Best Burgers in Tampa: Ybor City to SoHo

The best burgers in Tampa sit in a handful of districts: Seminole Heights and Tampa Heights for independent kitchens, SoHo (South Howard Avenue) and Hyde Park for bar burgers, and Ybor City for late-night food in the old cigar quarter. The Heights Public Market, inside the restored Armature Works building, gathers food counters under one roof beside the Riverwalk.

Tampa has no burger style of its own, but its sandwiches set the bar high. The Tampa Cuban adds Genoa salami to ham, roast pork, Swiss cheese, pickles and mustard, a legacy of the Italian immigrants who worked alongside Cuban and Spanish families in Ybor City’s cigar factories. Along the Gulf Coast, the grouper sandwich is the other local order. A burger here has to hold its own against both.

Burgers in Tampa: key facts

• Neighborhoods to explore: Ybor City, Seminole Heights, Tampa Heights, SoHo, Hyde Park Village, the Channel District and Water Street downtown.
• Food hall: the Heights Public Market at Armature Works, a 1910 streetcar warehouse in Tampa Heights.
• Local sandwiches to know: the Tampa Cuban, with Genoa salami, and the Gulf grouper sandwich.
• Getting around: the TECO Line Streetcar links Ybor City, the Channel District and downtown; the Riverwalk connects downtown with Tampa Heights on foot.
• Money: prices are in US dollars (USD), before Florida sales tax and tip.
• What our guides check: the beef, the bun and whether the venue is still trading on the date we publish.

Every guide we publish on Tampa is dated and lists only venues, addresses, prices and ratings we could verify. For other cities, browse all our burger restaurant guides.