Columbia Restaurant / Gonzmart family collection

Columbia Restaurant is one of the oldest restaurants in Florida. Created by the Hernandez and Gonzmart families, the restaurant slowly expanded, first into adjacent space on its city block, and later opened restaurants around the state. During the 1950s and 60s, the Columbia became a regular stop on the Latin American entertainment circuit with the help of violinist Cesar Gonzmart, who joined the Hernandez family with his marriage to Adela Hernandez. Expansion began with a Sarasota Columbia in the 1950s. Adela Gonzmart and Ferdie Pacheco’s Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook (University Press of Florida, 1995) brought acclaim in the mid 1990s. After the death of Cesar Gonzmart in 1992, his sons Richard and Casey took over the operations of the Columbia Restaurant Group. The restaurant celebrated its centennial anniversary in 2005. The Columbia Restaurant Centennial Museum opened in a nearby property in 2004, showcasing the Gonzmart family’s extensive antique collection until 2006. In 2009, the comprehensive history of the restaurant was published (University Press of Florida), authored by USF Special Collections Archivist Andrew Huse.