Strip Center 1500 Block of South Dale Mabry Highway

Strip Center, 1500 Block of South Dale Mabry

Strip mall, 1513 to 1517 South Dale Mabry Highway. 1958. Burgert Brothers. Courtesy of the Hillsborough County Library

Strip mall, 1515 South Dale Mabry Highway. 2021. © Chip Weiner

Vogue Opticians, Yates Jewelry, Associates Loan Company, Punch and Judy Children’s Shoppe, and Linda Flowers florists made up this strip center in the 1500 block of S. Dale Mabry Highway in 1958. Yates Jewelry Store, a family business, opened at this location in 1956 after moving from their store on Henderson Boulevard. According to their website, they started as a small watchmaker and have outgrown five locations in the last 70 years. They remain in business today across Dale Mabry from this location. The Punch and Judy Shoppe, named after puppet show characters starting in the 1930s, went out of business in 1958.

The new tenants in this building have businesses unheard of in the 1950s when the original photo was taken. While the insurance and tailoring businesses were commonplace, a Kava lounge selling Kratom and CBD and Tampa Vapor—a store selling E-Cigarettes—weren’t even concepts in the mid-20th century.