How the Columbia’s ’1905′ salad became one of Tampa’s most iconic dishes

YBOR CITY — Over half a million bowls of it are whipped up tableside every year at Columbia Restaurants in Sand Key, Sarasota, St. Augustine and Celebration. Tourists munch on the dish at Tampa International Airport before catching a flight home. The recipe has been prepared on live television for Kelly Ripa and is plastered across the internet on food blogs and TikToks. But some swear the original “1905” salad tastes different in Ybor City, washed down with a pitcher of sangria and sopped up with a chunk of La Segunda Cuban bread at the restaurant’s original location. “It’s definitely one of Tampa’s signature dishes,” said Andy Huse, author and Florida studies curator at the University of South Florida’s libraries. “Any city worth its salt has its own sandwich ... but how many cities have their own salad?” The Columbia Restaurant is celebrating its 120th year. The Spanish-Cuban eatery, which stretches across an entire city block, is the oldest continuously operating restaurant in Florida and the largest spot in the state that serves Spanish cuisine. There are 1,700 seats and 15 dining rooms, each with ornate decor and history. It’s known for its equally large and colorful salad. “It’s really one of the icons of the Columbia,” said Richard Gonzmart, the fourth-generation “caretaker” of the Columbia Restaurant Group. “There’s the sangria, the paella, the Cuban sandwiches ... but if you took the salad away, there would be a problem.”The story of the dish starts in the 1940s with a late-night snacker named Tony Noriega. He worked as a server at several Latin restaurants in Ybor City, including the Columbia. “Tony says the salad originated at midnight in his own kitchen, when he returned home after a big evening and was starved for a salad,” the Tampa Tribune’s food editor wrote in 1955. “Like Dagwood, he piled all of the dishes from the refrigerator in his arm, tossed all of the foods together, and liked the results.”Noriega shared his delicacy with his favorite customers. Soon, it appeared on the menu at the Columbia — and beyond. “The ‘Tony Salad’ was a big deal. Every kind of old-school Latin restaurant here in Tampa, any place that did sit-down kind of dining, they almost all had a version of that salad,” said Huse, who wrote a book on the Columbia Restaurant’s history . “It’s sort of a Cuban sandwich-ish creation, you know, but in salad form.”While exact ingredients varied across restaurants and time periods, the base was always lettuce, ham and Swiss cheese.“Tony’s Special” also had “onions, green peppers, chopped boiled egg, parsley, olive oil, vinegar and a dash of this and that,” according to a 1947 Tampa Tribune advertisement. Other accounts mention black olives and celery. Noriega went on to open his own spot, Tony’s Restaurant, on South Dale Mabry Highway. He served his creation throughout the 1950s and ’60s. According to Huse’s book, Noriega remained “proud of his salad’s illustrious career and never resented the imitations he saw around town.”The dish remained a hit at the Columbia, too, even as the recipe was refined. “The salad flavors reflect (Noriega’s) Spanish and Italian ancestry and appealed to patrons in his home town of Ybor City,” Huse wrote in his book. “It became so symbolic of Tampa’s Latin roots that Cesar (Gonzmart) renamed it the ’1905′ Salad as the Columbia’s 75th anniversary approached in the 1970s.”In the 1980s, the Columbia served a free “1905″ side salad with every entree. “They realized when they did the math that they were losing a million dollars in olives alone among all their different locations around Florida,” Huse said. “They quickly thought, ‘You know, this is something that needs to be a la carte.’” While the recipe has been tweaked over the years, these days it’s prepared with extreme precision. The Columbia even trademarked the name of the dish.This hasn’t stopped other restaurants around Florida from putting their own spin on it. You can get a 1981 Salad, for example, at one Disney Springs restaurant . It comes with artichokes. At the Columbia, the meal starts with greens in a big silver bowl. The kitchen in Ybor has a dedicated crisper just for iceberg lettuce, which is sturdy enough for the heaping toppings to come. “If you want to make it with romaine lettuce, you can do that,” Gonzmart said. “You put in Bibb lettuce? Oh my God help you.”Jeff Houck recalled one determined chef who pushed for another kind of lettuce during the opening of the Celebration location.Like a piece of soaked arugula, he didn’t last long.