{"id":145399,"date":"2026-02-05T23:35:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T23:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/145399\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T23:35:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T23:35:19","slug":"overwhelmed-with-orders-tampas-pirate-fashions-may-not-close-after-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/145399\/","title":{"rendered":"Overwhelmed with orders, Tampa\u2019s Pirate Fashions may not close after all"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It\u2019s been a whirlwind 24 hours for Captain Tiger Lee.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">On Wednesday, the owner of Pirate Fashions announced in a mournful (yet nautical-themed) email to customers that<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tampabay.com\/life-culture\/entertainment\/shopping\/2026\/02\/04\/pirate-fashions-closing-tampa-gasparilla-sale-clothes-florida\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:his costume shop of 16 years would close;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">his costume shop of 16 years would close<\/a> for good at the end of the month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">For the first time ever, Lee would host a \u201cGrand Plundering\u201d sale online and in person <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tampabay.com\/life-culture\/2022\/01\/18\/looking-for-a-gasparilla-outfit-step-inside-pirate-fashions-tampas-premiere-buccaneer-boutique\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:at 4006 W Cayuga St;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">at 4006 W Cayuga St<\/a>. Up for grabs: BOGO outfits perfect for Gasparilla, an auction for larger items like the 18-foot pirate ship, and even the business itself.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Now it seems like the tides may have turned in Lee\u2019s favor. Or as he put it in an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/PirateFashions\/posts\/pfbid0LjUDRwTvRxgK4X5FwBqsz5KHs6Zv4qH6o1NLykKYmmCgTrtGRk5idoejU5hZSkY9l\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:announcement a day later;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">announcement a day later<\/a>: \u201cThe ship is saved, the cannons arrr loaded, n\u2019 we be ready fer many more years of plunder!\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It turns out that the tariffs that Lee worried may destroy his business model were not as high as he previously believed. And so many shoppers took advantage of the online sale that Lee is closing the store to the public this weekend just to catch up.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cWe\u2019ve just done Gasparilla and that took a lot of our stock and yesterday\u2019s huge deluge of orders has really shrunken our inventory,\u201d he said, noting that the \u201cGrand Plundering\u201d sale has ended and in-person shopping will resume on Feb. 13. \u201cWe\u2019re in no condition to be opening.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Lee still plans to move soon to the Azores islands, where he purchased a nine-room villa to turn into a retirement co-living community. If he doesn\u2019t sell the business by the end of February, Pirate Fashions may cease to exist.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">But for now, he has hope.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cI\u2019m in negotiations with some people who are interested in taking it over, which I\u2019m not at liberty to talk about,\u201d he said Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Lee is still taking offers at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tampabay.com\/arc\/outboundfeeds\/tbtrss\/excludes\/mailto:tiger@piratefashions.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:tiger@piratefashions.com;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">tiger@piratefashions.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cIf someone has a dream, they should contact me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been a whirlwind 24 hours for Captain Tiger Lee. On Wednesday, the owner of Pirate Fashions announced&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[70379,67085,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-145399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-captain-tiger-lee","tag-pirate-fashions","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}