We had a wonderful time at the Columbia. From the table side sangria to the 1905 salad the presentation was awesome. We had the Paella with Seafood and it was perfectly cooked. Service was great. If in St. Augustine, it's worth the trip. Advise making reservations though. read more

Stopped in for dinner one night but a two hour wait sent us elsewhere . However returned the next afternoon for a late lunch and it was worth the wait . Delicious , fast service . I had the 1905 salad with black bean soup - please please get the salad , it is amazing ! Also each diner gets their own large piece of Cuban bread that is divine . We were only here a couple of days but will be returning for work in another month and will definitely be back to The Columbia ! read more

Great birthday spot had calamari and double steaks with flan for desert. Nice vibe and great spot

This was my first Cuban food experience and if I lived closer I would be here all of the time!! Our waiter; Joey was the BEST!! He was very attentive and since it was my first Cuban experience he helped me make perfect choices. I had the white sangria, which was so delicious, I had a second glass. We had 1/2 house salad and 1/2 Cuban sandwich and split the lobster flatbread. They were all incredible!!! Because we were celebrating...Joey treated us to our flan for dessert. This was served with mint leaves and a sliced strawberry. This was one of the best meals I can remember!! EVERYTHING was absolutely DELICIOUS!! read more

The Columbia - Spanish Near Me - St Augustine, Florida

See all

We love Columbia and have tried every one but this was our least favorite. 1905 salad is always a favorite of ours but it was a little off for this visit. Not as chilled as it should have been. We ordered the tapas, Gombas, lobster flatbread and stuffed mushrooms, and they were great. Daughter had the Cuban which is always delicious. Especially the bread which they serve to everyone beforehand as well. read more

A historic and authentic Cuban restaurant (since 1905) in heart of St. Augustine. Warm bread to start, fabulous hearts of palm salad and delicious fish. A great overall dining experience in a beautiful setting. read more

Good food, location and ambiance. But overrated given the mediocre service, quality and spotty service when compared to the prices. Servers are very friendly but beverage and food service is slow. read more

This restaurant has a good history dating almost 100 years. The restaurant is huge (but popular) and in the heart of the city. We liked the ambience and our server who gave us good suggestions. However, the restaurant had limited Vegetarian options and the food was okay. We tried the black bean paella and a desert. read more

This is an absolutely gorgeous restaurant! I was totally impressed by the ambience and decor. The food was a slight miss for me. I ordered the paiea and I am no expert on paiea but from what I understand there should be an element of crispy rice, which I didn't get. that being said the rice was flavorful but every protein on the plate was over cooked (think dried up mussels and clams the size of dimes and tough chicken). The only element on point was the calamari which we happened to also order for our appetizer and it was tender and crispy with the perfect amount of salt and accompanied by a yummy creamy sauce. The bread and salad were great and portions were big, but honestly there are too many good restaurants to try in the area for me to go back. Oh, and FYI i sweated through dinner...it was HOT in there! read more

1905 Salad is a classic. Then get the Chicken and yellow rice and Palomillo. A perfect meal. Service is slow, so don't go here for a quick meal. But if you are looking for ambiance on the bustling St Charles St, this is a good choice. read more

Terrible service tonight. Salad was forgotten, food was over an hour arriving and cold, water glasses were never filled. So sad, used to be such a great restaurant but wait staff who are overwhelmed to the point that they are not conscientious or open should not be allowed to work without their trainer. read more

This place belongs in St. Augustine. Such a cool city and the Columbia fits in like the gem it is. The Tile work was beautiful, everywhere I looked I saw something cool very pleasing to the eyes. I'm personally not familiar with Colombian food but I think this place sets the bar. The waitress gave great recommendations and everything we had was delicious.. We started with the fried calamari and the tableside made sangria. For entrees we had the mahi-mahi,red snapper and the grouper.. I also had the best Manhattan that I ever tasted.. The service was awesome/funny/attentive. We had a spectacular time. I had to buy the cookbook on the way out, so I can learn how to recreate some of these meals again. This is a historic restaurant, with other locations in Florida. Some of the newspaper articles on the walls they say the Colombia has retained some of their staff for decades, that's a sign of great restaurant! read more

See all

My family and I went here on a Friday night and we really weren't impressed. Two filet mignons were ordered by our party. Both were ordered medium. One came out extremely cold in the center, with a bright red center, the other came out a very tiny amount of pink, what I would consider medium well. Completely different cooks and both were far from medium. The prime New York strip sirloin was subpar, absolutely not worth $39. Queso fundido tapa was pretty good, but the toasted bread that came with it was rock hard. I was told that the eggplant was good, but I did not try it myself. The best part of our meal was the free Cuban bread they serve with butter. Left feeling unsatisfied and that we didn't get what we paid for. read more

