Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I'm assuming that this location of Sears Roebuck will carry on through the holiday season. There doesn't seem to be any downside to that, and folks aren't going to hesitate buying from them since they know they can always do returns at Columbia Mall or Columbiana Center.

This store is something of an odd duck for Sears. It is the only Sears I've ever been in that has shopping carts and front check-out lanes. I know Sears bought K-Mart a while back, and this place felt to me like a Sears branded K-Mart. As far as I can recall, I only shopped there once, and ended up getting that retro-Atari (pong, battlezone, missle-command etc) box that was semi-popular a few years ago. Of course like a lot of re-released toys ("Cootie", "Candyland", "Lite-Brite") it wasn't as good as the original, and one of the controllers died the second time I used it.

Once the Sears goes, I think this plaza will pretty much be a "dead mall". It's already in really bad shape, and anyone with money is going to locate in the Wal-Mart strip across the road if they can.

UPDATE 29 February 2020: Changed the title from Sears Roebuck to Sears Essentials, added a full address, tags and map icon.

I've mentioned in one of my other posts, my gradual disenchantment with Pizza Hut which over the years has, due to bad corporate choices, turned from a place I looked forward to going to into a place which provides a mediocre experience at best.

I believe this former Pizza Hut on Knox Abbot Drive in Cayce is, to date, the last Pizza Hut I have eaten at in Columbia. There was nothing particularly bad about it that put me off Columbia Pizza Huts, in fact the staff was quite friendly and attentive -- it's just that in my own stomping grounds, I generally have better options for pizza. This was, however, about 10pm on Christmas Eve 2002, a date and time when anything higher up the food chain than The Waffle House that's still open is pretty hard to find. I was en route from Augusta to Pawleys Island. I can't quite picture now how I ended up on Knox Abbot unless I was cutting down I-26 to get to I-77 and the Sumter Highway, still it was a welcome break.

I don't know when this store went under, and it seems a bit odd, since I can't think of another Pizza Hut on that side of town. At any rate, the tax place has now been there several years. Perhaps they can get you a deep-dish refund.

UPDATE 25 January 2017: Added the full street address and some tags

UPDATE 23 February 2022: Adding map icon.

UPDATE 26 June 2023: Update tags.

Monterrey Jack's was an Americanized Mexican restaurant on Santee Avenue behind Yesterday's. Actually that's a bit inaccurate: While Santee was the "main" entrance, there was also an entrance on Devine Street. The main entrance debauched into the bar area while the "back" entrance led into the non-smoking section.

It was also the case that, even if you were a non-smoker, you wanted to sit in the bar area since a) the waitstaff actually checked those tables from time to time, b) the lighting and decor were much better, and c) the bar had possibly the largest CD collection of any Columbia restaurant, and the music there was always interesting.

The food was, in retrospect, not that good. This place was one of the ones that started in the era when jokes about the spiciness of Mexican food were a staple of comedy and commercials, and it was thought that Mexican food had to be toned down and domesticated for American (and especially, I suspect, Southern) patrons. I don't disagree with tampering with authenticity as I've said in a number of posts on Mexican restaurants. Authenticity for it's own sake is not necessarily a virtue (for instance, while American pizza is only loosely based on the Italian model, that's not a flaw) but in general I like going the other way -- adding much more spice. As I recall, the chips here were always burnt tasting and the beans were especially bland and gloppy. Still it was edible, and the atmosphere was interesting. We usually ate lunch there, but I think the main draw for the college crowd was the bar in the evenings.

After Monterrey Jack's closed, there was another "Mexican" operation in the location: Nacho Mamma's. This was an Yo Burrito / El Burrito type place that, I believe, started as on Broad Street in Augusta. Or at least there was one that opened in Augusta while I was working there, and the local press made it sound like the first, so I always assumed the Five Points location was the second, and their attempt at becoming a chain. I can't speak for the Five Points one, but the one in Augusta struck me as severely sub-par. They had only shredded beef (no ground beef) as your cow option, and the chips and salsa were not very good. At any rate, the Columbia Location did not last long. I believe there were a couple of other short-lived eateries/drinkeries in the storefront before the current tennant, The Pub on Santee moved in. I haven't paid close attention, but I think that operation has been there several years now.

