Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Or at least one my my pictures has been "borrowed" for an Internet meme:

I'm sure you can figure out which one it is...

For various reasons, I have been unable to get back to the Carolina Renaissance Festival in Huntersville for the past five years or so. Perhaps next year. In the meantime, I have been able to go to the Mythical & Medieval Fest in Socastee last year and this year.

It's definitely a smaller event, but still a nice way to spend an afternoon. In the event, Saturday was the last warm day in November, apparently, and I did not even need a sweater to be out and about on the grounds -- a far cry from this week!

I took in the saucy songs, juggling acts, broad comedy and fire dancers as well as checking out all the vendors. I would say that there seemed to be less local food this year. I had found some good local salsa last year, but did not see that farm booth Saturday.

The Sun News reports that the biker bar "The Rat Hole" has closed, and I infer that the event space for the festival, "RH Acres", was connected with that, so I am not sure if the festival will have a spot to unfold next year. We will have to see. At any rate the show is on for next weekend as well, so if you happen to be in the area, it's worth a look!

I noticed last weekend that the Shell convenience store in Five Points is closed. According to StreetView, it was open as recently as September of 2025, so I'm guessing it probably closed at the end of October. It hasn't been long anyway.

Never pay full price!

Put this one down to the changing craft beer landscape and South Carolina's new bar regulations. As I understand it, the saturation of the craft niche made operating a retail outlet iffy in the first place, while the difficulty of putting a kitchen in this building made transforming into a full restaurant problematic as well. Of at least that's my takeaway from the numerous articles about the closing.

I was not really aware of this place, despite it having been open for eight years, and admit I probably would not have visited knowing it was not a full restaurant.

Columbia Craft Brewing continues to operate as a brewery, and we will have to see what's next for this space.

You can read about in in The Post & Courier here & here, in The State, or on WIS or WLTX.

(Hat tip to commenter Gypsie)

Commenter Payne mentions that this restaurant in Mills Corner just to the left of the old Pig/IGA has closed.

Other commenters in Have Your Say mention that there are still a number of Chen's restaurants in the area, though it is not clear if they are connected. For what it's worth, I believe the Egg Roll Station on Crowson is officially a Chen's.

(Hat tip to commenter Payne)

Commenter Dustin reminded me this morning that I had not done a South Carolina State Fair post this year. I certainly meant to, as I enjoy the Fair Food, neon, taking a video on the chair-lift, the art and just the experience in general. Unfortunately this year, my primary car was out of service, and I thought it would be a bad idea to put a 45 year old car with no door locks in the fair parking lot. Hopefully next year!

In the meantime, for those of you who *did* go, you can use this post to leave your comments.

I was never particularly interested in going to TakoSushi, as the menu didn't sound up my alley, but there are a number of them about, so apparently it works for them. Although in the event, not in Forest Acres, I guess. The State has the closing story here, and say that the place was open for a little more than a year, after replacing Baskin Robbins, which closed in 2022.

The storefront is already in train to be a Jimador Real, which I assume is a smaller version of an El Jimador, though I don't really know.

(Hat tip to commenter Larry)

Orvis was founded in 1856, and impinged very infrequently on my attention over the last 170 years. I had the vague idea it was some sort of L. L. Bean thing, (apparently there was more fishing involved than I expected) and totally missed that fact that a store had opened in Cross Hill Market, taking the place of PlantHouse which closed in March 2024.

Here are State stories on the store announcement, and the store opening. There doesn't yet seem to be on on the closing. The chain announced the grand opening on their Facebook just shy of a year ago.

The closing doesn't really have anything to do with Columbia as a market. The chain is in big trouble and is closing about half their stores (for now).

The "November" closing date is just a guess, given that we are more than half-way through October and the closing sale has already started.

(Hat tip to commenter Larry)

Daniel's Fine Furniture has moved from their location across from the Airport to 1217 Sunset Boulevard in the same little strip which used to house JackSon's Southern Kitchen. They appear to have some sort of sale going on.

Here is the West Metro News on the move.

(Hat tip to commenter Gypsie)