The Carrollwood Area Business Association is marking 40 years of championing local businesses — a milestone the organization will celebrate with a gala May 8.
CABA has grown from 16 concerned business owners into a group of nearly 400 members spanning storefronts, home businesses, restaurants, banks, insurance offices and more along North Dale Mabry Highway and beyond.
“They are humble roots, aren’t they?” said CABA secretary Alison Haywood, who is organizing the gala. “It’s a milestone for us, our organization and every business we have or have had over the 40 years. CABA has always been, ‘We help ourselves by helping others.’ That has always been the philosophy here.”
Those roots trace to 1985, when the Florida Department of Transportation decided to expand North Dale Mabry from two lanes to four. Sixteen business owners convened to make sure the construction wouldn’t choke off access to their storefronts. Their pushback resulted in one of the first major state construction projects completed primarily at night — and, afterward, the formation of what became CABA.
“They were very vocal in their fight that the widening of Dale Mabry wouldn’t hurt businesses’ entrances and block any business,” Haywood said. “Now, we’re trying to promote every Carrollwood and nearby business we can, which is why we have everything CABA has to offer.”
The association hosts weekly, monthly and yearly events geared toward networking — coffee meetings, happy hours, power lunches and more.
“It’s like speed dating where they meet other business owners and talk about the business around the table,” Haywood said of the gatherings, which she said are especially valuable for new members.
CABA’s signature event is the Taste of Carrollwood, where each March dozens of food vendors and restaurants give out free samples for the cost of a $5 wristband. First held in 2013, the event found a permanent home at Carrollwood Village Park in 2024 and now draws thousands.
“With Taste of Carrollwood brought back, it helped rebuild our membership after COVID to where it is today, and that is a proud feat for us,” Haywood said.
CABA was founded in 1986 by John Baumann. After some restructuring, Percy Legendre was named the first president-elect in 1996, and membership surpassed 200 within two years. Before the turn of the century, then-president Dr. Barry Shapiro held the first Power Lunch.
Current president Lee Pierson is in the first year of a three-year term.
“Each year we seem to get bigger and bigger now, especially since the restart of Taste of Carrollwood,” Pierson told the Carrollwood Beacon in March. “This is CABA’s event, and this is how people learn about CABA.”
A decade ago, CABA established a Hall of Fame, which now includes founding members such as Baumann and Shapiro, as well as recent past president Rob Cunningham, who oversaw the return of Taste of Carrollwood.
“For me, it’s personal,” Cunningham told the Beacon in 2024. “I wanted to bring it home. This park is spectacular, so it’s the perfect venue for the Taste of Carrollwood.”
Forty years on, the original fight over a road project still defines the group’s mission.
“It’s amazing that they stuck together, and now, today, we have CABA because of it,” Haywood said. “They ensured that DOT worked only at night and that entrances and exits remained open during normal business hours — something that still happens now, all because of them and now CABA. And it has only grown from there.”