USF’S ANDY HUSE TALKS COLUMBIA RESTAURANT

Discusses his latest book about the history of the restaurant

TAMPA, Fla. (Nov. 2, 2009) – For more than 100 years, people passing the corner of 7th Avenue and 22nd Street have seen the recognizable tiled walls of the Columbia Restaurant.

A staple of historic Ybor City’s past, the Columbia Restaurant has recently been celebrated in a book by USF librarian, Andy Huse. On Wednesday, Nov. 4, Huse will discuss that book at a USF Humanities Institute event.

Huse’s recently published The Columbia Restaurant: Celebrating a Century of History, Cultures, and Cuisine, is a trip through more than a century of Columbia Restaurant history. The restaurant, owned by the Gonzmart family, is showcased through detailed photographs, recipes and more.

“The Gonzmart family wanted a comprehensive history of their restaurant written as they reached the restaurant’s centennial in 2005,” Huse said. “I had been writing about historic restaurants for some time, and had collected a good deal of research on the Columbia. … The following year, the Gonzmarts asked me to write the book they had been planning.”

Huse, whose primary research interests are Floridian and Tampa history, was granted permission to study the Columbia Restaurant’s archives for this project. The book details his intriguing finds, including pictures and descriptions of letters and photos from the restaurant’s early years.

“Conducting interviews with the family and employees for the USF library’s Oral History program was my favorite part of the process,” Huse said. “The transcripts provided a treasure trove of material that complemented the archival collection wonderfully.”

Huse, who works in the library’s Florida Studies Center and Special Collection Department, also conducts interviews for the library’s Oral History Program. In 2005 – the 100th anniversary of the restaurant – the Gonzmarts donated a collection to USF’s Tampa Library Special Collections.

“I like the idea of bringing together so many different elements of foodways: family, community, ethnicity, cookery, national trends, biography, and so on,” Huse said. “I hope people who have never heard of the restaurant will be able to enjoy the book.”

Huse’s work with the Columbia Restaurant is also an extension of his love for Florida’s and Tampa’s culinary history. In 2000, he co-authored The Seabreeze by the Bay Cookbook and is currently writing a social history of Tampa, focused primarily on the area’s restaurants.

A two-time University of South Florida (USF) graduate, Huse has master’s degrees in history (2000) and library and information sciences (2005). Huse has been an active historian for USF, acting as the primary research for University of South Florida: The First Fifty Years, published in 2006.

In 2003 he successfully nominated USF's antebellum plantation house, Chinsegut Hill, to the National Register of Historic Places.

“Huse’s book and lecture are wonderful instances of the increasing interaction between and mutual support of USF and the community it is part of,” said Dr. Silvio Gaggi, Director of the Humanities Institute. “Andy, as author and speaker, is especially qualified to support such interactions because he is, simultaneously, a USF librarian, one of its graduates, and an individual deeply committed to preserving Tampa’s history, culture and architecture.”

On Wednesday, Nov. 4, Huse will discuss his latest book about the Columbia Restaurant at the Grace Allen Room of the USF library. This event, hosted by the Humanities Institute, will begin at 2:30 p.m. A reception will precede the event at 2 p.m. For more information, please contact Melanie Formentin at 974-3657 or formenti@cas.usf.edu.

The Humanities Institute’s primary mission is to promote the presence of the humanities at USF. In addition to supporting humanities-focused research, the Institute hosts a variety of lectures and discussions to encourage intellectual exchange in the USF community. Please visit us on the Web at humanities-institute.usf.edu.

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