Columbia Closings   What’s not in Columbia anymore

The ad is from the December 1961 Southern Bell phonebook, and looking at the Service Station section is rather interesting. It almost appears that most every station choosing to get a picture ad used the same studio, with each ad having a Zip-A-Tone gray-wash area and a (different) little cartoon service-man.

I’m not completely sure that this building was DuBose. The older phonebooks are less anal conscientious about giving full numbered street adresses than the current ones. I am sure it was a Phillips 66, and it is on Covenant Road, so I’m pretty sure it’s it.

The station is in Ravenwood just at the intersection of Covenant & Bethel Church Roads, catty-cornered from the old Campbell’s Convenience Store and the old Piggly WIggly, directly across from the second location of Forest Lake TV / Ravenwood Pharmacy and next door to the old Sunshine Cleaners. (Heavens, that sentence got more complicated and link-full than I expected — there’s been a lot of turnover in the area!)

I’m a little hazy on exactly when the 66 station closed and what followed it. I think it was the 70s, and I think the building got a bit run-down afterwards. The current tenant, Keith’s K & A Automotive spruced it up a good bit and seems to do a very good business there — I had to wait for a Sunday to get a picture of the place without lots of cars in front of it. I really like the bi-level construction and strong roof-line of the building.

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Closed For Renovation

This is the dreaded Closed For Remodeling trope. It seems to me that the majority of businesses that sport such a sign, never re-open. There are a few exceptions, but in general it seems to me that getting into a situation where there’s no money coming in, plus lots of expenses is bad news. The right way to remodel is to keep the store open the whole time, even if you have to put the cash registers in the parking lot for a few days. That’s how the Forest Drive / I-77 Wal-Mart is doing it, and while it’s been a big mess, they’ve had money coming in every day.

Anyway, as far as I can tell, this business started as a SpeeDee and then transitioned into an independant but similar business. This Irmo businesses web page dates back to March, so I’m assuming the place was open that late. The building was built in 1970 according to Loopnet, so it may well have been a couple of things before.

I think that apart from the remodeling trauma, Harbison may just be a bad location for a business like this. Traffic is so high, that I would never think of going there for something I could get elsewhere on a less busy road.

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Well, this much re-purposed building on Firelane Road, behind Lowe’s, the old Spring Valley Theater, and old Byte Shop locations is vacant again. That’s probably a good thing in the last few months, as I think Firelane Road has been pretty well shut down for bridge work, or at least there was a detour sign up at Two Notch to that effect for a while. Somehow I never made it to any of these businesses. Granted the bars or daycare would have been a stretch, but an Italian restaurant should have been right up my alley. I guess I was living out of town for its whole lifespan, because I don’t recall it at all.

It’s a little hard to put all these businesses in chronological order. I have links for two ABC permit rulings that establish that Dazzler’s, Inc. was granted a permit on 13 Oct 1994 and L. A. Nights was granted a permit on 17 Aug 1998.

The ruling for L. A. Nights establishes Fatties, Bogie’s and Callaros as having preceded Dazzler’s, but doesn’t give a timeline. It does suggest that all the previous occupants caused parking problems for the local community. Commenter Allie in Have Your Say suggests a 1988/1989 timeframe for Callaros, so I have put it first.

I’m not sure where the Arong Cafe fits into the timeline. I know I always somehow had the impression that this building started as a Korean nightclub, but that would have been a long time ago, and apparently Arong was recent enough to be in some online sources.

The timeline for One to One Daycare and Aunty’s Daycare is a bit unclear as well. Apparently both business ran afoul of some regulations you have to follow if you have a private well, One to One in 2004 and Aunty’s in 2007.

That would imply that Aunty’s was the last business there, except that the surviving signage is for One to One…

At any rate, the last operation was certainly a daycare as the playground equipment is all still in place.

(Hat tip to commenter Allie).