A LEGACY IN CENTRAL FLORIDA
BY COLLEEN SACHS
The Columbia Restaurant in the historic Ybor City neighborhood of Tampa, Florida, has been a mainstay of the area’s cuisine for generations. The restaurant began as the Columbia Saloon, opening on December 17, 1903. To put this in a historical context, while local cigar workers were enjoying Cuban sandwiches and Cuban coffee at their new neighborhood café, the Wright Brothers were making their first flight. With the reopening of Goody Goody, a burger place that was a local favorite for eighty years before closing in 2005, and Ulele in the old Water Works building on the riverfront, the Gonzmart family is preserving Tampa cuisine in a delicious way. 78 | M AY 2019
he father (actually, by now, the great-greatgrandfather) of this restaurant empire was Cuban immigrant Casimiro Hernandez. His great-grandson Richard Gonzmart is the current caretaker of the family of restaurants as CEO and president, while his brother Casey is chairman of the board. Richard’s daughter Andrea and Casey’s son Casey Jr. are the fifth generation to be part of the family business. Andrea says, “Working at the Columbia Restaurant is not a job: it is a legacy that I am responsible for carrying on. And because of what my father has instilled in me from birth, it is by no means a burden, but a privilege.” She attributes the longevity of the restaurant to love and passion. This is a business that weathered Prohibition, the Great Depression, and the downturn of Ybor City in the 1960s when blight struck the neighborhood. Andrea continues, “But because of love and passion, every generation has overcome these challenges.” And because generations of that family persisted, generations of my family have made memories at Columbia Restaurant. My grandmother was born in Ybor City in 1910 and went to Columbia Restaurant with her family as a child. My mother remembers my grandfather stopping there while taking the family on a Sunday drive to get everyone ice cream cones with flavors such as guava, watermelon, and mango. (The ice cream was produced from the 1940s to the 1960s by the Tropical Ice Cream Company, founded by Casimiro’s son Gustavo.) She also remembers going
