot that will tow you regardless of if you paid to park your vehicle or not. I parked at 'Gaspar Rum Lot' and paid Evolution Parking Systems $10.45 @ 7:25pm on 8/16/2025 via the ParkMobile app for time until the lot closed at 10:00pm. Walked around downtown Ybor for 1.5 hours, I got back to the lot @ 8:57pm with over 1 hour left on my timer to see my vehicle was gone. I called every number posted on the 'TOW AWAY ZONE' signs and the parking company signs and they all rang forever or went straight to voicemail. Finally spotted a tiny QR code posted on one of the signs that takes you to a link to enter your plate # and find where it was taken to. I waited for Tampa Police to show up because I presumed it was a stolen vehicle. They run some searches and find that my vehicle was impounded but didn't show up in their system for over an hour after it was initially towed. The officers took me and another couple who had their vehicle towed away at the exact same time also to the private impound lot. Got to the lot which belongs to Target Towing and Recovery. I showed them all of my receipts and they said they do not honor those payments and that they were dispatched by the property owner independently. They ended up making me pay $178.00 to release the vehicle and would only take cash/debit. They would not take credit so you can't dispute the charges. Get back to my vehicle and notice they also slapped a $45.00 parking ticket on top of all the rest with the citation being "IMPROPER PARKING, NO COMMENT" which was left at 7:50pm. The vehicle then appeared in TARGET R/T's impound system at 8:36pm. A lot of shady stuff going on between all parties involved here. I was parked in a valid spot in front of a wheel stop inside of a stall. Its very hard to see any markings on the lot in general as all the paint is very faint. The signage on this lot is also very sparse and what is there is sloppy and can be hard to understand for some folks. I can only presume they 'targeted' my vehicle because it is a Mercedes van with commercial out-of-state plates and they knew I or my company would absolutely come back and pay the release fee regardless. So it was a quick and easy money maker for them. I'm not sure how any of what they did is legal whatsoever, I'm sure much of it isn't. For one, if you operate an after hours towing service/parking lot you are required to have an after hours phone operator/hotline. All in all, parking at this lot costed me $239.80, getting a ride in the back of a police cruiser and not getting home until nearly 2am. This has no correlation to the Gasparilla restaurant itself, the staff in there were friendly and helpful in trying to figure things out with me. However, if this lot is named 'Gaspar Rum Lot' and is associated with the restaurant, potential patrons need to beware of this same fiasco happening to them.