UPDATE 26 May 2010: Added a lot of former names to the post title. Also note that 5 Points Pub is gone now too. This will continue on the entry for The Elbow Room.

UPDATE 30 January 2019: Add tags, map link

The original location on Rosewood Drive:

The final location on Main Street:

I've already done one post on this storefront which was the former home of Tio's Mexican Restaurant before its move to Sumter street.

Before Tio's, however, 928 Main Street was the home of The Basil Pot vegetarian restaurant. There may have been other vegetarian places in Columbia, but The Basil Pot was the most prominent. The place was founded in 1973 by Basil Garzia and was originally on Rosewood Drive before moving to Main Street. I don't know the exact year it closed, but one 2007 Free Times article mentions that it was "more than 3 years ago".

I could easily be a vegetarian if I didn't like meat. However, while I enjoy many meatless dishes, going to an actual vegetarian restaurant is something I've never done. I guess that's because I've always had the feeling that while I might go there (if I actually went) to enjoy a meal, the rest of the patrons might be there for deep philosophical reasons which it would annoy me to hear them discuss. Yep, I'm shallow.

I really can't think of a vegetarian restaurant in Columbia after the passing of The Basil Pot, though the new tenant Which Wich can make a decent veggie sandwich..

UPDATE 17 Nov 08: Thanks to commenter Dennis for the black and white picture of the original Basil Pot (and staff) on Rosewood!

UPDATE 21 December 2023: Fixed bad linke for Basil Garzia article, update tags, add the Rosewood street address & add map icon for the Main Street location.

For most of my life, "The Big T" as Taylor Street Pharmacy was known was the only 24-hour drugstore in Columbia. That said, it was far from the closest drugstore to my home, and a 24-hour drugstore is something you (hopefully) don't need that often, so I was probably only there a dozen or so times over the years.

The store, which was on Taylot Street above The Township and below Baptist Hospital, was unaffiliated with any chain (not unusual at the time), and I recall it as having rather a hodge-podge assortment of merchandise aside from the perscription department. I think one of the times I went when I was a kid, it impressed me as Lachicotte's at Pawleys Island set down in Columbia (though without the floats and fishing tackle). I do recall that they had a spinner rack of paperbacks, something I would always check in any store we visited, and some toys. I can't recall if they had a soda/short-order counter, but I would suspect that they did given the size of the store and that it was a standard drugstore fixture back in the day.

"The Big T" monicker was not just a common nickname for the place -- it was embraced by the store and used in their advertising, to effect, I think, since even people who didn't go there felt friendly towards the store.

In the end life became more difficult for unaffiliated drugstores, and most of that era (Campbell's, Cedar Terrace, Parkland Pharmacy..) are now gone. With the decline of downtown, the Taylor Street location became something of an obstacle as well, and the store finally sold out to CVS, who continue to operate it today, under a much reduced schedule (it apparently is not open on Sunday at all much less 24/7). It appears to me that apart from a revamp of the corner entrance to add CVS branded architecture, the main building is pretty much intact, at least from the outside.

UPDATE 14 March 2009: Added 1963 Yellow Pages ad.

UPDATE 31 March 2009: Added 1970 Yellow Pages ad.

UPDATE 10 March 2011 -- Some of the original Big T signage is visible during the current work on the building:

UPDATE 15 May 2011: Changed to closing date in the post title to 1994 based on commenter Andrew's research. (Oops, set it to 19994 the first time..)

Lorick Road is off of Folk Road, which is off of Wilson Boulevard, which is what North Main Street becomes as it nears I-20. As I was riding out that way early last month with my sister & niece on our way to a "Country Farm Adventure", I noticed Ray Lever's Bar-B-Q (or possibly just Lever's BBQ, depending on if you believe the roof or the front door placard) sitting abandoned off of the road.

