Columbia Restaurant owners Richard and Casey Gonzmart accept the 2005 Distinguished Alumni Award presented posthumously to their father, Dr. Cesar Gonzmart, Stetson class of c.1937. The award was given at the Board of Trustees Dinner held in the Don Quixote room of the historic restaurant in Ybor City, Florida, on May 19, 2005. Cesar Gonzmart born Cesar Gonzalez-Martinez in West Tampa began violin lessons at age six. By his early 20s he was traveling the world as a concert violinist. He changed his name to Gonzmart, using the first part of his parents' surnames, and formed the performing group Cesar Gonzmart and his Continental Orchestra, which played major hotels across the country. He studied violin at Stetson for several years beginning in 1937, and went on to earn a doctorate in music from the University of Havana, Cuba. He married concert pianist Adela Hernandez in 1946, and they performed together through the early 1950s. She was the only child of Carmen and Casimiro Hernandez, Jr., and the granddaughter of Casimiro Hernandez, Sr., who founded the Columbia Restaurant in 1905. In 1953, when her father's health was failing, the Gonzmarts returned to Tampa with their sons, Casey and Richard, to run the restaurant.

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