Tampa Bay Food Fight
The Tampa Bay Food Fight is an annual food festival and friendly battle between professional chefs in Tampa and St. Petersburg. It’s a fundraiser for one of our favorite charitable organizations, Metropolitan Ministries. The 2025 Food Fight was at the right time and the right place: during our month-long stay in Tampa, at Amalie Arena just a few blocks from our apartment. We invited our friends (and Water Street neighbors) Eli and Marcos to join us.
We entered the arena through a special door to the Ashley VIP Lounge, feeling important and excited. There was an impressive spread of gourmet treats and an open bar, and we gleefully helped ourselves to one of everything. With wine glasses and plates in hand, we walked out into the arena and onto the (covered) ice. At one end was a stage with cooking equipment for the two teams, fronted by a judges’ table. At the other end were tables where forty competing restaurants were serving their mini-dishes and cocktails. In the center were a silent auction and long couches for spectators. The four of us claimed a high top table by the stage and got to work tasting our booty. It was fun to watch the competition on stage, and to take turns browsing the tables and deciding what to try next. We cheered mightily for Team Tampa, but Team St. Pete took home the trophy cleaver this year.
The best thing about the Food Fight is that it raised $225,000 for Metropolitan Ministries, which feeds and shelters thousands of families in need across the Tampa Bay region. MetroMin’s famous Culinary Arts Program is just one of many job training programs that help people to build skills and become self-sufficient.
