The Rose Garden Café was a seasonal business and was closed when this photo was taken in 1928. The building has a diverse history, starting as the Stovall Building. Stovall was the publisher and editor of the Tampa Tribune. The Tribune moved in around 1920, but as the paper grew, it moved to the larger Wallace Building across Twiggs Street. Tarr Furniture took the second floor of the building temporarily in April of 1925 when Marshalls Some Place to Eat restaurant moved into the first floor. In 1928, the Rose Garden Café set up shop in the Marshalls store. On Christmas day 1929, they made local history when safe crackers used nitroglycerin to blow their safe apart, stealing $1500.  The Tribune Publishing Company foreclosed on Rose Garden in 1929, liquidating their stock and selling their equipment.

Stovall put his building up for sale in 1938 for $30,000, and it remained on the market until 1942. Further controversy ensued when a liquor license was granted in 1942 against city ordinances about the density of bars. Questions were also leveled about the characters of the two Miamians applying for the license, and the bar never opened. Later that year, the Palm Cafeteria did and ran until 1949. The building has since been demolished, and construction has begun on a 55-story condominium tower.   

 © Chip Weiner. All rights reserved