The Inn at El Reloj

The Inn at El Reloj is an 11-room boutique hotel that J.C. Newman Cigar Company is building into the restored 1910 Sanchez y Haya building in Ybor City, across from its own El Reloj Cigar Factory. Paired with a ground-floor restaurant and cigar lounge, it is targeting a late-2026 opening after an $18.5 million historic restoration.

The place

The Inn at El Reloj occupies the restored 1910 Sanchez y Haya building at 1601 E. Columbus Drive in Ybor City, directly across the street from J.C. Newman's own El Reloj Cigar Factory and its landmark clock tower.

The concept

This is a family-run, independent project from J.C. Newman, the Ybor City cigar company, which is restoring the 115-year-old Sanchez y Haya building — originally built to house and feed cigar workers and visitors, and later home to a Prohibition-era speakeasy — into an $18.5 million mixed restaurant-and-lodging project. An 11-room boutique inn will occupy the second floor, with balcony views over El Reloj and downtown Tampa, above a ground-floor restaurant and cigar lounge. At just 11 keys, it is a scale apart from Water Street's towers: a single-owner, heritage-driven micro-hotel rather than a branded chain property, aimed at travelers drawn to Ybor City's cigar history rather than convention business. The project has already moved past at least one earlier target date, with restoration reported in its final stages in late 2025 and a Thanksgiving 2026 opening now targeted.

Dining & wellness

Elaine's Restaurant and Stanford's Cigar Club are planned for the ground floor, run by the J.C. Newman family alongside the inn; both are positioned as extensions of the adjacent El Reloj Cigar Factory experience.