Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I noticed when I was taking pictures of Granville's that the storefront across the street, Strobler Home Furnishings was vacant. I believe I've only bought one piece of furniture during my life so far, but as it happens I did note that their new store was up on Forest Drive back in September, since it moved into the old High Point Furniture Gallery (Pop's A&W Rootbeer back in the day..), though I hadn't realized Devine Street was the original location.

(Notice that their moving sign actually lists the wrong address: 4717 is Groucho's..)

UPDATE 11 Jan 2010: Added "AJ's" to the post title based on the comments.

UPDATE 5 Feb 2013: The right hand part of the building is now occupied by The Pilates Studio:

I'm not really sure when this KFC closed, but the property looks so distressed that I'm putting it in the early 2000s rather than the last couple of years. I've never been a fan of chicken (or any other bird, come to that), so I have no standing to criticize the chain, but I always felt it was rather pusillanimous to change the official name from Kentucky Fried Chicken to KFC: You sell fried chicken! Stand up for it! (I also didn't like the commercials with the animated Colonel -- I remember the real Colonel in commercials, and it seems disrespectful of your founder to make a cartoon out of him now that he's gone..).

The only other thing I have to say about KFC in general is that every time I see the "Livers & Gizzards" signage up, I think 'Lewis Grizzard'.

It seems a bit odd that there seems to be no attempt to sell the property, or at least I saw no "For Sale" signs in evidence.

UPDATE 7 Jan 2010: Comments say I was wrong about the closing period, so I have changed the post title date from 'early 2000s' to 'late 2000s'.

UPDATE 30 January 2016 -- It's now China Wing Basket:

I've written about this building before, but it looks like it's about to go vacant again. It was always something of an odd fit to see mattresses in a store that was obviously a fast-food joint, but it was kind of endearing as well.

I'm not sure where Awesome is moving to, but whatever happens, Two Notch Road will not be bereft of mattress stores..

UPDATE 3 June 2010 -- Hola Mexico Mexican restaurant will be moving into the building:

Here's yet another of Columbia's (or West Columbia's in this case) former Eckerd Drugs locations, and like a number of former drugstores in the area, it's been re-purposed as a discount store, a Dollar General in this case. I didn't get any front-on shots because people were in and out constantly while I was parked next door at Walgreens, but it's the standard Eckerds look.

I'm not sure when the Walgreens went in, but its being there may have something to do with why this Eckerds did not continue life as a Rite Aid.

UPDATE 13 May 2011: Changed the closing date in the post title based on commenter Andrew's research.

UPDATE 10 August 2020: Add map icon, update tags.

You finally took down that 2009 calendar, and don't have anything to replace it with? Or you haven't even taken down 2009 yet?

Well, you can still get your 2010 Columbia Closings Wall Calendar or your 2010 Pawleys Island Wall Calendar.

After all, it'll be 2010 all year, and 2009's not coming back!

PowerOne Computer Warehouse was a rebuilt PC store that I believe opened on Saturday 29 August 2009. I say that with some confidence, because I had taken a bunch of pictures of the nearby The Aquarium & Pet Shop on that day, and stopped in at PowerOne on my walk back over to Fuddruckers where I was eating lunch.

I found them in the midst of something of a mini-crisis because they had not intended to open on 29 August, but there was a printing error in all the flyers that were distributed in the paper forcing them to open several days before they were ready. This meant that almost nothing in the store had a price on it, and in many cases not even of description of the PCs processor speed, amount of RAM, OS version etc. It looked like they had some pretty good stuff in the store, but as I didn't really need anything, I didn't persue the prices of any the systems.

I don't know if the unplanned opening somewhat "wrong-footed" them as the Brits might say, but for whatever reason, they didn't make it to New Years.

I recall seeing Dugan's Sports Bar from time to time as a drove Bush River Road, but I don't know anything about it other than that it preceded PowerOne into the 1807 storefront.

UPDATE 4 Jan 2010: Commenter Jeff notes that home theater company Sound Advice was once in the space.

UPDATE 22 August 2012 -- It appears that the place is preparing to open as one of the many new (and controversial) "Internet Sweepstakes" operations in the Columbia area:

UPDATE 24 October -- Well the sweepstakes thing never happened; I believe the law came down on all of them before this one got opened. Anyway, it's Sissy's Furniture now.

Happy New Year to everyone. I hope your holidays were great, and that Santa was good to you!

Anyway..

I first did a closing on this building when it had just ceased being Tiffany's Bakery in 2008. The place was vacant a good while after that, then Granville's moved in.

This story from The State suggests that the place opened in July of 2009, so it had about a six-month run. While generally upbeat, that story also has some ominous IRS issues to be worked through mentioned. Whether that had an impact on the place closing, I don't know.

Commenter Mike D. gave the initial notice in Have Your Say and when I drove by to take these pictures, the place still had a hopeful Closed For Private Partysign in the door. He reports that since these pictures, a For Sale sign has gone up. Too bad!

(Hat tip to Mike D., obviously)

UPDATE 4 Jan 2010: Fixed typo in street address.

UPDATE 8 Jan 2010: Added a picture I forgot earlier.

UPDATE 13 April 2010 -- It's now Conrad's: