Is this Tampa Bay’s hottest happy hour?

TAMPA — The dining room is packed and it’s barely 5 p.m.

Getting a table is out of the question. It’s hard enough (though not impossible) to snag a seat at the long wraparound bar, where people in suits straight from the office sidle up to couples on dates and bartenders zip back and forth, a seemingly never-ending number of drinks lining up at the pass.

Servers balance trays of hand rolls and platters of sashimi, grilled skewers and highball cocktails. Everyone looks good here, the dim restaurant lighting enveloping everything in a warm, honey golden hue. And the prices? The prices look pretty good too.

Is this Tampa’s most happening happy hour? It sure feels like it.

Tori Bar opened in November inside Tampa’s historic Lafayette Arcade building, revamping what was once cocktail lounge and restaurant Fly Bar into a dark and sultry hub for craft cocktails and izakaya-inspired snacks and small plates.

Owners Michelle and Jerry Biting aren’t new to the izakaya theme, modeled on Japanese pub fare, or what they call Japanese tapas, including drinks and shareable snacks. They also run the popular restaurant Izakaya Tori on Dale Mabry Highway.

But the schtick here is a bit different than their flagship spot, pairing a shorter menu with more upscale vibes and a craft cocktail program. The twice-a-day happy hour program (early evenings and late at night) is what really put the spot on the map, and the discounted menu includes an abbreviated selection of the restaurant’s most popular items: hand rolls, skewers and a few shareable dishes.

For drinks, the regular menu includes a much wider selection of cocktails (which shouldn’t be overlooked), but during happy hour there’s a collection of $8 highball cocktails, $5 beers, $8 glasses of wine, $10 sake pours and a few Japanese spirit options ($8 for a 2-ounce pour).

Though not on the happy hour menu, both the subtly sweet Miso Old Fashioned ($15) and the fiery Shishito Pepper Margarita ($14) hit high notes, delivering perfectly balanced sips.

On two recent visits, I sampled dishes from both the happy hour and regular menus.

Hand rolls, or temaki, are $6 during happy hour, and might be the restaurant’s best bargain (a roll here is the rough equivalent of two rolls elsewhere). Both the spicy salmon, which arrives topped with smelt roe and a spicy kewpie mayonnaise, and a spicy yellowtail and jalapeno version are particularly good.

Also offered during happy hour are several skewers, which are fired over an open-flame grill and arrive quickly, one after the next: juicy chicken thighs sidling griddled scallions ($3), silky hunks of miso-marinated Chilean sea bass ($10, not on happy hour), creamy eggplant coated in sweet miso ($3) — all gone in just a few, delicious bites. Slightly less successful are the king oyster mushroom skewers ($3), which lack seasoning, and the overcooked chicken hearts ($3), rendered unfortunately tough and chewy.

Everything here feels designed with sharing in mind, and dishes come out whenever they’re ready.

Crudos fare exceptionally well. Silky slices of hamachi ($18) arrive fanned out beneath jalapenos and a slightly sweet wasabi vinaigrette, while crunchy wedges of apple and cucumber brighten up a salmon tartare ($18), paired with lemon zest, yuzu tobiko and a punchy soy-dill vinaigrette.

Larger plates feel particularly suited to sharing (and soaking up a few drinks) and run the gamut from a golden fried baby octopus — Idako Karaage — to the heaping portion of Mentaiko Fries (both $7 during happy hour), which come drizzled in a rich mentaiko mayonnaise (flavored with a spicy fermented fish roe) and a shower of seaweed flakes.

For a slightly more decadent option, the creamy Truffle Scallop Rice Pot ($25) feels like the restaurant’s showstopper dish, arriving in a piping-hot vessel while a server mixes in a raw quail egg tableside. The velvety rice is studded with mushrooms and flavored with a rich truffle paste, imbuing hearty umami notes throughout.

Dessert feels like an afterthought: Skip the mealy Matcha Creme Brulee ($11) in favor of a couple more of the Mentaiko fries or another order of the sweet and custardy eggplant skewers.

Or perhaps, another cocktail while you soak up the scene.

Sometimes it’s just fun to be part of the buzz.

If you go to Tori Bar

442 W. Grand Central Ave. No. 190, Tampa. 813-252-3839. toribartampa.com. Tori Bar is open Monday through Thursday from 4 p.m.-12 a.m. and Friday and Saturday till 1 a.m. Happy hour is Monday through Thursday from 4-6 p.m. and 10 p.m. till last call, and on Friday and Saturday from 4-6 p.m. and 11 p.m. till last call.