Before housing Ybor City Food Mart, our historic storefront has held a variety of Tampa businesses, dating back over 100 years! Back in 1915, this building housed S. Agliano and Sons Fish Co., a neighborhood institution that operated in this space until 2005. With the establishment of Ybor City Food Mart in 2019, our team is proud to carry on the legacy of locally owned Tampa Bay businesses in this building and to carry on the tradition of serving our local Ybor City community.
Ybor City is owned by third-generation Cuban Americans. Their grandfather was born here in Ybor City in 1918 to Cuban parents who had immigrated to Tampa, FL, as teens. This was during the wave of Cuban immigrants that started in 1890, as Cuba was seeking independence from Spain. Their great-great-grandfather is featured in a photo with revolutionary José Martí In the Ybor City Historical Museum. He went back to Cuba as a voluteer to fight for independence, where he would meet his death by a bayonet, as the legend goes in the family. Ybor City is rich in immigration culture and was once the cigar capital of the world. They are the first in their family to own a business in Ybor City. This feat would have been unimaginable to their forefathers who worked hard rolling cigars here many years ago.