We eat here every time we come to St. Augustine. The ambiance, the food, the service - it's all amazing. Delicious Spanish cuisine. Definitely make reservations when visiting this historic city! read more

We LOVE this restaurant and always bring visitors here and are never disappointed. The Cuban bread is excellent most of the time (occasionally dried out). We enjoy the Spanish bean soup. The fried Calamari is excellent but the baked is awful (tasted like plastic). Most entrees are of excellent quality. The restaurant is gorgeous (a smaller version of the original in Tampa) there is nothing else like this and a trip to St Augustine is not complete with a lunch here. The Sangria was absolutely delicious. read more

Sadly this is not Ybor City. Seated at 6:45. Water at 7:15. Wine order(bottle) and dinner placed at 7:20. Left at 7:42- still no wine.

The best dinner I've ever eaten at a restaurant. The sangria and salad are made table side and are the real deal. I had the salmon and pretty close to licked the plate clean. Gorgeous architecture and ambience, a place to celebrate and have a nice dinner out. The bread is the best bread I've had in the United States . read more

Food is very good. Wait staff are professional, competent, and friendly, head hostess is grumpy, unfriendly, and unkind. We have dined here many times, and, each time, the same head hostess with the same rude behavior just about ruins are entire experience. Today, we had to wait for approximately 25 minutes, so I had an opportunity to observe her more closely. Not only was she unkind to customers and very snippity with them, she was rude to her staff and quite impatient with them. Same old, same old...... she has not changed since we first encountered her...how many years?. So, we had a great waiter and the food was okay. But this is it! Miss Flora has finally beaten me down, and my husband and I will not be returning to this good restaurant. read more

Had lunch there today. Table of 5. 2nd time visiting a Columbia restaurant. 1st time in Ybor city. I'm sorry but I do not get the popularity of this chain. Nice decor but I'm here for the food and it was very disappointing again. Overly seasoned, mediocre food. Garlic in the black beans and rice was so overpowering that it ruined the dish. Pork was bland with some type of re-warmed gravy. Another diner had the eye-round which was tough and tasteless. 2 other diners had the Mahi which was overcooked and dry. 2 mojito's had to be sent back and remade. $168 w/ tip later.... btw - checked bill a little closer after we left and was charged for (2) Malibu Bay Breeze's and only ordered one. Sorry Columbia, still don't get it... read more

I've been the the Columbia a handful of times, however this was my first time at this location. Our waiter was just plain awful. Was not attentive or engaging whatsoever. She had 3 tables... yet was never anywhere to be found. I believe our water glasses ran dry and were not re-filled about 3x throughout the course of the meal. Our food came about 5-8 mins after our appetizers/tapas- needless to say we were barely midway through enjoying them. Biggest pet peeve!!! Next- the runner brought over our meals. She was so angry for whatever reason- that she took it out on my salad & drowned it with cheese... I mean I love cheese but my salad was literally swimming in it. It was so overbearing I could barely eat it. Probably would not return to this location. Unfortunate. read more

The signature salad is DELIC! Wowzers. My 13 year old even said it is the best salad he has ever had!! Very pretty environment. You should def. stop in! Husband and son and Cuban sandwich and enjoyed it. I wasn't crazy about my steak... Even though the waitress said it is most popular: looked like ground beef and was hard to chew. I still like the place but will order differently next time! read more

Very inefficient management staff. Although we had reservations, there were dozens of tables, we waited and waited until we found the manager. I hope the food is worth it. read more

I love this place! Evey time I pop into St Augustine I come here. Service can be a hit or miss so I am deducting one star for that. The food is great! I don't have a Columbia near me so everytime I visit I get the same thing (call me boring but it's delish!) I get the arroz con pollo Valencia. It is so good! The chicken and rice are fantastic! They bring it table side on a clay dish! Juicy tender chicken cooked with the yellow rice. It's awesome! During dinner time this dish takes about 30 minutes to prepare and they do warn you but I love it! I usually order their original salad to go with it and sweet plantains! Overall I highly recommend! read more

Have eaten here since I was a kid and my favorite entree has always been the half and half: half Cuban sandwich and half 1905 salad. The only downside is that each server makes the 1905 salad at the table so there is the potential for the server to add too much olive oil, Worcestershire, etc. but most of the time it's made perfectly and is usually delicious. The service is always a toss of the dice: I have had more than one rough experience. Overall I recommend this place to anyone looking for authentic Cuban sandwiches. read more