“It’s a drenched salad, an old-school salad,” said Houck, vice president of marketing at the 1905 Family of Restaurants. “There’s just some things you don’t mess with.”Next, piles of sliced ham and Swiss cheese are added to the bowl. Both must be chopped into matchsticks. “There’s a specific kind of width to it,” Houck said. “There’s an architecture to the salad that really helps you enjoy it.”Chefs are happy to use turkey or shrimp in place of the pork. Sliced tomatoes are also added, although people sometimes leave them off. Gonzmart said folks at the Columbia call that version the “1903″ salad — named after the year the family’s first saloon opened in Ybor. It burned down and was replaced with the Columbia Restaurant by Casimiro Hernandez Sr. in 1905. Finally, imported Spanish olives are sprinkled in for a burst of brine. Then, it’s showtime. Servers in tuxedos wheel the prepped bowls out to hungry customers. They pull on gloves and soak everything in a zesty vinaigrette.You can buy bottles in the gift shop, or make the dressing fresh — although Gonzmart insists on prepping it a day or two in advance.“People make it and are quick to serve it. You have to allow the ingredients all to merge and blend together,” he said. “The garlic has to be fresh, the garlic has to be crushed, and then you blend it all together.”There’s a flash of squeezed lemon, bright and tart. A generous dash of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce — two big circles swirled around the bowl for each person at the table. The servers aren’t shy. Going through 20,000 bottles a year, the Columbia is the largest consumer of Lea & Perrins worldwide. The president of the company even came to Ybor once to sample the salad. Houck said that customers seem to enjoy the dish more when they get to see it whipped up in front of them. During the pandemic, servers prepared the “1905″ salad from the safety of the kitchen. But people saw brown spots of Worcestershire and thought the lettuce was wilted. Finally, a server makes it rain grated cheese — 10 cranks of Romano per person. The salad is tossed one more time for good measure and then served on chilled plates. Pile on the cracked pepper, unwrap a side of Cuban bread, and life is good.Some get it as a shared starter, something to nibble on while the table waits for paella. But USA Today once named the “1905″ one of the best salads to make a meal out of.That’s how Houck orders it. When he started working for the restaurant group, he ate the dish six times in his first week.“Now people are discovering Tampa’s cool and delicious,” he said. “Bring ‘em. We‘ll feed them salad.”The Columbia Restaurant has locations in Ybor City, St. Armands Circle in Sarasota , the Historic District of St. Augustine , Sand Key in Clearwater and Celebration near Orlando. There is also a Columbia Cafe at the Tampa Bay History Center and Tampa International Airport . Visit columbiarestaurant.com for hours and more information. To make the dish at home, use this recipe from the restaurant: THE ORIGINAL “1905″ SALAD - 4 cups iceberg lettuce, broken into 1½-inch by 1½-inch pieces - 1 ripe tomato, cut into eighths - ½ cup baked ham, julienned 2 inches by ⅛ inch (may substitute turkey or shrimp) - ½ cup Swiss cheese, julienned 2 inches by ⅛ inch - ½ cup green Spanish olives - 1 cup 1905 dressing (recipe below) - ¼ cup Romano cheese, grated - 2 tablespoons Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce - 1 lemonCombine lettuce, tomato, ham, Swiss cheese and olives in a large salad bowl. Before serving, add “1905″ dressing, Romano cheese, Worcestershire and the juice of one lemon. Toss well and serve immediately. Makes two full salads or four side salads. “1905” DRESSING RECIPE - 1/2 cup extra-virgin Spanish olive oil - 4 garlic cloves, minced - 2 teaspoons dried oregano - ⅛ cup white wine vinegar - Salt and pepper to tasteMix olive oil, garlic and oregano in a bowl. Stir in vinegar and season with salt and pepper. For best results, prepare one to two days in advance and refrigerate.

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