Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I leveraged a trip out to Sandhill the other day to go past Clemson Road and into Elgin. This is a little town (the kind where you will find an IGA) just over the county line that we used to drive through all the time down US-1 on our way to Hartsville -- before I-20 came through (ie: It's been a while!). At that time, the points that stuck most in my mind were the ramshackle looking pottery outlet (still there..), the Elgin Watch factory (the reason the town is not now called Blaney) and the Blaney Drag Strip.

I would still drive through from time-to-time when I lived in Fayetteville, and the double-nickel was still in force making the non-Interstate time penalty less than it is now. On one memorable late night drive, I found an overtuned car and had to ride off to summon help.

All of which is neither here nor there except to the point that I haven't gone through there much in the daytime since the 60s, and I was a bit surprised to find that I-20 has put it almost in the metro area. In particular, I saw a branch of a Columbia Mexican chain San Jose on White Pond Road heading to I-20, and I wonder if that had anything to do with the demise of La Costena on Main Street.

Commenter Miz T says:

They closed down a couple of months ago, which is quite sad. We frequented the place quite often and the workers knew my youngest daughter ever since she was a baby and called her by name. They had a mural of the history of Elgin painted on the side of the building. It is now a fruit and veggie stand.

You can see the produce stand in these pictures, though it is not clear to me if it is using the whole building or just the porch.

(Hat tip to commenter Miz T)

Driving down Sunset to North Main the other day, I noticed that King's Chef Chinese Restaurant is closed -- closed and fenced off, to be exact. I'm not entirely sure when this happened, but I drove by a number of times in December and didn't notice anything wrong, so I'm guessing January.

Just from looking at the building, it was evident that it had been a chain fast-food place of some sort before King's Chef moved in, and a glance at my 1997 phonebook confirms that the original tenant was McDonald's. I don't recall when that closed (and don't have the directories at home to research it), but I think King's Chef has been there a good while, so I would guess early 2000s.

King's Chef is not the only re-purposed fast food in the area. Almost directly across the street is a Long John Silver's which has been turned into a TitleMax. (And of course, the Family Dollar next to King's Chef is a re-purposed Eckerd Drugs.)

UPDATE 6 February 2012: Commenter Thomas notes that there was a fire here and that they are rehabilitating the building, so I have appended "temporary" to the post title.

UPDATE 18 September 2012 -- It's open again (and has been for a while):

Though I wouldn't mind if they used that money to pay me more interest instead..

This building was built as a Taco Cid and I ate there from time to time in the 1980s. I believe that Bright Animal Clinic was the first, and so far only, operation to use the building since Taco Cid left.

The clinic's closing sign mentions that they were established in 1971, so a) This is obviously not their first location and b) That's a 40 year run, and sounds like a well deserved retirement.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the building. There still have been no takers for the nearby Olive Garden and Red Lobster buildings, but the nearby laundry does OK, and there should be a fair number of ofice workers in the area after the county finishes the takeover of Decker Mall.

(Hat tip to commenter Matt)

UPDATE 18 April 2013 -- It's to be an Atlantic Seafood:

UPDATE 25 April 2013 -- The building sign is up:

UPDATE 17 February 2014 -- Atlantic Seafood is finally open:

Well, this is an interesting closing, more for the implications than anything else. Starbucks is not in the business of closing stores that make money, and this is a foot-traffic location, so I would say that this section of Sandhill, at least, does not get as much foot traffic as expected, and that, in addition, they decided it wasn't worth it to move to one of the empty spots on the main drag either.

As for the store itself, I think I stopped there once or twice, and it was fine: A typical Starbucks with no apparent problems.

UPDATE 15 February 2012: Added a night-time picture.

(Hat tip to commenter Elizabeth)

UPDATE 10 April 2013 -- It's now a cupcake bakery:

UPDATE 30 November 2021: Adjusting street address, updating tags, adding map icon.

The first closing I did for this building was when it was Mary Ella's -- Well, actually most of that closing came from commenter Dennis, as does the first picture above.

Cafe Millwood opened in the space shortly after Mary Ella's departed and was having a grand opening by February 2010. Curiously, the pictures on their still extant web site are all dated 2007, which is not possible, so apparently the camera clock/calendar was not set correctly. Along with the pictures, the site has copies of the menus and some background on the cafe.

It's pretty easy to approximately date the closing by looking at the newspapers in the inside racks. In particular, the copy of the Columbia Star with the story about the beauty queen who is promoting Harvest Hope food bank ran on 28 October 2011, and was apparently the last issue to be racked. There is no sign or indication on the door or elsewhere giving a formal closing notice, but the phone is disconnected, so I'm fairly sure this is permanent.

UPDATE 15 February 2012 -- Apparently it's to be Old Shandon Pub & Pizza and will have a beer or liquor license.

(Hat tip to commenter Mary Douglass)

UPDATE 21 May 2012 -- Apparently the Old Shandon Pub & Pizza is not going to come to fruition. There were no signs of interior work for a long time, then a "For Rent" sign went back up. The sign is still there, though it seems to have fallen down: