Last updated on June 16th, 2026 at 09:27 pm
Sky Puppy Brewery — Custom Glass Bar Top & Café Tables, Ybor City FL
Some surfaces hold up in a room.
This one holds up in a room that has been standing for over a hundred years.
When Matt and Danielle McKinnon began building Sky Puppy Brewing inside Casa
Bomberos — Ybor City’s original firehouse — they needed Café Tables and Bar Top surfaces that could hold
their own against century-old exposed brick, cast iron bones, and the weight of
a building with real history. What they got was white glass that made the old bricks
look even older. Per Danielle in an interview with BaySqueeze.com:
Q: Your space is different and has a vibe unlike most places in Tampa. It feels European to me. That’s the magic of thoughtful aesthetic—I believe spaces like yours allow each visitor to create their own narrative. What are your thoughts on your space and how people interact with it?
Danielle: I designed the space with the narrative of the old world meeting the new world. I wanted a space where someone could feel comfortable having a beer, but also slightly inspired. My personal goal is to have a space full of people from all walks of life—from artists to beer nerds and all of those in between. Our guests so far are doing just that, and my biggest dream is that we collectively continue to grow our tiny little sliver of 8th Ave into a safe space that welcomes everyone.”
The Project
Sky Puppy Brewing is a boutique craft brewery at 1313 E 8th Ave in Ybor City,
housed in one of Tampa’s oldest surviving fire stations. The exposed brick walls,
raw plaster, and cast iron details give the tasting room the gravity of a building
that has witnessed a century of this city. Matt and Danielle wanted to honor that
history — and contrast it.
Downing Designs fabricated and installed the main bar top, 12 custom café tables,
and a large glass table for the bench seating area across the brewery’s 2,000 square
foot tasting room. Every piece was custom-sized to the space. Nothing off the shelf.
Project Specifications
Project Type: Custom Glass Bar Top, Café Tables, and Bench Table — Commercial Hospitality
Location: Sky Puppy Brewing, 1313 E 8th Ave, Ybor City, FL 33605
Building: Casa Bomberos — Ybor City’s original firehouse
Fabrication & Installation: Downing Designs — Tampa, Florida
Installed: September 2024
Scope: Main bar top (custom shape), 12 café tables, 1 large bench-seat table, 1 large bar top
Material: White Glass, 3cm thick
Bar Top Finish: White glass — custom-shape waterjetted
Café Table Finish: White glass, mirror finish
Side Bar Base: Antique cast iron juice mill — client-supplied
Main Bar Structure: White Glass slab wood frame
Space: 2,000 sq ft craft brewery tasting room
Category: Commercial Hospitality — Brewery / Tasting Room
The Side Bar: Floating White Glass Over a Cast Iron Antique
The centerpiece of the tasting room is a cantilevered white glass bar slab mounted
atop an antique cast iron juice mill base. The base is original, heavy, industrial —
pure Flintstones. The glass is clean-edged, bright white, and custom-shaped to fit
the room — pure Jetsons. The two shouldn’t work together. They absolutely do.
White glass is non-porous by nature. No staining. No etching from beer, citrus,
or cleaning chemicals. The surface that looked perfect on day one looks perfect on
day one thousand. For a working bar in a high-traffic tasting room, that is not a
minor detail — it is the whole argument for white glass surfaces over every other material on
the market.
The Café Tables: Mirror Finish in a Room Full of History
The café tables are white glass with a mirror finish — and in a room lined
with century-old exposed brick, that is not a subtle choice. The surface reflects
the brick wall back into the space, effectively doubling the visual depth of the
tasting room. What reads as a clean white table in flat light becomes a live surface
at night — picking up the brick, the botanicals, the low amber light — and making
a 2,000 square foot brewery feel significantly larger than its footprint.
Custom white glass Café Tables Sky Puppy Brewery
custom white glass cafe tables sky puppy tampa downing designs
It is one of those details you feel before you identify it. The room seems
expansive. The surfaces seem to belong. The glass is working, and nobody in the
room knows it.
Zero stains. Zero etching. Unfussy is The New Luxury. The mirror finish holds because glass doesn’t absorb
anything — beer, citrus, cleaning chemicals pass over it without consequence. The
surface that reflected the brick on day one reflects it the same way on day
one thousand.
Every piece was sized custom to fit the room’s layout, the rhythm of the brick
walls, and the scale of the art installation by local sculptor Copper Tritscheller
— whose bronze bat figures occupy the space with quiet authority.
The Ambiance Machine™ at Work
The brief was never about surfaces. It was about what the room should feel like
at 9:30 on a Friday night when the place is full. The answer was warmth with an
edge — a room that feels rooted in Ybor City’s history but alive, current, lit up.
White glass with a mirror finish reflects and amplifies light without competing
with the art, the brick, or the people in the space. The bar top anchors the room.
The café tables expand it. The white glass is doing its job invisibly — which is exactly
the point.
Feel it. Form it. Light it.
A Room That Remembers
The Sky Puppy tasting room features a series of plaques honoring the people who
helped Matt and Danielle’s dream become a real building in a real neighborhood. One
of those plaques honors Jeff Downing and the Downing Designs team for the design
and build of the brewery’s surfaces.
It is the kind of acknowledgment that doesn’t happen on every project.
We don’t take it lightly.
Designed Here. Built Half a Mile Away.
Downing Designs operates from two facilities in Tampa — a design center where
client consultations, material development, and project planning take place, and a
fabrication studio where the white glass is cut, finished, and assembled. Both are within
half a mile of each other in Tampa.
That proximity matters. Design decisions made in the morning can be tested against
actual glass and actual light in the afternoon. There is no handoff between a design
team and a fabrication team — they are the same team, working in the same city, on
the same project.
It is the reason the bar top fits the room. It is the reason the café table
proportions work with the booth spacing. It is the reason an installation like Sky
Puppy performs exactly the way it was designed to perform.
Per 83 Degrees Media: “The bar’s countertops are white glass, a color contrast that will help patrons see and appreciate the hue of the beer. The bar tops are created by Jeff Downing of
in Ybor, who also did the bar top at downtown Tampa Ulele’s outdoor bar. He’s one of several local artists and tradespeople who worked on building out Sky Puppy. “
What This Project Demonstrates for Your Space
If you are designing a tasting room, brewery, restaurant, or hospitality space
in Tampa — or anywhere in Florida — the Sky Puppy installation demonstrates what
becomes possible when custom glass surfaces are designed for the room rather than
adapted to fit it.
A bar top that contrasts and complements a historic interior is
not a product you order. It is a fabricated solution specific to your space, your
base, and your room’s visual logic.
Café tables that expand a room rather than just occupy it require
the fabricator to understand the space — the light, the walls, the architecture —
before a single piece of glass is cut.
Surfaces that perform the same way on day one thousand as day one
require materials chosen for the environment, not for the catalog. In a working
brewery, that means glass.
These are not details available off the shelf. They are the result of 25 years
of fabricating custom architectural glass by hand in Tampa, Florida.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can white glass café tables work in a high-traffic commercial brewery
or restaurant environment?
Yes — and Sky Puppy Brewing in Ybor City is a working demonstration of exactly
that. White glass is non-porous, which means it does not absorb beer,
citrus, food oils, or cleaning chemicals. The surface cannot stain. It cannot etch.
It does not require sealing or periodic refinishing. For a tasting room or
restaurant operating five to six days a week, that durability profile is
meaningfully different from stone, concrete, or wood — all of which require
maintenance over time. The café tables at Sky Puppy have been in daily service
since September 2024 and look exactly as they did on installation day.
What is a mirror finish on a white glass café table and how does it
affect the room?
A mirror finish on white glass produces a surface that reflects its environment
rather than simply occupying it. In the Sky Puppy tasting room — which is lined
with century-old exposed brick — the café tables reflect the brick wall back into
the space, effectively doubling the perceived depth and volume of the room. The
effect is significant: a 2,000 square foot tasting room reads as considerably
larger than it is. The reflection also changes with the light — what reads as a
clean white surface in the afternoon becomes a live, light-active surface in the
evening when the ambient lighting shifts. It is one of the more powerful tools
available in a hospitality space design, and it requires no mechanical system
— the glass does the work.
Does Downing Designs fabricate custom glass bar tops and tables for
breweries and restaurants in the Tampa Bay area?
Yes — commercial hospitality is a core part of our work. Downing Designs has
been fabricating custom architectural glass for restaurants, breweries, hotel bars,
and tasting rooms across Tampa Bay and throughout Florida for over 25 years.
Our service area includes Tampa, Ybor City, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Sarasota,
Naples, Fort Myers, Miami, and the full Florida Gulf and Atlantic corridors.
We work directly with owners, interior designers, and architects from initial
consultation through completed installation. If you are designing or building
a hospitality space and want to discuss custom glass surfaces, we welcome
the conversation.
White glass bar top at Sky Puppy Tampa
Can a glass bar top be mounted on a vintage or antique base?
Yes — and the Sky Puppy bar top demonstrates this directly. The custom white
glass slab at Sky Puppy is cantilevered atop an antique cast iron juice mill base
supplied by the client. The fabrication challenge is ensuring the glass is engineered
to the specific geometry and load distribution of the base — not to a standard
bracket template. At Downing Designs, every cantilevered installation begins with
a structural assessment of the base and substrate before fabrication begins. The
result at Sky Puppy is a bar top that has held without movement since installation
and reads as a single unified piece — not glass placed on top of something else,
but a coherent object.
Entry White Glass Café Tables Sky Puppy Brewery
custom cafe tables sky puppy brewery tampa downing designs
How are custom café tables sized for a restaurant or tasting room?
Every table we fabricate is sized to the specific space — not pulled from a
standard dimension catalog. At Sky Puppy, all café tables and the large
bench-seat table were dimensioned to fit the tasting room’s layout, booth spacing,
and traffic flow. The sizing process begins with a site assessment: we measure
the room, map the seating zones, and account for the clearances required by the
existing architectural elements — in this case, the brick walls, the art
installation, and the entry path. Custom sizing is not a premium add-on.
For a room with a specific identity, it is the only approach that produces
surfaces that feel like they belong.
What type of glass is used for commercial bar tops and café tables
at Downing Designs?
We use white glass for demanding commercial hospitality installations.
White glass surface reads as a true white. For the Sky Puppy installation, white glass was used across
all surfaces — bar top and café tables — to create a unified material language
throughout the tasting room. White glass is also the appropriate specification
for mirror finish applications, where color neutrality in the reflection is
important to the final appearance of the space.
How long does a custom commercial glass installation take for a
brewery or restaurant?
The Sky Puppy installation — custom-shaped bar top, 12 café tables, and large
bench-seat table — was completed and installed in September 2024. Timeline for a
commercial project of this scope typically runs four to eight weeks from design
approval through installation, depending on the number of pieces, complexity of
shapes, and finishing requirements. We recommend engaging Downing Designs early
in the design process — surface material and sizing decisions made at the planning
stage produce significantly better results than specifications added after
construction is underway.
Ready to Design Custom Café Tables and
Glass Surfaces for Your Hospitality Space?
If you are designing a brewery, tasting room, restaurant, or hotel bar in
Tampa Bay or anywhere in Florida — and you want surfaces that work as hard as
your space does — we would welcome the conversation.
Our design center is in Tampa. Our fabrication studio is half a mile away.
Everything we make is made here, by hand, for your specific space.