Seminole Heights’ late, great Ella’s Americana Folk Art Cafe. Credit: Ella’s Americana Folk Art Cafe/Facebook
Tampa Bay has seen closures of many of its homegrown restaurants, but chef Eric Hipol is keeping their famous dishes alive.
In the early 2010s, Hipol was in the Tampa food scene during its salad days—Datz, Ichicoro Ramen—the start of something big, he said.
“Just seeing that Seminole Heights area, especially, just explode the way that it did… it was amazing,” Hipol told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. “But a lot of those places, they’re shutting down.”
Chef Eric Hipol Credit: Eric Hipol
Now based in North Carolina, where he works with a corporate dining company, Hipol is paying homage to the city that took him in by recording and sharing recipes from local restaurants that have closed or have rotated items off their menus.
Hipol’s Recipe Preservation Project is relatively new, officially starting on Sept. 28— unofficially, the day King of the Coop closed its Seminole Heights location.
He got the idea from a comment in a Reddit thread of a post about the beloved chicken spot’s closure.
“I still think back to going to their original location during the pandemic, sitting in the car eating a huge chicken sandwich until I was stuffed with tears running down my face because it was so spicy but I couldn’t put it down because it was too delicious,” a user commented. “Never had quite the same experience at the other locations.”
“My ears kind of perked up,” Hipol recalled. He realized that he had some of the restaurant’s original recipes from former employees.
“I just put it out there saying, ‘Hey, if you want the original recipes, send me a chat and I’ll get those out to you,’” he said. “Next thing you know, a floodgate opened.”
As a new Tampa chef, the now 36-year-old Hipol wrote everything down—mostly so he wouldn’t forget important recipes but also to record what he had learned from speaking with local chefs who were willing to share.
“All those recipes, all those flavors and such are disappearing with these restaurants. I just needed to get it out there,” Hipol said.
So far, Hipol has recovered, tested—both by him and friends without culinary backgrounds—and shared over 20 recipes paired with a mini column on Reddit.
He prefers this format over algorithm-dependent content like video, not only because he loves to write but, to him, it’s a better form of record keeping.
“I’m juggling this with a full-time job,” he said. “It’s growing, which is interesting, but I’m not capable of doing the filming, photography, and making sure the lighting is consistent throughout the day, while also trying to execute the dishes.”
Among the project’s most popular recipes is King of the Coop’s Hot Chicken and Ella’s Americana Folk Art Café’s “Henry the Loaf”—a recipe he acquired when he worked there while attending culinary school.
“I want to keep on having just a connection with people, with their memories about these recipes, these places that they’ve dined at, Hipol said. “Part of our kind of local culture and history.”
Hipol also wants to inspire creativity around cooking, similar to what he witnessed working as a young chef while the Tampa Bay food scene was starting to make a name for itself.
“I think that if you just keep on showing all of these ideas and everything to people, then it’s going to help grow the community,” he said. “Help create a kind of fun little competition amongst people to be able to keep on advancing and keep on exploring more flavors.”
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This article appears in Oct. 23 – 29, 2025.
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