It struck me as a very "barbecue" location -- off in the middle of nowhere (sorry Blythewood!), and at that first drive-by, I wasn't even completely sure it was closed. Barbecue places tend to have odd open days and to be as a rule, rather delapidated. (There's a place in the DC area whose slogan is "The Best Barbecue You'll Ever Eat In A Building That Hasn't Already Been Condemned"). When I drove back out there and got out though, it was apparent that the place was genuinely defunct. The name was vaguely familiar, so I did a bit of googling and found that the place is very fondly remembered by a good number of people though the owner got himself in some serious legal trouble before the final closure of the place. Lever's son reports that the family recipies have been passed on to Southern Pig BBQ also in the Blythewood area.

UPDATE 15 May 2017 -- As mentioned in the comments, this place has now been razed:

(Pictures 30 September 2008 & 1 November 2008)

The Happy Bookseller opened in another world than ours, a world called 1974. In some ways, it was a world very like our own, but in other ways it was very different. You might, were you to find your deLorean transported there, be able to find your way around town with very little trouble -- Although buildings have come and gone since then, the major thoroughfares and landmarks of today's Columbia largely existed. What you would have trouble navigating would be the media landscape. Columbia had three commercial television stations: WIS (channel 10) for NBC, WOLO (channel 25) for ABC and WLTX (channel 19) for CBS. Of the three, only WIS occupied a coveted spot in the VHF range and only WIS had good reception throughout the Columbia metro area. The other two UHF stations (and the fledgling ETV network station WRLK on channel 35) worked best if you put tinfoil on the rabbit ears and stood in just the right spot in the room. Few people had cable, and those who did only got a few extra "trash" stations like WTBS out of Atlanta -- there were no CNN, BRAVO or MTV. Nobody had a computer at home. The ARPANET barely existed and few dreamed it would become The Internet, or what that might mean.

Printed media was a different world as well. Dutch Square had been open a few years, and there was a Waldenbooks there which focused on paperbacks and bestsellers. Capitol Newsstand on Main Street was mainly magazines with a modest number of new paperbacks; there was a small specialty bookstore in Trenholm Plaza and the various locations of The Richland County Public Library and that was about it for Columbia and books.

Richland Mall at the time was still an open-air promenade anchored by J. B. White, Woolworth's, The Redwood Cafeteria and grocery stores. The Happy Bookseller started in Richland Mall on the far side of the promenade (the side away from Beltline Boulevard), and if I recall correctly, just a bit Whites-ward of Woolworths; that is you would come out of Woolworths, cross to the other side and head just a bit towards Whites to get to The Happy Bookseller. Along the way, you would pass some of the concrete animals which gave the mall a homey touch -- I remember a grinning turtle in particular.

When the ill-conceived "upgrade" to Richland Mall started (the process that has left us with the largely empty "Midtown at Forest Acres" [though I refuse to call it that]), The Happy Bookseller found itself priced out of a home and made the move down Forest Drive, towards Trenholm Plaza, to the spot it occupied until yesterday. The new location was quite a bit larger than the original store, and the staff took advantage of it by increasing their stocking depth. I recall that when I was in grad school, I even found a copy of Doug Comer's XINU book on operating system construction -- a pretty obscure computer science topic for a general interest store.

I don't know where the name of the store came from for sure -- I've always assumed it was playing off the bestselling (and notorious) 1971 book called The Happy Hooker, drawing an amusing contrast between two very different paths to happiness, but I could be completely wrong about that. At that time, it was certainly a name that caught your attention, though that was hardly the only thing the store had going for it. In particular, despite it's initially rather cramped quarters, Rhett Jackson decided to make The Happy Bookseller a real general interest bookstore in a way the others in town largely weren't. You could certainly get paperbacks and bestsellers at The Happy Bookseller, but they tried to have a bit more depth than that. I know that I really had only a limited appreciation of that in the beginning, given that I was 13, but over the years I would notice that the store always had a slightly different mix in science-fiction and humor, the two sections I perused most, and later that they were quicker than the chains to pick up on the fact that (some) graphic novels weren't just well-bound comic books and when I became interested in history, I found much more depth there than anywhere but the main library.

