August First Friday Recap

The ladies behind the amaz­ingly suc­cessful August First Friday at Albany Square

Well, hello again! After taking off for the month of July, Clayton Gray Home came back with an absolutely incred­ible August First Friday. We had sev­eral of our Albany Square neigh­bors join in this month as well as the His­toric Hyde Park Neigh­bor­hood Asso­ci­a­tion and it was fab­u­lous! We had our biggest crowd yet! Buddy Brew Coffee joined in, cel­e­brating their grand re-​​opening after their expan­sion with an open mic night. Show­casing the musical tal­ents of the Tampa locals, it was standing room only for the gastro-​​caffeinated clien­tele of Buddy Brew. If you missed the open mic night, you really need to keep an ear open for the next show­case, Tampa is full of crazy tal­ented people. Malindy Elene Bridal and SOHO Cycling Studio also joined in the street party. Yad­hira Mal­donado from SOHO Cycling Studio and our own Wendy Garraty greeted rev­elers at the door of Clayton Gray Home and even did a little First Friday hop­ping them­selves. Many, many thanks to the Tampa Police Depart­ment for pro­viding traffic con­trol to help all of the won­derful party-​​goers safely cross back and forth to visit the First Friday par­tic­i­pants. Our neigh­bors down the street at Ducky’s pro­vided amazing bar nib­bles for all of our guests. Healthy wraps and kale salad cups were the per­fect accom­pa­ni­ment to our sig­na­ture drink, the Hibiscus Rum Cooler, deliv­ering the per­fect amount of refresh­ments to keep the shop­pers and guests going long past the sched­uled end time for the evening.

First Friday party goers and raffle winners

Our evening spot­light was the His­toric Hyde Park Neigh­bor­hood Asso­ci­a­tion, and many thanks to them for not only arranging for the traffic cops, but also get­ting the word out to the com­mu­nity about First Friday.  It was an amazing turnout and great to meet so many new neigh­bors from the com­mu­nity. We cannot wait for Sep­tember First Friday, so stay tuned as details are revealed on our Facebok page.

If you are a new busi­ness (food, wine, beer, liquor, desserts, pho­tog­raphy, musi­cian, etc) and are inter­ested in par­tic­i­pating our First Friday cel­e­bra­tions, we are always looking for spon­sors. We would love to help you get your name and busi­ness out and in front of the com­mu­nity. In addi­tion, we spot­light local char­i­ties each month and are always looking for new groups to intro­duce to the com­mu­nity. Please con­tact Brandi Jackson at brandijax@​me.​com for more information.

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