Women’s History Month may be more than halfway over, but Tampa’s restaurant world is still giving us a very solid reason to keep the spotlight exactly where it belongs: on the women helping run the show behind some of the city’s buzziest dining and nightlife concepts. Three Oaks Hospitality, the group behind places like Steelbach, M.Bird, Ciro’s, Jekyll, ro, Sesame, Lower Deck, The Fold, and 1983, has spent March highlighting women in leadership across the company, which feels both timely and refreshingly substantive.
That matters because Three Oaks isn’t some tiny hospitality experiment with one dining room and a dream. This is a major Tampa group with concepts spread across Armature Works, Hyde Park Village, South Tampa, and Harbour Island, shaping where people in this city celebrate birthdays, grab rooftop cocktails, split appetizers they absolutely didn’t intend to share evenly, and pretend they are “just stopping by for one.” The company describes itself as a collection of community-driven restaurants and bars, and that framing actually tracks when you look at how many corners of Tampa it touches.
One of the women featured this month is Sandy DeBenedetto, whom Three Oaks identifies as Chef de Tournant for its concepts at Armature Works. On the company’s Women’s History Month page, she says she has been with Three Oaks for seven years and has held a variety of leadership roles, adding that one of her favorite parts of the job is the diversity of the concepts and the chance to keep learning new skills. She also says the company encourages creativity and fosters “a culinary culture of comradery,” which is a lovely sentiment and also a minor miracle in an industry not always known for serenity.
Chef Sandy DeBenedetto at Steelbach Chophouse in Armature Works.
And Sandy is hardly the only standout in the lineup. The same Three Oaks feature spotlights M.Bird executive chef Elissa Nazon, Ciro’s managing partner Leah Potter, M.Bird bar manager Jessica Lum, and MetroLagoons director of food and beverage Lindsey Hobbs, alongside advice about resilience, growth, mentorship, and knowing your worth. Taken together, the page paints a picture of a company that, at minimum, understands that leadership in hospitality doesn’t just happen in the dining room under flattering lighting. A lot of it is built in kitchens, bars, management offices, and behind the scenes, where the real work lives.
There’s also something strategically smart about making that visible. In a city obsessed with restaurant openings, cocktail menus, and where to spend a Friday night, it’s easy to focus only on the finished product. But the people shaping the culture inside those places matter too. Three Oaks’ Women’s History Month spotlight is a reminder that some of Tampa’s most recognizable hospitality brands are being helped forward by women doing serious work across the group. That’s worth recognizing in March, and frankly, well beyond it.