The brief variation: Since 1905, the Columbia Restaurant features served Spanish and Cuban-inspired meals and products that represent a long-standing genealogy and family history. Launched by a Cuban immigrant in Tampa, the Columbia stays a nearby preferred due to the standard ingredients and personable solution. Over the years, individuals from all around the globe have come to the glamorous restaurant to celebrate engagements, anniversaries, birthdays, alongside monumental times. Today, the last and fifth generations of this family possesses and works 13 various restaurants throughout Florida. If you’re searching for okay dining with a good antique family members experience, you can easily reserve a table when you look at the stunning and intimate eating rooms of Columbia Restaurant.
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For the past 3 decades, my children’s preferred holiday destination happens to be an oceanfront lodge in Sand Key, Florida. We’ve gone here over several instances to construct sand castles, place whales, and eat tasty dishes on patios ignoring the Gulf of Mexico.
We’ve got completely investigated town’s cafe selection, searching from finest regional bones about, but it only very happens that the one cafe all of us enjoy most is actually within walking distance in our resort. The Columbia eatery’s white-linen tablecloths, mindful service, and mouth-watering meals ensure it is our very own go-to spot for lunch.
Once we happened to be kids, my moms and dads would purchase all of us a parmesan cheese pizza pie as they visited this enchanting Spanish bistro alone; but we have now enjoy tapas and wine as much while they would, so we’ve begun crashing their unique night out â often bringing along times in our own.
Since 1905, the Columbia Restaurant features wowed patrons with Spanish and Cuban meals and an old-world ambiance. Though itis the earliest restaurant in Florida, the company continues to be operated by the descendants of the original founder. Every object on the eating plan has actually a tale behind it, and lots of on the quality recipes are transmitted from one generation associated with the Hernandez Gonzmart family members to another. Family members custom is a large the main Columbia’s selection, background, and method to solution.
“the employees is also somewhat like household,” mentioned Michael Kilgore, the principle advertising Officer for the Columbia. “Many of our employees stay for 20 or 3 decades. The situations we love about our group is how much time they stay with united states. They come right here and discover a property.”
You can enjoy this comfy and welcoming environment on your own subsequent date night when you go to any one of the Columbia’s seven different restaurants. The Columbia Restaurant currently serves guests in Tampa, Sarasota, St. Augustine, Clearwater Beach, and Celebration. Whether you’re sipping wine on a picturesque balcony or seeing flamenco dancers light up the stage although you consume tapas, you are sure to have a memorable evening within Columbia.
In 1905, a Cuban Immigrant went a Saloon That Became a Sensation
The Columbia Restaurant can locate its background to Dec. 17, 1903 â exactly the same time the Wright brothers successfully tested globally’s very first plane. That was when a Cuban immigrant known as Casimiro Hernandez Sr. started running a saloon for a local preparing company in Tampa’s Ybor City.
In 1905, the industrious entrepreneur turned the saloon into a well known 60-seat cafe recognized for their real Cuban coffee and sandwiches. Soon after their achievements, Casimiro ordered a restaurant nearby and changed it into a gorgeous dining room. In 1930, their son took over possession and operation from the flourishing cafe.
During the Great Depression, their boy Casimiro Jr. created the initial air-conditioned living area in Tampa. The guy hoped their trendy look and elevated dancing flooring would draw individuals to the restaurant which help all of them forget their own fears for per night. The Don Quixote area had been a hit, while the Columbia was able to hold its doorways available even though many various other businesses collapsed.
In 1953, Casimiro Jr. passed the Columbia to their sole son or daughter, Adela Hernandez Gonzmart, an accomplished musician who’d fulfilled the woman partner, Cesar Gonzmart, during the Tampa bistro. This theatrical set introduced activity and art towards the Columbia, setting up a showroom that hosted numerous skilled Latin dancers and musicians. Under Adela and Cesar’s authority, the Columbia expanded to Sarasota also areas in Fl.
Today, among Adela and Cesar’s two sons has had the reins and held his family members’ business going. Richard Gonzmart happens to be operating at their family’s restaurants since he had been 12 yrs . old, therefore he is intimately acquainted with their atmosphere and record. Richard can in fact suggest the dining table within Columbia eatery where he and his awesome girlfriend had their own basic date a lot more than 43 years ago.
“There’s a lot of love right here, and we also have actually a fantastic tale,” stated Michael. “lower than 15 restaurants in the usa are family-owned and most 100 years old, therefore we’re in pretty elite organization.”
Florida’s oldest restaurant has actually a proud and enduring record rooted in meals, household, and enjoyable. Michael told united states the fifth generation in the founding household is now getting groomed to take over one-day. Richard’s daughters and nephew have chosen to take on energetic management parts during the restaurants consequently they are ready to keep carefully the household custom going for many more years to come.
The Columbia is acknowledged which includes associated with the highest honours for the restaurant business, such as induction into country’s eatery News’ “great dinner Hall of Fame,” attained the “Distinguished Restaurants of the united states (SiRoNA) Award of quality,” Florida Trend’s “Golden Spoon Hall of Fame,” and Wine Spectator’s “better of Award of Excellence.”
Dig In! A Delectable Menu of Sharable Tapas & Indulgent Desserts
The Columbia eatery sets a magnificent dining table and provides an enjoyable escape from everyday activity. It seduces your own sensory faculties from the moment you walk in the doorways. You’re enclosed by greenery, h2o fountains, and artwork due to the fact noise of fun while the smells of new fish and shellfish dishes waft through the environment. Before my personal purchase also gets to me, my personal mouth area is obviously watering with anticipation. The good news is, each guest becomes their own recently produced loaf of Cuban loaves of bread, therefore I have one thing to fulfill my preferences while I wait.
The 14-page selection is filled with good meals but in addition supplies simple dialogue beginners for daters simply observing each other. Each entrée, appetizer, and treat comes with an enticing description also fascinating history info. For instance, the bistro’s coconut ice cream had been a favorite of frozen dessert business person Gustavo Hernandez, the 3rd son on the initial Columbia president, now this nice dish is offered in his honor.
From the veggie paella (Spanish grain combined with satisfying greens) into shrimp great (shrimp covered with wafer-thin bacon), the foods during the Columbia are bursting with taste. The shareable dishes, also known as tapas, get this cafe well suited for lovers on a romantic date since you may come better with each other by revealing tiny plates of empanadas, sliced chorizo, croquetas, or packed peppers. You can easily generate a budget-friendly dinner by purchasing multiple of these appetizers together â just remember to truly save place for dessert!
The Très Amigos churros could be an excellent choice for couples because they’re tactile, sweet, and simply somewhat dirty. Possible dip the piping-hot churros in candy, caramel, or guava sauce so there’s a little something for everybody. Positive, Columbia’s trademark light Chocolate Bread Pudding is an indulgent treat ideal for splitting with a date who has got a taste for white chocolate and rum sauce.
In 2017, the Marriott Traveler blog called the Columbia Restaurant among St. Augustine’s top date-night places, encouraging lovers to “start off with Columbia’s well-known 1905 Salad, assembled table-side with much panache, then share a massive plate of this Paella a la Valenciana, full of shellfish, fragrant grain, and chorizo.”
Your own romantic evening will be-all the more pleasurable should you pair with your food a glass of the Melanie Chardonnay, a wealthy drink called after Melanie Gonzmart, Richard’s high-school lover and wife.
Plus, on Columbia Restaurant, the sangria is to die for. Really, referring by glass but you can additionally separate a pitcher of white or red sangria with a date to enhance the dining knowledge. Amply big slices of fruit drift during the drink and infuse it with rich tastes. Whether you are purchasing this traditional sangria or one of many cafe’s family wines, the high-caliber beverages dont disappoint.
Michael told you the team helps make an attempt to supply inexpensive but high quality wines to whet visitors’ appetites. “All of our wine option should-be completely designed for the meals we serve plus price,” the guy said.
Many Couples & households have actually Shared particular Moments Here
When i do believe associated with the Columbia, i believe on the night we made a decision to have treat for dinner, and my moms and dads ordered churros, important lime pie, mango mousse cake, white chocolate breads pudding, and five spoons. I do believe of my twin brother trying grouper for the first time on all of our 20th birthday celebration and stating excitedly, “simply take my image” because he wished to program his girlfriend (who is today their spouse) which he loved taking in fish as much as she performed.
In so many methods, the Columbia feels as though all of our location, but my loved ones isn’t the actual only real family to have generated recollections at this bistro and its six sister areas across Florida. People come to the bistro at all phases of life as it provides a particular environment that pairs really with any celebration.
Famously, Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio happened to be regular visitors of the Columbia during the early 1950s. The Columbia employees settled tribute into pair and also the enjoying recollections they shared on restaurant by naming a dish after all of them. The Marilyn & Joe “Salteado” â a sautéed blend of tenderloin ideas, boneless chicken, shrimp, and chicken â is actually a tasty indication of the long reputation for love inside the Columbia’s dining areas.
Whether you’re going on a primary go out or honoring a marriage anniversary, you’ll find intimacy and enthusiasm achieve the soft candlelight of Columbia eatery.
“It is one of the objectives,” Michael stated, “to have people feel as if the Columbia is where to come to celebrate life’s goals.”
The Columbia eatery has Family standards into Table
The Columbia eatery charms daters with real meals, divine atmospheres, and personable solution. The computers, about at our very own Columbia in Sand Key, watch their particular visitors and tend to be rapid to express “Welcome right back” to loyal clients who, like my loved ones, find themselves going back to the stylish dining areas time and time again.
This long-standing eating place features grown and altered through the entire many years, it never forgotten about its century-long family origins. Richard has actually bold plans to provide diners and daters throughout Florida in the many years to come. “Our proprietor doesn’t rest,” Michael stated with a laugh. “He’s usually dreaming up new things.”
The Columbia group plans to start at the very least two brand new restaurants in the upcoming decades. One will end up being easily positioned correct across the street from original Columbia in Tampa. Casa Santo Stefano, set to start in autumn 2018, are going to pay respect to a small town in Sicily where a majority of Tampa’s Sicilian immigrants emerged from â the real menu is designed to bring these individuals a tasty reminder of home.
Suffering authority and top quality styles make the Columbia eatery and all the sister restaurants genuinely great places in which singles and couples can invest an evening with those they love most useful.