A Gathering Of Friends

TAMPA - The din at the West Tampa Sandwich Shop has reached a noon-day crescendo.

Plates clatter. Silverware plinks. Chairs scoot to squeeze in one more friend around the tables. Conversations climax in volume, in English, in Spanish, in Spanglish.

Then - CLANG!!!

For a moment, it's dead silence. All eyes turn to the woman who rang the bell behind the register. María Hernández' eyes zero in on Frank Ferlita's table. She summons him with a scold reserved for someone familiar: "It's your wife!"

Ferlita, 78, takes the call as his tablemates hoot. His twice-a-week mid-morning cafe con leche has drifted into the lunch hour. Time to go home.

Then again, the West Tampa Sandwich Shop has been Ferlita's home away from home for a dozen years. It's where he meets with fellow Sicilian-American buddies he's known since West Tampa Junior High. At many tables, reunions like his take place each day.

The early-morning regulars are so faithful that when owners Willy and Nidia Barrionuevo arrive at 4:40 a.m., they're waiting. Willy hands them the keys. They flip on the lights and warm up the sandwich press for him.

"It's just you feel like home when you get there," Ferlita says. "Everybody knows each other there."

The Barrionuevos have made the place homey. The couple, both of whom came from their native Cuba in 1980, serve up oversized portions of Cuban standards: yellow rice or maduros. Ropa vieja and bistec empanizado. Croquetas fried to the perfect texture, crisp on the outside, fluffy ham filling on the inside.

But ask most customers what brings them in and they say the cafe con leche - that steamed cup of frothy milk with a small pitcher of espresso they can pour to taste.

A trio of Tampa arson investigators - Ray Alcover, Jamie Urso and Mike Zurla - offer that unanimous opinion. They begin most every workday morning here.

"The coffee - that's why we come," said Alcover, 44, a Tampa native who grew up drinking cafe con leche with his Cuban parents.

Urso, 46, is a Tampa native whose Sicilian father and Cuban mother held cafe con leche in high esteem: "It tastes the same as when I was a kid."

Of course, there's more to make the diner feel like home. The walls are like a grandmother's house gone mad, with thousands of snapshots of customers. The owners began taking them when they opened 15 years ago in a smaller place up the street.

"Then the clients would take photos and put them up," Willy Barrionuevo says. "We made frames to put them in and now there are photos of little boys who are now 14 years old."

Somehow, such a tight-knit place manages to welcome newcomers all the time; even the famous, such as actresses Cameron Diaz or Bo Derek.

People of all political stripes are customers. The late Gov. Lawton Chiles was a regular when in town. Rush Limbaugh ate here. Their framed photos sit side-by-side above the wallpaper images of the regulars. Tipper Gore stumped here. So did John Kerry. Most city and county officials, Democrats and Republicans alike, have a place on the wall.

Mike Scionti, the late chairman for Hillsborough's Democratic Party, helped found the West Tampa Mens' Club here. His son, Mike Scionti Jr., is a state representative with his photo on the wall. Mike Sr.'s brother, Tony Scionti, carries on club traditions of charitable donations and frequent reunions at the sandwich shop.

"Everybody comes here for breakfast and companionship, for bull sessions," said Tony Scionti, 74.

On a recent morning, the gathering around his table grew from four to 10. Finally, the group gave up on adding more chairs around the 30-by-30-inch table. They moved another table over to accommodate the group.

The continuous scooting of chairs and tables is a given.

So is the diversity of the crowds. County maintenance workers lunch next to people with Chanel bags and Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses. In the ever-jammed parking spaces and the Barrionuevos' overflow lot down the block, late-model Jaguars and Porsches take their place next to beat-up pickups.

Their owners have two things in common.

Their conversations are loud. Acoustics demand it, what with the clattering of plates and the deafening whoosh of the espresso machines. And everybody respects the ringing of the bell.

"It's the world's loudest coffee shop," Alcover said. "But when the bell rings, you can hear a pin drop in here."

Reporter Karen Branch-Brioso can be reached at