Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I've been vaguely aware of The Lite House for a long time. I think I even recall them advertising on WIS Radio many years ago. Somehow that never led me to visit either location even though I have needed a lamp shade or harp every now and then.

This site is a little hard to get to, at least during rush hour as it is a difficult left turn off of Two Notch (assuming you are travelling towards Sandhill). While it is further away from me, I like the situation of the Bush River Road location better.

As of now, the site is closed and for sale, but the stock has not been warehoused or transferred across town.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

I think somebody once commented on the site that this building was originally a Piggly Wiggly, but I can't find that comment right now. I don't remember that, and I don't really recall it being a Pier 1 either, though I think that may have been when I was living out of town.

At any rate, it has been furniture store Hines for a good few years now, and apparently would have continued so if the owners were willing to renew the lease.

That they were not implies they must have another tenant already in mind -- I don't think this is an area where you give up a sure thing on just the speculation that you can do better. I guess we'll see.

(Hat tip to commenter Sidney)

UPDATE 2 October 2019: Based on the comments, I have added Piggly Wiggly to the post title.

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 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.