Nighttime dining during summer at Columbia Restaurant on St. Armands Circle in Sarasota is an indoor/outdoor vibe, with Spanish and Cuban flavors and excellent people watching. Reservations: ColumbiaRestaurant.com 📸: @travelwithtr | Columbia Restaurant

Loved this video by Jessica Diaz of Columbia Cafe on Water Street, only steps from Benchmark Arena: “Come with me to a Tampa Bay Lightning game. “Before every game, I always stop by Columbia Café. Today I ordered a ‘1905’ Salad and a sangria, everything was delicious. The atmosphere was super-relaxed. “Columbia Café is located directly across from Benchmark International, just a five-minute walk to the arena and reachable by streetcar and @piratewatertaxi. Everything is super convenient and perf

We have private, group dining rooms, special holiday menus, an experienced on-site banquet staff and live holiday-themed flamenco performances at the Columbia Ybor City location. We also accept holiday party reservations at our Sarasota, St. Augustine, Celebration, Clearwater Sand Key and the Tampa Bay History Center locations. You can even buy our hand-painted sangria pitchers or cookbooks as gifts for your guests. Reserve by going online: bit.ly/CRGholiday or by calling the individual Columbia

Columbia Restaurant Group's reopenings begin in Sarasota, today at Cha Cha Coconuts and then on Monday at the Columbia Restaurant, both in St. Armands Circle. Cha Cha's is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. Reservations are now being taken at ColumbiaRestaurant.com at all of the Columbia locations. Ulele reservations can be made at Ulele.com. The schedule for reopenings: * Wednesday, May 20 — Ulele in Tampa * Wednesday, May 20 — Columbia Café at the Tampa Bay History Center * Thursday, May 21 —

Columbia has a rich history of servers entertaining their customers, including Joe Roman, the Hall of Famer known as “The Singing Waiter” who serenaded tables (and did magic tricks) for more than five decades. “Anybody at the table could ask him to sing this or that and he would just break out and sing,” former Tampa Mayor Dick Greco told the Tampa Bay Times in 2012 when Mr. Roman passed away at age 84. “He had that kind of personality. He was part of what the Columbia was all about.” In that tr