Table Of ContentFROM SALOONS TO STEAK HOUSES
UNIVERSITY PRESS OF FLORIDA
Florida A&M University, Tallahassee
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton
Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers
Florida International University, Miami
Florida State University, Tallahassee
New College of Florida, Sarasota
University of Central Florida, Orlando
University of Florida, Gainesville
University of North Florida, Jacksonville
University of South Florida, Tampa
University of West Florida, Pensacola
FROM
SALOONS
TO
STEAK HOUSES
A HISTORY OF TAMPA
ANDREW T. HUSE
University Press of Florida
Gainesville · Tallahassee · Tampa · Boca Raton
Pensacola · Orlando · Miami · Jacksonville · Ft. Myers · Sarasota
Copyright 2020 by Andrew T. Huse
All rights reserved
Published in the United States of America. Printed on acid-free paper.
25 24 23 22 21 20 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019954513
ISBN 978-0-8130-6640-0
The University Press of Florida is the scholarly publishing agency for the State University
System of Florida, comprising Florida A&M University, Florida Atlantic University, Florida
Gulf Coast University, Florida International University, Florida State University, New
College of Florida, University of Central Florida, University of Florida, University of North
Florida, University of South Florida, and University of West Florida.
University Press of Florida
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To Carol, Howard, and Tim
CONTENTS
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: Boom Town on the Florida Frontier 1
1. The Sunday Wars: Saloons and Recreation 9
2. “Some of the Soldiers Did All Their Fighting in Tampa”: The Spanish-American War 30
3. Theater of Shadows: Vice, Corruption, and Indecency 56
4. Collective Action: Soup Houses, Boycotts, and Cooperatives 85
5. War, Fear, and Bread during World War I 114
6. The Noble Disaster: Prohibition and Speakeasies 143
7. Jook Joints, World War II, and “Venereal Disease” 180
8. A Steak House in the Sky: Bartke’s and the 1950s 206
9. A Seat at the Nation’s Table: Lunch Counter Integration 231
10. Mourning Las Novedades: Tales of Urban Renewal 260
Conclusion 278
Notes 281
Bibliography 309
Index 317
PREFACE
When I first came to Tampa and learned of its history, two main themes impressed me. First,
sleepy Tampa’s influx of cigar factories and their immigrant workforce, beginning in 1886–
1887, made the city a far more colorful and conflicted place than most other Florida cities at
the time.
The establishment of Ybor City in 1885 made Tampa town a new global center for
premium cigar production. A large influx of immigrants from Cuba, Spain, and Italy labored
hard and had their own ideas about recreation, specifically on Sundays. A port town on the
isolated Florida frontier, Tampa was both sought out and condemned as a center of gambling,
prostitution, and violence. Tampa’s diverse population aroused the resentment of nativists
and some progressive activists, but it also created the City of Tampa, founded in 1887, rich
with commerce, cuisine, and working-class culture.
There are many ways to examine the life of a person or city. Traditional history tends to
focus on people in positions of power, wealth, and influence. More recently, however,
historians have employed other approaches to the past, focusing on work, leisure activities,
and popular culture to bring communities to life. Tampa’s unique identity and often
tumultuous past have drawn the attention of some excellent scholars. Most previous research
has focused on ethnic studies, labor, and the cigar industry, but less work exists illuminating
places of recreation and leisure. Such places—cafés, social clubs, cantinas, restaurants, and
bars—have defined Tampa’s culture outside the workplace.
Restaurants and bars serve as sensitive barometers of culture, commerce, and
demographics, providing revealing contexts in which to examine a variety of social issues.
“Going out” challenges normal rules of behavior and blurs distinctions between public life
and private life. It is also through entertainment, cooking, drinking, and dining that
communities vividly express themselves and form a collective identity. Bars and restaurants
have frequently served as battlegrounds for conflicting values. As social laboratories of sorts,
places of public consumption often expose countervailing cultural currents and become
fixtures of conflict themselves.
In addition to the city’s popular culture, I was also impressed by its illicit past, strewn with
tales of organized crime and corruption, resulting in nicknames such as “Little Chicago” and
“Sin City of the South.” While many authors mention Tampa as a permissive “open city,”
none have attempted to explain how and why the city developed in such a way. As I
researched these issues, I concluded that Tampa’s popular culture and early corruption were
entangled. As this book progresses, the city’s corrupt trajectory recedes as a focus but still
connects its history to popular places of consumption.