Jackson and the store were interested in bringing literature to Columbia and in promoting Columbia literature as well. An author I know had a number of signings for her books there though she has never been approached by one of the big-box stores like Barnes & Noble, even though she is with a well-regarded national publisher, has been well reviewed and sells a respectable number of books. They simply don't devote resources to local authors unless a directive comes down from corporate.

So, after lasting 34 years and being widely beloved, why did The Happy Bookseller close. Well, look in the mirror -- I know I have. Apart from retirements, tragedies, and the like, stores generally close when they aren't making money, and they don't make money when people don't shop there. I was amused when I was working in Augusta and Macy's pulled out of Augusta Mall. When the plan was announced, some of the locals started a petition saying how much they loved Macy's and how it should stay. My thought was that while someone in Macy's mailroom might appreciate their petition, what would keep the store in town was enough people buying stuff there that they made money. And it's the same, I'm afraid, for The Happy Bookseller.

Remember that different world of 1974? Well, we're not living there anymore, for better and for worse. Just on the local retail level, Columbia has four big-box bookstores that have more floorspace than The Happy Bookseller could ever dream of. They can get volume deals from publishers that a local store can't, and even when they are indifferently run (and not all of them are) they can stock in depth in a way a small store simply can't due to the laws of physics and the inability of more than one object to occupy the same space at the same time. And that's just local retail. I haven't even mentioned The Internet yet.

I recall that once, after my father stopped driving, he was looking for a particular book and wanted me to take him to The Happy Bookseller. I don't recall what it was, probably something about opera or English literature, but as it happened, they did not have a copy. That's understandable, I think it was fairly obscure. Anyway, we were in the stacks looking where it would be, and I suggested we drive over to Books-a-Million and see if they had it. He said he would rather have The Happy Bookseller order it. I argued that might take a while, and it's possible we could find it that same day. He looked at me, and said with one of his old fashioned turns of phrase Yes, but I would rather give this store my trade.

In the end, that's what not enough of us did -- give this store our trade. I include myself. I enjoyed browsing the store, and if I saw something I liked, I would buy it. But.. If I discovered I needed a technical book, or found an interesting sounding book mentioned in an online forum I was much more likely to point my browser at Amazon.com than drive to The Happy Bookseller even though it was only a few miles away. That's disintermediation, and it's been even worse for music stores. Given my general night-owl nature, I was also much more likely to find myself in a big-box store at 10pm wandering around drinking coffee and buying books I saw there rather than remembering what they were and getting them at The Happy Bookseller. So, as we shopped online, or shopped elsewhere The Happy Bookseller did what it could. They tried a coffee bar, which didn't last too long, and then a lunch counter which did a bit better, but at the end of the day, the numbers just weren't there to continue and so at the end of the day, they couldn't.

So, thanks folks, for helping us out of that 1974 media wasteland. I know that in the end the future didn't turn out as any of us expected, but it was a great ride!

UPDATE 9 October 2020: Adding full street address to the post title. Updating tags and adding map icon.

For a while, the Dentsville area had two big-box toy stores as well as a couple of smaller storefronts inside Columbia mall. I can't remember the name of the first of the big ones to go, but it was in the same little plaza on Decker Boulevard and Trenholm Road Extension that Winn Dixie was in and that The Comedy House is in now. As I recall, the closing caused a lot of brouhaha and local ill-will because the place timed their closing to be after Christmas shopping and before Christmas returns. It seems to me there was another way in which they did customers dirty in addition to that, but the details escape me at this remove.

At any rate, you might have expected that with the entire "destination toy store" market in the area now ceded to it, Toys 'R' Us would have prospered and have had some incentive to stay put, but that proved not to be the case. Since I wasn't really a toy shopper at the time, I didn't pay much attention to where the store went. I just figured it had joined the general flight from Dentsville and the Decker Corridor to somewhere down Two Notch. However, doing a quick online Yellow Pages search, the only location I see in the Columbia area is near Columbiana Center. I know I'm certainly not driving out there for toys -- not when there's Amazon.

