Silver Ring Cafe has been pressing Cuban sandwiches and dishing up its signature chicken and yellow rice meals from its Tennessee Avenue perch on downtown Lakeland’s Munn Park for 35 years. Come Sept. 1, the restaurant will need to find a new space to lease or cease to exist.
“The landlord informed me the other day that my lease is up in August and she is not planning to renew it. She has plans for somebody else” to lease the space, Silver Ring owner Tim Altman said this morning.
Altman, 63, opened the restaurant in 1986 as a franchise of the original 1947 Silver Ring in Ybor City. He said he ideally wants to keep the business open if he can find a new site.
“I’m not sure what’s out there right now in trying to look for another location with what’s going on with the real estate market,” he said. “Customers want it to stay open. A lot of people are disappointed.”
The two-story building at the intersection of Tennessee and Main Street has three ground-floor businesses and is owned by Katherine Lake, who also owns My Office & More, a co-working, office and meeting space that occupies the top floor.
“Their lease expires at the end of August — August 31st — and, yes, it is not being renewed. There is another entity that is going to be moving into that space,” Lake said Thursday. “I did last week touch bases with (Altman) to remind him the lease expires and to let him know it would not be renewed.”
Lake said it was not an easy decision.
Silver Ring is “a long-standing piece of the community. I know a lot of people will be disappointed. At the same time, I’m excited with all the changes happening in downtown Lakeland,” she said.
The building’s other two street-level tenants, Divicious Deli & Coffee Shop and Studio on Main, remain on leases for the foreseeable future, Lake said, noting the hair salon, previously Evolution, has been renovated and is under new ownership.
“It’s time to do something different” with that space facing Munn Park, she said, offering “no details to give at this time” about the prospective new tenant other than it is “a new company that will bring great value to downtown.”
Lake said she expects to reveal the new tenant in “three or four months” and that it will fit in with “the bigger picture with the changes that are coming that will be good for downtown.”
Silver Ring has two full-time employees “who have been with me for a long time” and two part-timers, Altman said.
“I’m very concerned about my employees,” he said. “I’m really worried about them more than myself — and my customers. Some people are very upset we are being run out.”
Altman said he was “pretty much” surprised his lease wasn’t being renewed. “I’ve been leasing here from four different owners since I’ve been (in Lakeland). I wasn’t expecting it, that’s for sure.”
But business is business, he said. “We’ve had some people say we’re going to protest. We don’t want anything like that. (Lake) is making a business decision and I get that,” he said.
Silver Ring’s short menu incorporates recipes from the original cafe in Ybor City, including cold and pressed Cubans with smoked ham, mojo pork, Genoa salami, Swiss cheese, and chicken and yellow rice with black beans dishes, soups and breads made on-site daily.
“It would be 36 years in October” on Tennessee Avenue, Altman said. “We were here when nobody went to Munn Park.”
“It’s always a challenge with leases and long-term commitments,” Lake said, adding she’s a fan of Silver Ring and enjoyed having the restaurant below her office.
“We’re going to miss them,” she said. “Their chicken and yellow rice — you can’t find anything like it in Lakeland.”
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Maybe they can take over the old Red Elephant on S. Florida.
Very sad to read this! Hopefully someone with downtown space will be able to help them! Can’t imagine anything that would be better than Silver Ring!
Hopefully they can move into a nicer spot now and benefit from this move. Perhaps taking up a spot off Lake Morton next to the Library!
I love Silver Ring and hope they find a new location.
If The land lord is getting more money in rent he could of ask for more from this guy .
This is so sad. This is a Lakeland’s history and to net embrace this and not renew the lease is horrible. Lakeland is known for taking care of our own and the owner of so many years deserves better than this. I’m not really sure how the owner of this building can say she will miss them when she is the reason they will no longer be there. I pray Silver Ring continues to stay in business and those dedicated employees continue to have employment. I have eaten there for many years the owner and the staff are dedicated to Lakeland and amazing people.
I ate at silver ring once this past year. It falls short of anything Cuban. The menu is there in part, but the taste is definitely not. I was born in NY of Cuban parents in 1955, way before Castro. I grew up eating Cuban food everyday. Wish I was younger and in better health. I would take over and it would explode with Cuban food and genuine taste. Sorry, but that is the truth! I hope that whatever comes next is genuine.
Just wrong… That’s all.
This Kate Lake lady needs to be removed from Lakeland. Boycott her and her business. Silver Ring Cafe is a staple to our city and she is not.
Mike Schmidt… raising the rent would be a “business decision”… but to just cancel the lease of an established business is heartless… and clearing out an icon of the downtown community is simply politics… catering to another business for the sake of Munn Park is something Bill Mutz and the Muppets (City Commission) would do… like moving the Monument.
Too bad the owner of the building didn’t see fit to renovate the space for The Silver Ring Business. The inside of that place has looked the same since Tim moved in. Bottom line, I guess there’s no loyalty when money is the issue. I will sure miss that place. My family has known Tim since he opened and the women that work there for years and years.