Ybor City Historic District
Tampa's cigar city, on foot
⏱ 2-4 hours👤 All agesFree
Get Tickets
Get Ybor City Tickets
Skip the line · mobile tickets accepted at the door
Ybor City dates to 1886, when Vicente Martinez Ybor moved his cigar-making operation from Key West to what was then scrubland east of Tampa and built a company town around it; other manufacturers, among them Ignacio Haya, set up alongside, and within a few decades the district was turning out hundreds of millions of cigars a year. The Cuban independence movement has deep roots here: Jose Marti visited in the 1890s to raise support among cigar workers, and the steps he spoke from are part of local lore. The immigrant communities built mutual-aid societies, the Centro Espanol, the Cuban Club and the Italian Club among them, that provided clinics, theaters and dance halls. The cigar industry declined with mechanization and the Depression, and much of the district fell into disrepair before preservation and redevelopment brought it back as a National Historic Landmark District. The layers are still legible: factories turned into offices and hotels, social clubs still holding events, and the Cuban sandwich (Tampa's version, with salami) as a living reminder of the mix of cultures.
Visit craft: start at the Ybor City Museum State Park, housed in the old Ferlita Bakery with restored cigar workers' casitas beside it, or the visitor information center, then walk Seventh Avenue and the side streets, looking up at the balconies and tile work. Join a guided walking tour (the Tampa Bay History Center runs them, among others) if you want stories behind the buildings. Eat at the Columbia, or grab a Cuban sandwich and cafe con leche at a bakery. Buy cigars from a shop with rollers working at the bench. Leave before late night if you are not there for the bar scene.
Practicals and fit: just northeast of downtown Tampa, reachable by the free TECO Line Streetcar from Channelside and the Riverwalk; the district is free to explore, with paid parking in garages and lots. Allow two to four hours. To stay inside the district, Hotel Haya on Seventh Avenue is the boutique choice. Fit: history, couples, food lovers, and families in the daytime.
What to Expect
Format
A walkable historic district of cigar factories, social clubs and balconied streets, with cigar shops, a small state museum, historic restaurants and a nightlife scene after dark.
Best Time
Daytime for history and families; evenings for dinner and nightlife, which gets loud on weekends.
Duration
Two to four hours.
Tips
Start at the Ybor City Museum State Park or the visitor center. Take a guided walking tour for the stories. Ride the streetcar from Channelside instead of driving. Leave the chickens alone.
⚡ Quick Picks
Best For
Understanding Tampa's immigrant and cigar history on foot.
Families
Daytime only — chickens, a small museum and Cuban bakeries are a hit; skip the late-night scene.
Couples
A historic dinner at the Columbia and a stroll down Seventh Avenue.
Pair With
The Tampa Bay History Center and a streetcar ride to Channelside.
Time Needed
Two to four hours.
Ready to book Ybor City?
Get Tickets →Frequently Asked Questions
Why is Ybor City called cigar city?
From 1886 it grew into the center of US cigar production, built around factories staffed by Cuban, Spanish and Italian immigrants. A few shops still hand-roll cigars today.
Is Ybor City free to visit?
Yes. The district is free to walk; the Ybor City Museum State Park charges a small fee, parking is paid, and the streetcar from downtown is free.
Is it family-friendly?
In the daytime, yes. At night, particularly on weekends, it becomes a busy bar and club district better suited to adults.
What is the Columbia Restaurant?
A Spanish-Cuban restaurant founded in Ybor City in 1905 and still family-run, famous for its tiled dining rooms, flamenco shows and 1905 salad.
Why are there chickens everywhere?
Feral chickens descended from the neighborhood's old backyard flocks roam the district and are protected by local ordinance, so admire them from a distance.
More Egmont Key Attractions
Browse all →
Tampa Bay History Center
Twelve thousand years of Tampa Bay in one Riverwalk building — first peoples, Spanish explorers, pirates and shipwrecks, cigar city and the cattle coast — with one of the finest map collections in the South.
Henry B. Plant Museum
Tampa's silver-minareted Gilded Age palace — the 1891 Tampa Bay Hotel, where Teddy Roosevelt's era of the Spanish-American War played out on the veranda, preserved as a museum inside the University of Tampa.
Tampa Riverwalk
A free 2.6-mile waterfront path through downtown Tampa — parks, museums, the minarets across the river, waterfront bars, pirate water taxis, and the best evening stroll in the city.