My wife and I went here for our Wedding Anniversary dinner. We had reservations so when we arrived, we were immediately sat. It took quite some time for our server to get to us. We thought at one point we were forgotten. We ordered Scallop Casimiro for an appetizer and it arrived hot and tasted great. For dinner my wife ordered Cannelloni De Langosta and I ordered Pollo Riojana. It took our food more than 30 minutes to be served to us. My wife's dish arrived piping hot and it tasted very good just as we expected based on the ratings. My meal arrived and looked less than appealing and this is when it all went down. I took a bite of my chicken and it was cold, maybe luke warm but most certainly it was not up to required food safety standards for temperature. It was coated in a marinara that lacked any kind of taste and had a very dark appearance. I then gave my wife a taste to see what her thoughts were. She agreed it was cold especially for just being served as if it just sat while waiting for her meal to get ready. It took us some time to obtain our servers attention. She finally came over and we told her of my dilemma. She took my plate and stated she would get this issue resolved. Less than five minutes later she brings my dish out. The first thing I notice was it appeared to be the same piece of chicken that I sent back the first time. The server then confirmed my thoughts. She stated they warmed it up for me and you could tell by the dried out look. I asked her if she was kidding and she said no. I advised her that this is something I would expect from an Olive Garden or some fast food chain but certainly not for this type of establishment. She then snatched the plate off the table and walked away. Sometime later a manager came out with a new plate but by this time my wife had already finished eating. He stated an overzealous crew member decided to just warm the food up instead of making a new one. The new plate he brought me was half the portions of the first plate. The dish was hot this time around however, my chicken was very small, the rice was dry and had hard pieces in it and my veggies consisted of three small cherry tomatoes and three stalks of asparagus. The price of $24.00 for this meal was certainly over priced at best and certainly lacked any kind of culinary skills. After the manager brought out my food, the waitress disappeared. We could not get drink refills; we couldn't get any help at all. We finally had to request her from the hostess to get our drinks refilled. Once our drinks were refilled, she brought us our check even though we were still eating and didn't come back until I had placed my payment in the sleeve. This visit left a lot to be desired and fell very short of expectations especially since it was for our anniversary. We have eaten here once before and had a great meal but the same cannot be said this time. While there were certainly good aspects of the meal the cold food, bad attitude and the manager who blamed the crew did not sit well with either of us. read more

Too much hype over this 105 year old Spanish restaurant, especially after a 90 min wait. Ordered a tapas mix which really is just made up of a seafood dip, calamari and meat balls. All of which was over salted or under(how can anyone under season fried calamari??) I could not taste Spanish cuisine at all. The other order was the house salad... with had all our fresh veggies swimming heavily in the dressing. Lastly, it was the service. The waitress was so fake and spoke like a psychic, replying to every comment/order I made to "match". It definitely left a bad ending to my amazing trip to St. Augustine. Maybe I need another drink from the Fountain of Youth to wash the terrible food away. Overall, Columbia Restaurant is way to overly priced for the quality of food. read more

My husband & I just love going to this restaurant when visiting St. Augustine. The atmosphere is lovely and one time I requested to be seated downstairs near the fountain and that's exactly where they seated us. I have never been disappointed in the delicious food nor the friendly wait staff. Even though the restaurant is in a tourist area we have found the food and service to be consistently good. Our favorite salad is the 1905, a long time favorite of ours and the gift shop is fun to visit too. read more

Interesting restaurant, clean and has fairly quick service. Reasonable prices, with a varied Cuban / Seafood menu. The Cuban bread is wonderful and served warm. I would recommend ordering the White Sangria to drink, it looks scrumptious. The Seafood Enchiladas and my husband's grilled grouper sandwich were both delicious. We split one order of the bread pudding with rum sauce, which was more than enough for two people. The rum sauce had great flavor and a hint of the rum. We will certainly be back. read more

The Columbia - Fountain in the center of the first floor dining room of the Columbia Restaurant. - Spanish Near Me - St Augustine, Florida

Dear Lunch Goer, We ordered two children's menue items, I ordered the steak for my son and the Macaroni and cheese for my friend's son. The steak was CUBED and my son had to be forced to eat it. (for a dollar more I can get him the kids' steak at longhorn that is actual steak) The Mac and Cheese was just as meh. The shrimp wrapped in bacon that I ordered was so thickly battered that I couldn't taste the bacon. Service was slack at best. The best part of the meal was the 1905 Salad, the bread at the beginning of the meal, and the Sangria. There are so many other eateries in St. Augustine where you can really enjoy the fresh seafood of a coastal town with flavor without the over priced entrees. Skip It. read more

I'm an absolute fan of Spaniard food and have several cookbooks originating from Spain. My Grandfather was Spaniard so my Grandmother cook very authentic. We ate here because they claimed to be authentic but they are not. STAY AWAY FROM THE PAELLA VALENCIALA! It is tasteless and the ingredients are not the original recipe which includes lobster. It should have clams not oysters. The service was fantastic and prompt. But I would not eat the food for the price they charge. If you are looking for "Americanized" Spanish food, then go ahead and overspend your money. It seems that St Augustine restaurants in the historic district either have great food with bad service OR bad food with great service. I only wished they had a truly authentic restaurant, with true period menus like when you visit historic Williamsburg. But I love St Augustine! read more

