Columbia Sand Key - Nowatney

Columbia is a Tampa institution, and rightfully so. They?re the oldest restaurant in the state and a lot of their menu staples seem unchanged by food trends in the best way. Their menu includes timeless classics prepared with long-standing techniques and great ingredients. Their 1905 salad is the perfect balance of crisp, tangy, and salty. The crab croquettes are spicy, slightly crunchy on the outside, and a soft seafood flavor throughout. You can?t beat their main courseseither! Save room for dessert, especially their white chocolate bread pudding which offers a crispy exterior and soft bread inside. I?m not big on white chocolate, but this is perfect because it?s not cloyingly sweet at all. There?s plentyof free parking across the street. There?s also a gift shop where you can grab some of their signature dishes, pitchers, seasonings, and sangria mix. Highly recommend getting a reservation if you?re visiting anytime during the weekends.

We went to the Columbia for a Valentine's day dinner and the flamenco show. To start off with the restaurant itself is very beautiful and historic. Many locals recommended it as well. Our waitress (Savannah) was extremely attentive. All throughout the night she made us feel as if we were the only table she was taking care of. She gave us great recommendations about the food and what to order based on what we typically like and our drinks were always filled! We never had amoment where we were waiting on her or looking for her. All of our food came out quickly and was excellent! The portion sizes were great and the pricing was very fair. The flamenco show was also very entertaining, energetic, and fun! Wewould definitely come again next time we are in the area.

I did not realize this was the oldest restaurant in all of Florida until after we left out. The atmosphere was amazing! It felt like you were in the old country! The beautiful design and architecture really stood out. This place had such character and you could just see the history and all the hard work that went into it over the years. The story itself of how it came about is remarkable. The list of people who used to come in and the current ones are mind blowing. Theservice was excellent and the portions were big and the price was very fair. The food was amazing and you could just taste the authenticity. I wanted to get desert, but after the bread and the calamari and the Sangria, I couldn?t eatanother thing. I can not wait until the next time I am back in Tampa, I will certainly be back! A heads up, this place gets busy so I suggest making your reservations well in advance. The parking is not the easiest to find once it getsbusy, the lot fills up.

Eaten here several times over the past 20+ years, always look forward to my visits, the last visit was terrible. Our waiter was OK, he walked by the table several times (we didn't even know he was our server at that time), before even to offer to take our drink order. We thought maybe our server was on break. The iconic salad was very good and the female that made it was awesome. Unfortunately, right after getting our salads our main courses arrived; we had not even had achance to take a bite of our salads. The guy delivering the food was very apologetic, but offered no solution and commenced to pushing stuff around to make room. We felt very rushed to eat. Did we enjoy the salad or eat out food before itgets cold. The other annoying thing was there was a chair at our table that did not fit. Everyone that walked by had to move it, even the staff. Overall, disappointed.

Decided to take a pit stop in Ybor City and grab lunch! Absolutely love the atmosphere of this place it's Spanish fine dining on a completely different level. We sat by the wine room and could smell the reminiscent of fresh bread and garlic! We both had the 1905 salad which was so good, I really enjoyed that they made the salad in front of us at the table. I also had a cup of gazpacho, excellent flavor. I enjoyed some Cuban bread and coffee at the end for dessert. Ihighly recommend you to check it out!