It’s been nearly 90 days since opening day for the 2025 Major League Baseball season, and small businesses across downtown St. Petersburg are feeling the void left behind by the Tampa Bay Rays.
After Hurricane Milton left Tropicana Field tattered and topless, the Rays were forced to play elsewhere this season and landed at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, the spring training home of the New York Yankees. Summer usually is a slow time of year for small businesses in Tampa Bay, and now, without the traffic of baseball fans into downtown St. Pete, business owners are bracing for a rough couple of months ahead.
Ferg’s Sports Bar, a longtime hub for gathering Rays fans just across the street from the Trop, already has seen a 60% decline in customers on game days so far, said owner Mark Ferguson.
“We’re cutting back staff, less people working, buying less stuff, so we’ll get through,” he said.
While Ferguson is trying to ensure that his most loyal staff have enough hours to get by, he is pivoting to attract new customers.
“We’re trying to show other sporting events (like) soccer matches,” he said. “We’re trying to put in other things, put a pickleball court out back. So we’re trying to other things, get other people in here. And it’s working.”
Even with the new offerings, Ferguson said that business still is down 30% since the start of the baseball season in late March. While events like soccer games can attract up to 100 patrons, Rays games would bring in 800.
Cage Brewing announced that it would close on Mondays and Tuesdays beginning in June, thanks to a drop-off in traffic without the Rays.
“We know you all will still love visiting us Wednesday through Sunday as we will be open normal hours those five days a week for the next three months,” Cage Brewing wrote in a Facebook post in May. “So, we’re not worried! We are being proactive and trying to be good stewards of the time. … We plan to be back in our full 7 days a week swing come September.”
For Jarrett Sabatini, the owner of Intermezzo and Bar Mezzo on Central Avenue not far from the Trop, it’s not just Rays fans who are missing. It’s the tourists.
“The lack of tourism on the beach has actually probably affected us quite a bit,” said Sabatini. “The Rays moving obviously that’s a big impact … there’d be two or three games every week, most of the time home or … half the time away. So, you know, we’re not getting those regulars every week.”
Pinellas County beaches still are recovering from hurricanes Helene and Milton, which brought a record storm surge and flooding to many of the popular tourism beach towns easily accessible to downtown St. Pete. Some hotels and vacation rentals still are sorting through repairs.
Sabatini said he is hopeful that the Rays will return. City Council approved $38.5 million, including an additional $5 million this month, toward repairing the Trop, which city officials say should be ready to reopen next season. The Rays are under contract to play at the Trop through 2028.
The total cost of the Trop repairs, some of which will be covered by insurance, is still on track to come in around $56 million, city officials said.
In the meantime, Sabatini is doubling down on hospitality to try to attract more locals.
“We can’t rely always on tourism or the Rays,” Sabatini said. “It’s important be part of (the) community, and then those people will show up and they’ll support your business.”
June usually offers a brief boost in traffic each year thanks to St. Petersburg’s Pride Month festivities. Billed as one of the largest Pride events in the Southeast with more than 100,000 attendees, it’s long been a boon for downtown businesses. But since 2023, human rights groups, like the NAACP and the Equality Florida have advised travelers to avoid Florida due to anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.
David Fischer owns three gay bars downtown, including Cocktail and The Wet Spot. He said state politics here has led to fewer LGBTQ+ travelers coming to celebrate.
“You’re going to see a more local crowd come out for Pride, and more people that live in state come out,” Fischer said. “Before we saw quite a bit of international and domestic travel coming into the state for Pride.”
Craft Kafe owner Teddy Skiadiotis said he has seen part of his community vanish after the 2024 hurricane season. Craft Kafe has two locations on Central Avenue — one in downtown and another near Pasadena. The latter hasn’t bounced back.
“Seems like recently, after Memorial Day, the beach has been kind of abandoned,” Skiadiotis said.
Many regular customers moved away from the area following the hurricane, Skiadiotis said. With another hurricane season starting, Skiadiotis said that he can feel trepidation in the air as people are fearful for what’s to come.
To prepare for the next major storm, Skiadiotis said, he is squirreling away funds to support his staff in case the cafe has to close. He is working on getting a loan to buy a generator, although that has not been easy.
“We went through COVID the first round (and) we got funded. The second round … the SBA ran out of money,” said Skiadiotis, “Now it’s like we didn’t even get that first round.”
Despite that, Skiadiotis, like Sabatini, is grateful for the community members that are still coming back.
“The main thing is that we’re hopeful and grateful to our community,” he said. “That gives us the faith to not let any, even the thought of closing ever come.”