Simply put, deliciously amazing! Dinner of the year, and one of my top 3 restaurants to dine at! The Pollo Riojana is a chicken breast lightly breaded with Cuban breadcrumbs, homemade tomato sauce and melted cheese. This chicken doesn't need a knife to cut it because your fork melts right through! Unbelievable! The fresh made Cuban bread with Spanish bean soup for dipping will be the best you ever had. Wow, I wish I lived closer! read more

See all

The Columbia Restaurant provides a sophisticated atmosphere & exquisite food. Some of the waiters/waitresses come off as rather awkward, but the overall experience is worth your money. read more

Food was good. Service was meh. Next time we'll pass on the sangria and drink beer. The sangria was only OK and a beer will have 10 times the alcohol. read more

Great environment. Excellent food. Loved the service, fast and very nice. The price is great. Very well served. Tried their famous salad, it was really good. Didnt liked their american coffee, it tastes like tea. The strawberry dessert was amazing. The key lime pie not too impressive. I would definitely recommend this place for anyone looking for a good hangout place and great food. read more

Friendly to vegetarians? Very! Reminds me of Spain and all of the flavors I have missed from my childhood, I had a wonderful experience here. The vegetarian paella was absolutely beautiful, using vegetable saffron broth instead of the traditional chicken, which I found very mindful and respectful for those with dietary differences. I would have given this restaurant 5 stars but the prices were a little much for me, I have a hard time paying $10 for a tortilla de España; however the prices come with the atmosphere of the restaurant, as well as it being downtown St. Augustine. Good food, good wine, just bring the good company yourself! read more

I have been to the Columbia many times and have never been disappointed. Today I went for lunch and we had a 1905 salad, crab and corn fritters, and paella for two. The only thing I can say is everything was absolutely perfect, perfect, perfect! We enjoyed every second. Wonderful service, attentive and knowledgeable. When in Saint Augustine you must eat here! read more

I dont know why the cook send that plate to the tabke. When i taste it was crunchy not tender. As i flip it it was burn. I had to call the manager so he fix the problem. He apologize and make the dish again. I lost my apetite by the time he brough the dish the other people finish eating. I took a pic of the eggplant dish. What a shame that i couldnt upload so you can see it. read more

The Columbia - Here is the pic. - Spanish Near Me - St Augustine, Florida

The white champagne sangria is the best. We love this restaurant enough to travel from Gainesville to enjoy this wonderful cuisine. Happy Mother's Day mom (91) and me!!!! Treat yourself today. read more

The Columbia - Spanish Near Me - St Augustine, Florida

Went here on our family visit to St Augustine, food was good but not amazing. It was a good experience but the food was nothing to brag about. We have had much better food in this town, however service was good. It's a nice Spain/Cuban food themed place, prices are fair (Compared to Miami) Not rushing back but can't say it wasn't good either.. read more

This place gets one star because im required to rate it at least that. The first sign should have been a no wait restaurant in a bustling town on a friday night. We were seated in the courtyard, and in the very back near stored serving trays and what seemed to be the waiter hangout room. Our server greeted us after about 5 minutes. We promptly received a couple waters for me and my husband. We waited another 10 minutes for his mojito and a few more for bread. We ate our bread and my husband sat with an empty mojito glass by the time the bread was gone. . . And all the way until we left. This is when we started to wonder if this place was actually interested in making money. We sat in the dining area waiting for our server to take our order which she eventually did. While waiting for our food we noticed a couple that was seated after us and was already done with their meal. Our food finally arrived and these too were subpar. My shrimp wrapped in bacon and deep fried fell apart when I bit into them. No crunch and with very thick breading. I had to ask for the aioli that was supposed to come with it. My husband chose the filet cooked medium rare, potatoes and veggies. A steak knife was not provided, i guess they figured he'd use the butter knife. His steak was medium and not medium rare. I asked for him to send it back but he did not want to start the waiting process all over again. During our rather lengthy and unsatisfying dinner a tray of dirty dishes and glasses piled up by our table in that lovely storage area. Servers seemed to be hanging out in the space behind us. Our overall experience was not only disappointing but we feel bad for the family that owns Columbia. We use to enjoy many delicious meals with wonderful service but it seems things are changing. Hopefully this was isolated, however from the reviews I've been reading, it likely not. We left spending about half of what we normally do in a restaurant like this. read more

The Columbia - This is one of the trays of dirty glasses which was not taken back by the few servers that were too busy on their phones - Spanish Near Me - St Augustine, Florida