LARGO \u2014 The Texas-based burger chain Whataburger will return to the Tampa Bay area in February, opening a restaurant at 10150 Ulmerton Road near Largo Mall, company officials announced Nov. 5.<\/p>\n
A franchisee operated a Whataburger on Ulmerton Road roughly 20 years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an incredibly exciting moment for us to be in Largo,\u201d said Peggy Rubenzer, Whataburger\u2019s chief people officer, during a ceremony at the orange-and-white restaurant.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an honor to begin our connection with the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
The company plans to open eight locations in the region by the end of 2027, including restaurants in Bradenton and Lutz. Each location will bring 50 to 100 jobs to the area, Rubenzer said.<\/p>\n
Largo Mayor Woody Brown welcomed the addition to the city\u2019s growing business landscape.<\/p>\n
\u201cLargo is known as a great place to live, work, play and to own a business,\u201d Brown said. \u201cOn behalf of the commission and residents, we are thrilled to welcome Whataburger back to the Tampa Bay and to Largo. Welcome to the neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Company officials have been touring the area with a Whataburger food truck, delivering meals to 150 Hillsborough County elementary school students and donating $10,000 to Feeding Tampa Bay\u2019s school pantry program.<\/p>\n
The Largo Mall area has attracted several restaurant chains recently with Chick-fil-A relocating and Raising Cane\u2019s announced plans for a new location.<\/p>\n
Founded in San Antonio, Whataburger operates more than 1,100 franchises in 17 states and serves made-to-order hamburgers 24 hours a day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LARGO \u2014 The Texas-based burger chain Whataburger will return to the Tampa Bay area in February, opening a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2758,4085,596,687,202,204,203,199,201,200,22802],"class_list":{"0":"post-45120","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-fast-food","9":"tag-largo","10":"tag-pinellas-county","11":"tag-restaurants","12":"tag-st-pete","13":"tag-st-pete-headlines","14":"tag-st-pete-news","15":"tag-st-petersburg","16":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","17":"tag-st-petersburg-news","18":"tag-whataburger"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45120","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=45120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}