Wright's Gourmet House is coming to Wesley Chapel, bringing its sandwiches and rum cake to a 15,000-square-foot location at State Road 56 and La Juana Road in the Wiregrass Ranch area of Pasco County. For Land O' Lakes and Lutz residents, it will be the first Wright's location outside South Tampa that doesn't require a drive across the bay.
Caspers Company, which owns Wright's, announced the expansion Monday, July 20. The Wesley Chapel store is set to open in summer 2028. A Brandon location at 328 Brandon Town Center Drive will open first, in summer 2027.
It will be the first Wright's in Pasco County.
Both new stores will feature what Caspers Company calls a "hub-style design" carrying Wright's full menu: breakfast items, deli sandwiches, salads, cakes, pastries, and cookies. The Wesley Chapel location will also include an espresso bar, grab-and-go meals, take-and-bake options, wedding and event desserts, expanded catering services, and a gourmet market stocked with Wright's branded products and local favorites.
The market will sell Wright's signature Bucket Bread loaves, candies, cinnamon roll kits to bake at home, salad dressings, and icing by the pint, according to the company's announcement.
A Tampa legacy, new ownership
Wright's Gourmet House opened April 20, 1963, on the corner of South Dale Mabry Highway and West Watrous Avenue in South Tampa. Founders Marjorie and Pete Wright built it into a neighborhood staple. In 1981, Marjorie's grandson Jeff Mount bought the shop from his grandparents and ran it for more than 40 years, growing it from a take-out-only operation with eight employees to a 225-seat restaurant with a staff of 60 by the time he sold.
Mount sold Wright's to Caspers Company in 2024 after considering retirement, according to the Wright's Gourmet House website. Blake Casper and Allison Casper Adams lead Caspers Company, a third-generation Tampa family business whose grandfather Fritz Casper opened the first McDonald's in Tampa on South Dale Mabry in 1958. The company's portfolio includes Oxford Exchange, The Current Hotel, and several other hospitality brands.
Wright's is known for its Bucket Bread, a round loaf baked in a large, round pan and used on nearly all its sandwiches, including signatures like the Golden Gate and the Beef Martini. The shop's rum cake traces back to a regular customer who handed Marjorie Wright her recipe, saying, "From now on, if anyone wants my rum cake, they'll need to come buy it from you."
What's next
No building permits or Pasco County zoning approvals for the SR-56 site have been publicly filed as of Monday, July 20. The summer 2028 target is the only confirmed timeline for the Wesley Chapel location. No groundbreaking date or public hearing has been announced.
