Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Well, this is a shame. Rosso was the follow-on operation in this corner of Trenholm Plaza to Tuesday Morning, and as you can see from the shots above, the space was completely gutted and remodeled in preparation for Rosso's arrival.

The place was a bit more upscale than I am, but over the years I liked to sit on the patio and have the Margherita Pizza (they didn't really have "normal" pizzas) while reading and watching the people go by. They often did have very good soups as well. If they had any weaknesses, it was that the bread was often some sort of rolls rather than something fresh baked and that they liked to monkey around with the Creme Brulee: No I don't want raspberry lemon-peel Creme Brulee or whatever, I want Creme Brulee Creme Brulee.

The place sold a few years ago, and went slightly more upscale with individual cloth towels in the bathroom. At that point, it also exhibited one of the warning signs, when the hours were changed to a significantly earlier closing. After that, I was rarely able to make it any more though I was hoping I would get a chance to revisit sometime during the Spring. Hopefully they will find a new spot.

(Hat tip to commenter Beth)

Bodysmith was the follow-on operation in this former Food Lion plaza to Blockbuster Video. Now the whole strip is being upfitted, and I believe someone said a Planet Fitness will be going in. At any rate, Bodysmith is gone with all the other tenants (if any were left). It appears that there are other Bodysmith locations in the area, but it's not clear to me if this location moved.

I first did a closing for this site when it had just finished being Nicks Citgo as can be seen in the first picture above. After that, it reopened as an Exxon without a name on the marquee at all, at least at first. At any rate, by the time it was torn down in November 2018, it was Quick Stop & Go III. Now the building has been completely razed (along, I believe, with the adjacent Seven Oaks Auto Repair & Tires) and is apparently being rebuilt as a Circle K.

The first seven (excellent) pictures here are provided courtesy of commenter Heath.

This Circle K location first stuck in my mind some years ago when I stopped and noticed that the Subway restaurant in the back was clearly built in what was once a automated car wash slot, complete with a guide lane now leading nowhere.

I am a fan of the current round of Circle K rebuilds. The new stores are attractive inside and not at all cramped, plus they have nice bathrooms, which works in their favor on long drives. My cousin was touting Florida's Wa-Wa stores at Thanksgiving, and I think that is the kind of thing the new Circle Ks are targeted at. Of course, some of the older plots won't be large enough to do it.

(Hat tip to lots of folks, possibly commenter Arthur was first. And big thanks to commenter Heath for the pictures!)

Happy Valentines, Columbia!

Vibes Restaurant was priming to open when I took those first two shots, apparently in March 2018, for the Dimp's closing. If you click on the street address tag below, you will see that this building has been a number of things over the past decade, with none of them sticking very long. Hopefully Lamb's Bread will have better luck. It's certainly a new concept for what has been mostly a diner.

Although I go into Dollar General with some frequency, I don't believe I have been in a Family Dollar since 2015. Of course that's mostly because there is a DG in Ravenwood. At any rate, as I recall it, this one on Broad River Road across from the new mini-Wal-Mart was fairly new. I can only speculate that having the Wal-Mart there was not good for it.

Domino's would not be my go-to for pizza unless I were in a strange city and needed something likely to be acceptable delivered to the hotel. That said, when I've had it, it has largely been OK, and certainly better than some of the other things the boss could order for a working lunch.

This location was in a fairly pizza-ed area of Lexington -- next to a Mellow Mushroom and not far from an Uno. It looks like the new location at 205 Columbia Avenue is also near to a number of other pizza places, but I guess, where isn't these days?

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

American Deli replaced Burger King in this slot in the Columbiana Centre food court sometime around October of 2017. I'm guessing that it probably closed at the start of January 2019, as that would be a logical month/year boundry for a lease, and commenter Matthew Benjmain reported it closed as of 11 January 2019.

It looks like there are two remaining American Deli locations in the Midlands, one on Garners Ferry Road, and one on Decker Boulevard.

(Hat tip to commenter Matthew Benjmain)

I believe the only time I have eaten in a Beef O'Brady's was at Pawleys Island, in the unit behind the Waffle House that became DeRoma's Pizza. I thought it was a pretty typical sports/casual dining type of place and had a decent burger.

Not only did I never eat at this one, but I'm pretty sure I have never in my life been in this spot, or near this spot before. I'm fairly sure that sites like this busy Publix plaza are a pretty new development in the area. Yelp says that this location was open at least until the end of August, so I am just tagging the closing as "Fall 2018". Interestingly, the new Yelp listing for "B's" has the same phone number as for Beef O' Brady's, and the reviews tag it as very similar, so I'm thinking that perhaps the owners just wanted to disaffiliate so they could add their own touches to the same general formula.

(Hat tip to commenter James R)