Stopped in the other day at the new location for Brix, the “Euro bistro” that had opened in 2007 in a small space on the ground floor of the Metropolitan condominiums, across the street from Lake Eola.
Back then, Brix was trying to be hip and trendy. The focus of the menu was fondue, something that puts a severe limit on one’s ability to be hip and trendy. There was also a premium focus on wines. Brix, after all, is a term for the amount of sugar in wine.

Columbia, the oldest restaurant in Florida, is celebrating its anniversary Sunday by offering limited menu items at laughingly low prices. And you don’t have to go to Ybor City, the original location, to take advantage. The deal is good at the Celebration location Sunday, September 21, from noon to 7 p.m.
Some of the available menu items include: soups to be sipped for 50 cents; chicken and yellow rice is $2.95; boliche is $2.95; sangria is 95 cents; and flan is half a buck. A couple of rules: reservations will not be accepted (take something to read while you wait), and no takeout.

Columbia claims to be 103 years old but is actually a couple of years older (they always lie about their age). After many years of observing 1905 as the date the restaurant first opened in Tampa’s Ybor City, owner Richard Gonzmart discovered a reference to the restaurant in December of 1903. But with “since 1905” plastered all over the menus and business cards, the Gonzmart family just decided to keep that quiet. Too bad — 1903 prices would probably be cheaper than 1905!
Columbia likes to thnk of itself as a Spanish restaurant, but its menu has more ties to Cuba. And much of the menu takes liberties with tradition. My experiences with the restaurant have been spotty. But give me 95 cent sangrias and I can be very fogiving.
Columbia is at 649 Front St., Celebration. Click here for the official Web site. (No, not there, here.)

You know things are tough when restaurants are worried about holiday bookings. I’m not saying that Park Plaza Gardens is scared, but it seems odd this early in the game to be offering incentives. But maybe they just want to be certain their holiday schedule is full.
Anyway, if you book your holiday party before October 15, and schedule it at PPG between November 15 and December 30, the Park Avenue fine diner will throw in a free champagne toast. It doesn’t say which champagne, and I’m only assuming the offer is for everyone in your party. But if you’re going to schedule a holiday party, a free champagne toast is better than a kick in the pants. Unless we’re talking Cooks, then it’s “I get no kick from champagne.”
And if your company usually has a holiday party but has decided to forego one this year, drop me a note — we’ll keep a running tally.

There were some glitches — servers would put the devices in their aprons without locking the keypad and would inadvertently send food orders to the kitchen. In those early days, it wasn’t unusual to see plates of food on the serving line sit there for long periods of time.That’s because they hadn’t been ordered.
So I wasn’t surprised when I visited that original Seasons 52 and saw a waiter using an old-fashioned pad and pen to take an order. But it turns out the Dardeneers haven’t given up on the technology completely. Seasons’ leader, George Miliotes, told me the restaurant was preparing to change to a different manufacturer for the devices. The old handhelds cost somewhere around $1400 — each! The new ones about a thousand less. So, until the switch-over, waiters without devices were left to, um, their own devices.

The former Sam Snead’s space in downtown Orlando is currently undergoing renovations and is expected to reopen next month as 310 Park South Lakeside. Technically the restaurant is located in a high-rise building across Central Boulevard from Lake Eola, but who wants to call their restaurant 310 Park South Across-From-The-Lake? And when you’re already using a name that indicates an address several miles away, what difference does proximity to the lake make?