Spanning an entire Ybor City block, the Columbia restaurant is the largest Spanish restaurant in the world.
Andrea Gonzmart Williams is a fifth-generation family owner and operator of the restaurant.
"There is a real story behind it. There is a real family behind it. There is so much joy and passion and love that goes into it from our family, from our employees. It is truly a passion project for all of us," she said of the Columbia.
She took ABC Action News Anchor Deiah Riley on a behind-the-scenes tour.
"This is the original search warrant that was issued to us during prohibition, they gave us a three-day lead time. And then they said they were going to come search the restaurant for alcohol. So pretty neat that we still have it and luckily that they gave us a three-day headstart," she said.
The Columbia has 15 dining rooms. There's one on the second floor that most guests don't get to see — the king and queen room.
"This is absolutely one of my most favorite rooms," Williams said. "This room when it was originally built at the same time as the patio. And the intentions were for it to be a casino. They were talking about legalizing gambling in Tampa. So my great-grandfather thought, well, this would be the perfect space. Never got legalized. But luckily we have a beautiful dining room."
A lot of the tile and finishings throughout the restaurant are original, and so are some of the menu items — at least, that's what we all thought.
"The 1905 salad was not founded in 1905. It was founded by one of our servers. One night when he would come home from work, he would get whatever you could find in his refrigerator to make a salad and so then he started doing that for his customers. And over time, we refined it to be the iceberg lettuce, the ham, the cheese, our famous 1905 dressing, olives and tomatoes."
And that's not the only surprise.
"When we were celebrating our 100th anniversary. We had some good news and some bad news. And I said, Richard, what would you like to know first? And he's like, well, give me the good news first because, well, the good news is you are 100 years old. And my father's like, okay, well, what's the bad news? Here's the bad news is you were actually founded in 1903," Williams said. "So what is the first thing to do and that you can't change the name of the salad... my dad says if you order in 1905 salad without tomatoes, that's a 1903 salad."
We end our tour where the family's dream first began, at the Columbia's corner cafe. This bar is the original from 1905.
"They would be so overwhelmed," Williams said of her grandparents if they could see everything built in their name today.
"My grandmother was truly such a humble person. They were both so deserving. They were such Ybor icons, Tampa icons, they were both so generous and they instilled so many great things in my father and in myself. And I think it's so deserving. I know there are so many times in a day that I will tell my father or I will tell someone else. I know they're smiling down on us."
