Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I only went to Moe's Grapevine once. It was many years ago, when, I believe, I was still living out of town. I don't remember much about it other than it was perfectly OK as far as the food went, and that I saw a waitress who knew me from another Columbia restaurant.

I never got in the habit of going there however because after that, it seemed every time I drove by the place was closed. I realize I keep odd meal hours, but I would have expected to hit it sooner or later..

Commenter JB sends this link to a Free Times story on the closing.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

I remember at one time having to figure out whether this little Latin Dance club behind the D's on Beltline was in fact a Mexican Restaurant or a nightclub. In the event, it proved to be the later, which was a little disappointing to me. As far as I know they were not affected by the 2011 fire at D's or the October 2015 flood, but I could be wrong.

(Hat tip to commenter Sidney)

UPDATE 13 February 2017 -- Here's an instructional video from the club:

I'm not sure what this little building in Landmark Square was originally, possibly one of those tiny hamburger drive-throughs that sprung up in the late 80s, but for a number of years it was what I thought of as The Elephant Ear place; I didn't know it was called J's Concessions until I did a google on the address.

The idea seems sound to me: People like "fair food", so why not open a permanent location for it? (They also had a food truck that used this as a base). Somehow I always end up only having Italian Sausage at the Fair; I probably should have stopped by.

Judging by the newspapers and Christmas lights, they closed up shop after the holidays.

After Trevin mentioned that this place was closing, I drove over and got some pictures while it was still open.. and of course now can't find them: The first picture above is actually from the Lane Bryant closing.

At any rate, I used to eat here about once a week while I worked off of Bluff Road. I didn't eat the pizza because pizza for lunch tends to shut down my brain for the rest of the day, but I would get the salad bar and some garlic bread. Shoney's probably had a better salad bar, but given my very limited time for lunch, I couldn't deal with possible delays in getting the ticket, and Cici's was self-serve and perfectly adequate. I also liked the fact that they always had a survey on the the ticket for $2.00 off next time if you filled it out. That covered the drink.

Not sure what the closing circumstances were. As far as I could tell, the place did a pretty good business, and in fact while I was taking these pictures, two different cars drove by, clearly looking to eat.

(Hat tip to commenter Trevin)

UPDATE 27 April 2016 -- Here are the pix from 12 April 2016 that I couldn't find before:

UPDATE 20 July 2016 -- Mod Pizza is open, but in the suite to the right of Cici's:

It seems a number of toner refill stores have closed recently. This one, at the corner of Two Notch Road and O'Neil Court closed, I believe, late in 2015. I am pretty sure it was not flood related as this side of Two Notch was relatively unscathed.

The last time I needed toner for my LaserJet 1300, I had the cartridge refilled at Forest Park, but when I needed it again last week, I found a new cartridge on Amazon for under $30, so perhaps the business model works less well than it used to.

This little California themed sandwich shop opened on Taylor street in 2013 following Meatball Express in that storefront. The State did a writeup at the time. You can see their menu with Golden State city inspired items here.

Judging from Yelp, they closed sometime after 20 February 2016.

(Hat tip to commenter Justin)

Can you hear me now?

I was in the Vista today and noticed that Tutti Frutti on Lincoln Street was closed. I still never did get my 2016 phonebook, so I'm not sure if they are listed for this year or not, but I'm going to guess this as a 2016 closing. The place is currently refitting to open as a Smoothie King.

I confess there is at least one froyo flavor I have no interest in trying:

I noticed a real estate sign in front of this Two Notch building the other week and in checking further found an old Administrative Law Court decision that established this building was once The Locker Room, a name that sounds somewhat familiar to me, though I could not have placed it in this area.

The decision is somewhat interesting in that it is a denial of an ABC permit, mostly for the reason that the club's only idea for parking was a cockamayme scheme for valet parking to a lot two miles away.

I'm not sure if this The Locker Room was associated with the one in Eastover.

I noticed the other night that this rent-to-own store in Tillman's Plaza is gone. I think the logo looks alarmingly like Patrick. Ah, I see I made the same observation when the place opened in 2012.