Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Given that we are several days into Spring at this point, I think it is safe to say that the rooftop garden shop at Richland Mall is not just closed for the season, but is apparently closed for good.

Forest Acres still has several sites for garden supplies including the Ace Hardware nearby in the old Ritz building and the garden shop in the old First Citizen's bank at Forest Lake Shopping Center.

I don't believe I ever went into this Radio Shack in the Food Lion plaza in Five Points. Come to think of it, I don't believe I've ever been into any business in this plaza other than Food Lion, unless you go back far enough to count Peaches and Sears.

You know the drill about Radio Shack by this point.

This Sparkleberry Crossing gym is listed in the 2014 phonebook, but not the 2015 one, so it must have closed before listings closed. I'm guessing mid-year. One online review notes that it was nice because there were no crowds. That can be a double-edged sword unfortunately.

Commenter Megan reports this Lexington Hibachi spot as closed around the start of the month.

But you can still get some dogs..

(Hat tip to commenter Megan)

UPDATE 8 September 2016 -- It appears the follow-on operation, Clean Eatz is now in operation:

Commenter Jason reports this Beef 'O' Brady's location on Hard Scrabble has been closed since January.

I believe the only BOB I have ever been in was the Pawleys Island location (which is now DeRoma's pizza), and I thought it wasn't bad. It did strike me as somewhat like the lamented Bennigan's chain though, in that it was hard to see anything you could really characterize as "Irish".

(Hat tip to commmenter Jason)

UPDATE 11 January 2016 -- As mentioned in the comments, this place is open again:

I noticed an odd ad for Al Amir in the Free Times the other week, the wording of which was unusual enough that I suspected that one of its Main Street locations, at University Corner across from the the old Towers was gone. Driving by the other night proved that to in fact be the case. The spot is now occupied by another Middle Eastern restaurant, Sahara on Main. I thought I had a good shot of Al Amir here, but all I can locate now is a shot where you can barely see it in the corner, so I'll just go with these pix of the new storefront.

The other Al Amir on Main, The Epicurean by Al Amir at 1734 in the old The Elite Epicurean location is still there.

Falling, falling, falling..

It may seem strange to the under 50 crowd at this remove, but it's pretty much impossible to overstate what an incredible influence Fleetwood Mac's Rumours album had when I was in the last years of high school. Almost every track was on the radio at one time or another, and everybody had a copy. I would have had one, but I was dead broke at the time, so I somehow convinced my sister to spring for it. I taped her copy to cassette and it was in constant rotation with my Beach Boys albums in my jury rigged car player (which would reverse the tape and start playing the other "side" every time we hit a bump).

Rumours was the followup to the also very successful eponymous album Fleetwood Mac which established the band's "classic lineup". It was also the lead-in to the rather experimental Tusk which no doubt confused their legions of fans.

Over the years the band went through a lot of acrimony and romantic imbroglioes, with the fact that it was coed giving even more scope for feuding than even the Beach Boys "enjoyed".

Still, after all the dust settled, and after a sixteen year absence for Christine McVie, the classic lineup is back together and making music again.

I took the opportunity to see them in Charlotte, and everybody was in fine form, and looking and sounding pretty good for a bunch of 60 and 70 year olds. They played everything you would expect, and added a few new songs that, if not instant classics, were pretty good. As you can tell from the video and pix, I was *way* up in the nosebleed section, something I did not appreciate in the least while inching towards my seat like an action movie hero sidling along a window ledge over a twenty story drop. It was somewhat better once I actually had a seat, though as you can hear in the video, I fell in with a bunch of Chatty Cathys..

Anyway, it was a great show, and you should definitely catch them if you can.

As just a few random observations: It's amazing how bad a shape I-77 is in. It seemed like I was dodging huge ruts all the way to Charlotte. I don't remember that from my last trip in June, but it can't have gotten that bad that quick. Also, the parking garage at EpiCenter is the worst I've ever been in, like the old text based computer game "You are in a maze of twisty little passage all alike": It was amazingly hard to find the level changes rather than just driving by the same packed spaces again and again. Maybe I was "Over My Head"...

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Another day, another Radio Shack. Sic transit gloria mundi.

This one is in the Wal Mart plaza at Forest & I-77, and is I believe the same operating unit that was originally in a free-standing building near the current Forest Drive Rite Aid and then in Trenholm Plaza. If so, this is the Radio Shack that I historically cut my teeth at. I used to take tubes to be tested at the freestanding location all the time, and bought (or talked my parents into buying) a number of hobby kits there. Later, I was a member of the Battery Of The Month club at the Trenholm Plaza location, and got what I call my "lucky" screwdrivers as a free BOTM gift there. ('Lucky' in that I've had them for over 30 years now, and have never lost or broken them -- yet). I remember I used to manage my BOTM days so that I could get one battery on the last day of a month, and then the next day, get another on the first day of the next month. [This was important since, a) it always took at least two batteries to do anything, and b) I never had any money]

I don't believe I ever actually went into this store after it moved to the current location. By that time, I was living out of town, had enough money to buy batteries, and had bid adieu to vacuum tubes.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

Kids' art studio, Tag It Art closed on 9 January 2015. You can see the classy farewell message here.

Forest Village is the little two-strip plaza that I still think of as the home of The Happy Bookseller though The Happy Cafe now occupies that spot.

(Hat tip to my sister)

I noticed the other week something going on at the Richland Mall Bank Of America, with a dumpster pulled up to the drive-through. This week it is apparent that the drive-through has been closed. I guess it was a bit awkward having an unconnected outbuilding for the tellers, and perhaps even a security issue. At any rate, I believe the Trenholm Plaza branch is now the next closest drive-through.