Ybor City's Last Cigar Factory Is Still Rolling

Built in the 1880s by cigar manufacturers who recruited Cuban, Italian, and Spanish workers and created a neighborhood dense enough to produce its own language — a Spanish-Italian-English mix called Tampeno you can still hear in the coffee shops if you arrive early.

La Segunda Central Bakery on 15th Street has been baking Cuban bread since 1915 — long crusty loaves pressed with palmetto leaf. The smell at four AM is the neighborhood's alarm clock. Seventh Avenue is the main artery, brick-paved, ironwork balconies, cigar shops alongside galleries. The Columbia Restaurant at 2117 East 7th has served Spanish-Cuban food since 1905 — the 1905 Salad, tossed tableside with garlic dressing that should be classified as a weapon, is the city's claim.

The J.C. Newman Cigar Company on 16th is the last cigar factory still operating in Ybor. Watch hand-rollers work with speed and precision that makes the craft look effortless. Buying a cigar from the place that made it, in the neighborhood that invented the industry, is the kind of authentic that can't be faked.