Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Leash The Kraken!

I thought I had done a closing for The Kraken the first time it closed, a few years ago, but I cannot now find it, so either I'm just wrong, or it got lost in the database crash a while back.

Anyway, I'm afraid I know very little about the place other than it had a cool name and was in a neightboorhood I don't normally associate with restaurants.

Here is a take from The Free Times and one from The State.

(Hat tip to commenter Sidney)

While I was getting the Save A Lot pictures, I noticed that the pizza joint in the same strip has now been (partially?) reflagged as a King's Pizza.

Their (officially claimed) Yelp page gives the name as King's Planet Pizza and has a link to the main King's web site, which curiously does not list the place as a location (though it does still list Marshall Street, which I think has fallen through). Does anyone know if the Columbia Mall location has come to pass?

Commenter Badger noted the closing of this Save A Lot, which I had not noticed. If I remember correctly, this store was originally in Landmark square.

When the Harden Street Save A Lot closed recently, one of the articles about that noted that 10 other Save A Lot stores had closed in December of 2018. Perhaps this was one of them.

For the store not really having been here for that long, the label-scar is quite distinct.

(Hat tip to commenter Badger)

I was not really aware of Conquest Brewing until commenter Jimmy Freeman linked their Facebook farewell in Have Your Say.

The Free Times has a bit more information such as that the place was "Columbia’s first post-production brewery since prohibition" and that Saturday was their final day.

(Hat tip to commenter Jimmy Freeman)

I've got some work activity going on and won't be able to get out picture taking much for a while. Hopefully I'll get a few up, but things will be a bit slow for a while.

I guess the writing was on the wall after this Staples cut their hours way back recently.

This was probably the Staples I went to most often over the years (with the Devine Street location a close second). In general it seemed to be a well stocked and run store, and I picked up my share of printer paper, hard drives, computer media, headphones, ethernet hubs, pens, post-its and other office and computer paraphernalia. The only knock on it I can think of is one that seems to be general to Staples as a whole: It always seems to take a bit longer to check out than it should.

Although they have posted a closing sign, there is not a sale going on, and the various "inventory" tags inside the store make me think they will be relocating the merchandise to other stores rather than doing a clearance.

(Hat tip to commenter Sidney)

Save A Lot was the follow-on operation here to Columbia Food Fresh Market which closed in 2010. This location closed briefly in December of 2018 when the operator closed this store and nine others. Since then, the place has been run by a unit of the Columbia Housing Authority, which seems like a bad idea, and in fact, has not worked out. I'm not even sure how they were able to take over the franchaise and branding.

At any rate, they are pulling the plug at 5:00pm on 24 August 2019, although as the WLTX article notes the shelves are already bare and the place appeared to be closed when I drove by at 6pm on the 21st.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

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LoopNet says this building was built in 1969. It was clearly a dry cleaner in its first life, although I do not know which one. After that, I think it was several things, but most recently a beauty salon, which always had lots of nice plants inside whenever I would drive by.

Today's closing comes courtesy of commenter James R who writes (in a note I lost track of for quite a while...):

An out of the area closing, but I thought you might like the
pictures anyway. Facebook says it closed in 2011.

He links to his Google Photo set of pictures of the place, from which the top picture comes. The pictures put me in the mind a bit of Main Beach Arcade in Fernandina Beach.

There is also a Facebook page devoted to the park, with many more photos, including some of it in operation.

Here's what I've been able to find out online (mainly here and here): The park is on Hatteras Island in the Outer Banks, was built in the 1980s, and operated until 2010. At that time, one of the owners passed away, and the place was closed. It was intended to be temporary as the family dealt with the situation, but in the meantime, Hurricane Irene hit in 2011 doing enough damage that the park could not simply re-open. Since that time it has sat vacant with the family putting in just enough money to fence it off and handle the worst safety issues. A local civic association has tried to buy the park property several times, but as of early this year, that had not happened.

(Hat tip to commenter James R)