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If you think Ybor is wild now, just read on.)

The Columbia Restaurant: El Rey, Pete, and Prohibition

The Columbia acquired one of its most loyal employees quite by accident. Gregorio Martinez worked in a nearby speakeasy during Prohibition. When federal agents stormed the bar, he fled across the street to the Columbia. Already dressed in a tuxedo, he behaved as if he worked there. Amused and impressed by his composure in such circumstances, management hired Martinez as a waiter.

Worried that the feds were still looking for him, Martinez grew a mustache. Coupled with his customary grace, it made him look exactly like King Alfonso XIII of Spain, earning him the nickname “El Rey” (The King).

The Roaring Twenties lived up to their name. The restaurant was no longer on the Florida frontier, but at the limits of law enforcement. Because the Columbia lay just inside Tampa city limits, brawlers, criminals, and bootleggers had only to run across 22nd Street to escape the jurisdiction of city police. Small hollows in the columns of the bar held stashes of hooch for special customers.

The Twenties roared when a group of civic leaders and businessmen held a memorable banquet at the Columbia. A doctor and a wholesaler took El Rey to the side and asked him to participate in a prank. After being seated, the doctor insulted the wholesaler, who sprang from his seat and shouted back. As the shocked party looked on, the doctor pulled a pistol and fired in the air. Doing his part, El Rey turned off the lights. Amid a clattering commotion, the guests fumbled in the dark to the exits. When the lights came up again, only the antagonists remained—everyone else had run to avoid the violence. It seems justified that the two men would be stuck with the bill after their prank.

Pete Scaglione was a Columbia bartender never to be forgotten. A firm and talented barkeep, he devoted himself to his craft and the Columbia. Beginning in 1927, Pete worked at the bar and helped out in the back of the house—with the smugglers. When asked about his alleged Cuban rum smuggling by reporters years later, Pete never denied it. He just smiled and changed the subject. Some even say he distilled the Columbia’s hooch himself.

Prohibition made law-breakers out of all kinds of citizens. Take a certain federal judge who will go unnamed. One night during the dry years, he sat at the bar and intoned, “As an officer of the court, I know it is illegal to drink under the American flag.” Pete quickly replaced the U.S. flag with the Cuban one. The judge then continued, “Ah well, let’s drink a toast to Cuba.” Every drinker raised glasses with the judge that night.

Pete spent many nights with regrettable company. He got into enough barroom fisticuffs to learn one important lesson: Always wear a clip-on tie instead of the real thing. If a brawler grabs a clip-on tie, it will simply come off. Wearing the real thing produces an unpleasant result: The patron can pull an unwitting bartender over the bar by his neck. Pete always preferred unassuming short ties.

Like the speakeasy across the street, the Columbia sold illegal alcohol and needed cool heads in the house should the feds raid—and they did. The family still has a search warrant dating back to 1932. Congress repealed the fruitless Prohibition laws a year later, ending the game of cat and mouse. Trucks, rail cars, and steamships converged on Tampa delivering beer, wine, and spirits.

(Reprinted with permission of the University Press of Florida.)