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With a skylight overhead and a mezzanine and a sculpture for accents, the El Patio Dining Room is a popular space in the Columbia Restaurant. Image by Tom Adkinson

TAMPA, Fla. – The Columbia Restaurant in the Ybor City section of Tampa has been fine-tuning its recipe for success for more than 120 years. The recipe starts with numerous dishes with Spanish and Cuban accents, folds in a beautiful setting, adds dashes of history and hospitality, and garnishes everything with a dash of showmanship.

Five generations of one family have created a legacy that began in 1903 when Spanish-Cuban immigrant Casimiro Hernandez arrived in search of opportunity for his young family. Initial work at a brewery led to his opening a corner cafe that the family’s online history describes as “a humble saloon.”

Servers in formal attire are a quick clue that hospitality and tradition are core elements of the Columbia Restaurant. Image by Tom Adkinson

The saloon served local cigar industry workers authentic Cuban sandwiches and strong drinks. It became the Columbia Restaurant in 1905, which makes it Florida’s oldest restaurant.

The Columbia has had its ups and downs through the decades, not the least of which was America’s ill-fated experiment with Prohibition. As the family’s history notes, Ybor City’s residents in that era had “a healthy disdain for Prohibition laws.” The Columbia’s bartenders stayed on the job, but demitasse cups replaced shot glasses, and the dark-wood bar from that time still welcomes tipplers.

Colorful enamel tiles decorate a colonnaded walkway leading to the entrance of the Columbia Restaurant. Image by Tom Adkinson

From that modest beginning, the restaurant grew to cover an entire city block. Owners say it is the largest Spanish restaurant in the world, seating 1,700 guests in 15 dining rooms.

The original saloon space now is the Cafe Dining Room, and the LaFonda Dining Room from 1920 features framed newspaper and magazine stories accumulated through the decades. Among the most impressive spaces is the skylighted El Patio Dining Room, which features the “Arion and the Dolphin” statue, a replica of a sculpture found in the ruins of Pompeii.

A diner watches the tableside preparation of the Columbia Restaurant’s famous 1905 Salad, a fixture on the restaurant’s menu. Image by Tom Adkinson

Of course, food that warrants return visits is really what keeps a restaurant alive, and the Columbia offers foundational selections such as black bean soup and a Cuban sandwich that uses Casimiro Hernandez Sr.’s recipe from 1915 along with more elaborate fare such as paella Espańola, Fideua de Mariscos (a Catalan dish with shrimp, scallops, mussels and clams, tossed with pasta and topped with blue crabmeat) and Merluza a la Rusa (a mild Spanish fish grilled with Cuban breadcrumbs).

The neon sign for the Columbia Restaurant is one of the landmarks of Ybor City, the Latin portion of Tampa. Photo courtesy Bakery Bizinka

Of course, food that warrants return visits is really what keeps a restaurant alive, and the Columbia offers foundational selections such as black bean soup and a Cuban sandwich that uses Casimiro Hernandez Sr.’s recipe from 1915 along with more elaborate fare such as paella Espańola, Fideua de Mariscos (a Catalan dish with shrimp, scallops, mussels and clams, tossed with pasta and topped with blue crabmeat) and Merluza a la Rusa (a mild Spanish fish grilled with Cuban breadcrumbs).

Diners in the La Fonda Dining Room, one of 15 in the restaurant, enjoy conversation beneath some of the media coverage the Columbia has received through the years. Image by Tom Adkinson

Some tableside showmanship precedes the serving of the Columbia’s famous 1905 Salad made with lettuce, ham, Swiss cheese, onions, green peppers, chopped boiled egg, parsley, olive oil, vinegar and other spices.

A lunch of a 1905 salad, black bean soup and even half of a Cuban sandwich barely leaves room for a dessert of a guava turnover, white chocolate bread pudding or Columbia’s flan, made with a recipe from 1935.

Through more than 120 years, the generations of Colombia’s caretakers have accumulated many recipes that keep on delivering.

Trip-planning resources: ColumbiaRestaurant.com and VisitTampaBay.com

(Travel writer Tom Adkinson’s book, 100 Things To Do in Nashville Before You Die, is available at Amazon.com.