{"id":153100,"date":"2026-02-12T15:42:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T15:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/153100\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T15:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T15:42:14","slug":"whataburger-opens-first-tampa-bay-area-location-in-15-years-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/153100\/","title":{"rendered":"Whataburger opens first Tampa Bay-area location in 15 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/articles\/whataburger-open-first-tampa-bay-194627689.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:Whataburger;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Whataburger<\/a> is making its grand return to the Tampa Bay area after more than 15 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The fan-favorite Texas burger joint opens its new location on Thursday, Feb. 12, at 10150 Ulmerton Road in Largo.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The grand opening, set for 11 a.m., will feature fan-focused activities and giveaways. The first 100 people in line on Feb. 12 will get a Whatamerch swag bag filled with exclusive merch items.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">But if you don&#8217;t get to the new Whataburger on opening day, don&#8217;t worry \u2014 the celebration continues all month long. The restaurant is offering a free kids&#8217; meal with the purchase of any Whatameal from Feb. 12 to March 12.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">While this technically isn&#8217;t the first Tampa Bay-area Whataburger ever, it is the first one to open since the chain closed all its restaurants in the area back in 2009, the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tampabay.com\/archive\/2009\/05\/22\/whataburger-s-central-florida-stores-to-close\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:\u00a0Tampa Bay Times reported.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">\u00a0Tampa Bay Times reported.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Largo location is just the first of eight Whataburgers set to open in the Tampa Bay area by the end of 2027. Two more locations are set to open in Spring 2026:<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">W. Brandon Boulevard and N. Hilltop Road in Brandon<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">State Road 54 and Sierra Center Boulevard in Lutz<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cWhen we brought the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wtsp.com\/article\/life\/food\/whataburger-coming-tampa-2026\/67-b15aeaa1-2bb0-4ee6-9d6e-caf54687d95b\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Whataburger Food Truck to Tampa;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Whataburger Food Truck to Tampa<\/a> in 2024, the Florida heat showed up, but the energy showed up even bigger,\u201d Whataburger CEO Debbie Stroud said in a statement. &#8220;We\u2019re bringing hot, made fresh to order food, a team rooted in hospitality, and plenty of orange and white pride, care and love. Largo, we\u2019re excited to call this place our newest hometown.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The new Largo Whataburger will be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Whataburger currently has 48 locations across Florida.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whataburger is making its grand return to the Tampa Bay area after more than 15 years. The fan-favorite&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,9019,137,136,22802],"class_list":{"0":"post-153100","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-tampa","9":"tag-tampa-bay-area","10":"tag-tampa-headlines","11":"tag-tampa-news","12":"tag-whataburger"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153100","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=153100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}