Home - Apollo Beach Homes - Tampa Bay Guide

---

Apollo Beach is a sleepy, older community—but one that’s wiping the sleep from its eyes and waking up. Situated directly on Tampa Bay, Apollo Beach itself is best known for its views of the towering Tampa Electric smokestacks and its 55-miles of navigable canals lined with stately, extravagant homes and lush, tropical landscaping. Apollo Beach residents have excellent access to Tampa Bay and to the Gulf of Mexico. The term “beach” may be a misnomer though, as the shoreline is mostly rocky dredge from years’ of construction projects. However, much habitat reclamation and restoration is now underway so residents and visitors alike may enjoy the unique fishing, shoaling and shark-tooth and fossil-hunting offered in the area.

Named for the Greek god Apollo who brought warm and sunshine to his subjects each day, Apollo Beach got its start in the 1920s when Paul Dickman decided to design a new community halfway between Tampa and Bradenton. Designs were drawn. Plans were made. But nothing happened until the 1950s, when the slow, tedious construction finally began and, then, due to the nature of the rough, low, rural land, quickly stopped. The then-new community was named “Tampa Beach” in hopes of stealing some of the allure and limelight from its bigger and more well-known neighbor to the north. In 1957, Dickman sold all 5,500 acres of his land; and then major construction began in earnest. The Tampa Bay shoreline was dredged and filled to create sea-walled residential sites, many of which remain standing today.

Apollo Beach Schools

Children in Apollo Beach attend Apollo Beach Elementary, an “A” school, Doby Elementary, Eisenhower Middle and East Bay High schools. East Bay High is considered a career academy; it offers small learning communities that focus on college preparation along with a career theme, preparing students for both employment and college. East Bay currently allows students to study in the Academy of Fine Arts, Academy of Natural Resources, a Professional Services Academy or a School of Communications Technology.

Shopping and Dining in Apollo Beach

U.S. 41, being the main thoroughfare, is also the primary business district serving Apollo Beach. While plenty of suburban-style strip malls and franchises share the road with local fruit and vegetable stands, most people find that they must go elsewhere, to Brandon, Riverview or Tampa, for more expansive dining and shopping options. A new Applebee’s and McDonald’s opened in Apollo Beach in 2007. Local treats include Circles Waterfront Restaurant on Apollo Beach Boulevard, with its rich wooden floors and waterfront bar, as well as the Yanagi Sushi Japanese Restaurant on U.S. 41 N, which serves a wide variety of seafood, both American and sushi-style. East Coast Pizza, just east of I-75 in a small shopping plaza in off Big Bend Road, is rumored to serve up the best-tasting pizza in the entire Tampa Bay area. A 20-minute drive north or south provides shoppers and diners with many more choices.

Leisure and Play in Apollo Beach

What Apollo Beach lacks in dining and shopping, it makes up in opportunities for leisure and fun. Being a community built on the water, Apollo Beach is a haven for lovers of boats, fishing and sunshine. The most popular destination is the public beach – the Apollo Beach Nature Park and Preserve. Visitors enjoy strolls along the rocky shores, fishing and hunting for fossils and sharks-teeth, picnicking, sunbathing and sunset-watching.
Also nearby is the popular Manatee Viewing Center, built by Tampa Electric at its Big Bend Station. More than one million visitors have passed through the Center to see the elusive and endangered manatee: when the water temperature of Tampa Bay dips below 68 degrees, usually in November, the manatees make their appearance and stay through April, when the water warms up again. With free parking and free admission, a visitor’s center and nature walk, the Manatee Viewing Center is a popular tourist destination.
Lesser known but just as enjoyable is the Manatee Arts Festival, a two-day long juried fine arts and crafts show that draws national and international artisans and arts-lovers from everywhere. The festival is held in March of each year. Apollo Beach is also home to the Apollo Beach Golf Club, “the only Robert Trent Jones Sr. signature golf course on Florida’s west coast,” according to the Club’s Web home. This popular local course offers water features on every hole, and is the first course in Florida to use paspalum grass, a special grass variety that thrives in saltwater Plans are also underway to provide public access, parking, information kiosks and hiking opportunities at several Apollo Beach nature habitats, including Bullfrog Creek Scrub, Wolf Branch and Noonan Branch.