This book offers ten forays into Tampa’s storied past, all focusing on conflict over various
bars, clubs, and eateries and highlighting the city’s shifting values and social contours. I
begin with public debates over saloons, recreation, and Florida’s sweeping Sunday law from
roughly 1895 to 1902. I then explore lesser-discussed aspects of the Spanish-American War
in 1898, eschewing legends of the “Splendid Little War” for a critical view of camp life in
Tampa that includes price gouging, disease, and racial tension. The story then moves on to
reveal the roots of civic corruption in saloons and Tampa’s love-hate affair with risqué
dancers between 1901 and 1916. The cigar industry, central to Tampa’s history, affords a
focus on collective institutions created by the immigrant workforce and suppressed by local
authorities, including soup houses and cooperative stores. World War I unleashed fierce
nationalism and wartime hysteria, sparking a number of controversies that stymied
commercial bakeries and the local German American Club. Exploring the Prohibition era
reveals the failure of the law through strong but flawed characters, including a police chief, a
speakeasy operator, and a zealous judge. The rise of jook joints and the crackdown on sexual
diseases occupy the chapter devoted to World War II, revealing a Tampa still mired in
corruption and racism. I then trace the impact of the Bartke family, as they imported their
“ultra-modern” steak house from upstate New York to Tampa International Airport in the
1950s. The narrative next examines how young black activists dared to challenge racial
segregation at the city’s lunch counters in 1960. In the final chapter, I trace the stories of Las
Novedades restaurant, Steak ’n Brew, and the El Goya Lounge, which all occupied the same
Ybor City building in the dark days of urban renewal.
Understandably, it is difficult to find reliable sources about discreet places. Saloons,
gambling halls, speakeasies, and jook joints are not known for keeping scrupulous records of
their activities. The soup kitchens and cooperatives that provided sustenance to workers were
ephemeral, rarely lasting longer than the crises they were meant to alleviate. Local
newspapers, despite their biases and flaws, are often the best tools for exploring day-to-day
life. I have augmented this research with other local sources, including City Council meeting
minutes, ordinances, police records, government reports, and so on. The Hillsborough
County Aviation Authority records helped to flesh out the later days of Bartke’s Steakhouse. I
have also drawn from oral history interviews when able, including several I conducted
myself. Working as a librarian in the Special Collections of the University of South Florida’s
Tampa Library has been a great boon to my research, providing me with a variety of
resources, including political papers, organizational records (such as the NAACP), personal
papers (such as the Leo Stalnaker papers and Tampa Life), Bartke’s scrapbook, the Cody
Fowler Papers, and much more. While none of these sources are perfect on their own,
together they provide reliable information on the subjects I explore. I have also relied on a
wealth of secondary sources to reinforce and guide my own research.
As a firm believer in the power of stories, I feel that one of the historian’s most vital
functions is to salvage and/or synthesize compelling stories that tell a larger historic truth. I
hope my humble contribution illuminates as it entertains.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, I would like thank Dr. Gary Mormino for the inspiration and encouragement over the
years. For their reviews and comments, I thank Dr. Robert Kerstein, the Honorable E. J.
Salcines, Dr. Brad Massey, and Rodney Kite-Powell. A special thanks to Dr. Charles
McGraw-Groh for his valuable critiques. Also thanks to Karen Mayo, Carol Elwood, and
Tim Huse for their proofreading and informal reviews. Many thanks to those who sat for
interviews or oral histories, including Manuel Garcia III, Barbara and June Bartke, Clarence
Fort, Dr. Jack Fernandez, Mary Henry, and Crichton and Alice McKay. Jennifer Dietz and the
City of Tampa Archives provided many digitized records that proved useful, especially the
minutes of the City Council.
INTRODUCTION
Boom Town on the Florida Frontier
Aside from Tampa’s natural harbor, railroads became the city’s most important link to the outside world after 1884. Here, a
construction crew clears the way for a railroad. (Tony Pizzo collection, University of South Florida Tampa Special
Collections)
Spain ceded Florida to the United States in 1821, and two years later, the U.S. Army
