FLORIDA BUILDINGS I LOVE: No. 67: Columbia Restaurant, 1903-05, Tampa
2025 E. Seventh Ave., Ybor City. Ivo DeMinicis, and perhaps others, architect
Harold Bubil
The venerable Columbia Restaurant has locations in Sarasota, St. Augustine, Celebration and Clearwater Beach, and two smaller cafes in Tampa, and I’ve eaten at all but two of them.
But when it comes to enjoying chicken or fish with an enormous mound of yellow rice, black-bean soup, warm Cuban bread with the crumbly crust, and, of course, the olive-laden “1905 Salad,” there’s nothing like the mothership the 1,700-seat, block-long “Gem of Spanish Restaurants” in Tampa.
Each location has delightful spaces, but none of them do more than echo the Ybor City location’s authentic, Spanish-inspired architecture. Each dining room is different, and the nightly (except Sunday) Flamenco music performances only add to the atmosphere.
The town knows where two historical cottages are bound, but the specific timing and authorizations on when they’ll get moved is still a work in progress.
Planning, Zoning and Building Director Allen Parsons updated Planning and Zoning Board members recently about plans to relocate the cottages in 2021.
“The smaller of the two [cottages] is going into the Town Center,” Parsons said. “That won’t come before this board immediately. There likely will be an update to the planned unit development for the Town Center property, but that’s not coming in the immediate future.”
Parsons estimated the P&Z Board would receive a site development plan amendment for its consideration by February to move the larger L-shaped cottage to 6920 Gulf of Mexico Drive just north of Whitney Plaza. The Chiles Group, which owns Mar Vista Dockside Restaurant, purchased the larger cottage.
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