The building has never had another tenant since Toys 'R' Us departed. It appears to be in fairly good shape (some minor tagging, but only on glass) though the architecture now looks a little dated. Unfortunately, with the upcoming closing of Dillards, I can't see that any first tier replacement will be willing to locate at Columbia Mall any time soon.

Update 27 Jan 2010: Well something is happening at the old Toys 'R' Us building. From the work going on, it would appear that something will be going in there:

UPDATE 1 April 2010 -- Looks like the Virginia College Career Center is ready to open:

UPDATE 13 February 2021: Changing "Columbia Mall outparcel" in the post title to the full street address, updating tags and adding map icon.

I first wrote about this building in a closing for Capitol Centre Theatre. At the time, I was surprised to see a projector sitting in the lobby given that the place had been closed for a number of years. I suspect in retrospect that the projector was going in rather than coming out. There was some speculation in the comments for that post that the place was to become a Spanish language theater, but in the event that seems to have been wrong (or to have changed) so that the building was to become instead a discount $2.00 movie theater called Movies Behind The Mall.

However, somewhere along the line something seems to have run somewhat awry. I don't want to minimize the difficulties involved in starting a business. I've never done it, and probably don't have the patience or energy to ever do it, and I wish everyone trying it well. (And from a selfish point of view, would really like a discount theater in my neck of the woods). That said, the opening of Movies Behind The Mall seems to have hung-fire several times. Notice that the marquee at first promises a 29 August grand opening. Next this is changed to a 5 September grand opening and then to "Opening Soon".

After that information remained for a while, a new poster was put up in the box-office advertising what appears to be a stage play, which I presume is to be performed live at the theater for most of November (the window sign manages to give the wrong web site, but from the price board, it would appear to be http://mbfproductions.net/, a GLBT themed production company). In the meantime, the concession stand has been stocked, arcade games have been rented, and coming attraction posters and floor displays have been brought in. It would appear that the play will take at least the prime 8pm weekend slots, and 2pm matinee so I don't know what that means for actually showing discount movies at the place. We'll see!

UPDATE 21 Nov 08:

They do seem to be open now!

UPDATE 26 Feb 09:

Well, that didn't last long.

I went by The Movies Behind The Mall yesterday to find it closed, and closed long enough that all the video-games and concession stand paraphenalia have already been trucked out. I think the place finally opened in November, and it's gone in February, so that's four months or less.

It's a real shame. I'd certainly like to have a "dollar" cinema closer than Saint Andrews Road, and you would think that the current economic conditions would be favorable for a cheap night out, though perhaps things are so bad they just couldn't compete with Netflix, Itunes and pirated movies over the Internet.

UPDATE 9 March 2009: Interesting note on MBF Production's site:

UPDATE 29 September 2017 -- Added the street address to the post title based on an old phonebook listing for Capitol 8 Cinemas

UPDATE 30 January 2019 -- As reported by commenter Ken, this multiplex is open again as Spotlight Cinema Capital 8:

The Free Times reports that the property which includes the theater is all owned by The Meeting Place Church of Greater Columbia. They don't seem to have put any restrictions on the theater though, and at this time the cinema is playing the "R" rated Serenity.

Well, we all know the first rule about Fight Club, but here goes anyway.

This store front (which was almost certainly not actually called Fight Club) was the only amateur boxing rink I've ever seen in Columbia. Granted, I haven't looked for one, but when I first noticed it driving by on my way to and from SC-277, it put me in a retro frame of mind. Since I don't follow current boxing at all, it makes me think of 30s and 40s movies and pulp stories where the wise old trainer, who could have had a shot if he hadn't blown out his knees, shakes the arrogance out of a kid who can make it to the big time if only he will take it seriously.. There was actually a whole pulp-fiction genre with its own set of magazines devoted to boxing stories; Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan wrote a series of such about "Sailor Steve Costigan", the fighting merchant marine.

So anyway, I would drive by, see all the cars and imagine all these dramatic scenes until the final time I drove by and the place was packed with blue-lights-blazing police cars and I never saw it open again.

Apparently a fight had broken out..

UPDATE 22 February 2017 -- Add full street address and some tags

UPDATE 13 August 2020: Add map icon.