The Columbia Restaurant

Peter: 14th Jul 2005 - 15:12 GMT

mmm, what i wouldnt give for a 1905 salad from there right now...

deshant: 14th Jul 2005 - 16:27 GMT

this looks so much like Baptista-era Cuba it's remarkable. The attention to keeping a clean restaurant is great although I wish the dude tossing the salad would mop his brow. Not the dressing I asked for

sine: 7th Jan 2006 - 06:43 GMT

Ybor used to be Cuba. The Columbia is one of the last REAL Cubano holdouts. And the Silver Ring. Amazing places.

matt: 7th Jan 2006 - 19:27 GMT

the silver ring hasn't been the same since it moved downtown. well, since tim fired me, really. ybor used to be a great place because you had all these immigrant groups banding together to help each other survive. cubans, spanish, italians, germans, jews. they all had mutual aid societies and beautiful halls to gather in (except for the jews, for some reason.) i think the cuban club was renovated recently after being vacant for some years. don't know. the italian and spanish clubs have been maintained continuously, i think. the german one fell into disrepair. it's up on nebraska. was ten years ago, anyway, last time i was up there.

sine: 8th Jan 2006 - 04:57 GMT

Matt: I saw Ministry and KMFDM at The Cuban Club in 1990. I miss the Silver Ring, I wish I had a half Cuban sandwich and a bowl of Spanish bean soup right now.

Hobart: 8th Jan 2006 - 05:09 GMT

Are there many people from Florida here? I went there one summer as a kid- what a state.

This entry is great, by the way, Sine....

sine: 8th Jan 2006 - 05:16 GMT

Florida is an amazing place. Old Florida was beautiful, wild, sparsely populated (even when I was growing up). Now, it's been mostly bulldozed, drained of its wetlands, polluted, overfished, destroyed. I remember seeing a Florida panther once in the wild when I was 10...that would never happen now.

On the flipside, alligators used to be endangered there, and now they are everywhere, the nasty fuckers.

I am 6th generation Floridian, my nephew is the 7th. Old Florida history is amazing, fascinating, a cacophony of cultures and experiences.

matt: 9th Jan 2006 - 00:17 GMT

shit, i used to live on cubans when i worked there. i think if i never see another one, i'll be alright.