Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

As I was leaving Bullet's the other day, I noticed that the Meetze Plumbing office/showroom on Beltline was gone. It had been in the rightmost suite in that building, next to the vape shop. Looking at Streetview, it happened sometime after September 2025, and I'm pretty sure I noticed them earlier this year, so I'm just going with 2026 for at date. They are definitely still in business, and I don't believe this was a dispatch location, so I don't expect any effect for customers.

This building has featured here previously as Nostalgia Antiques & Collectibles, which closed shop in late 2021. I'm not sure when Bullet's moved in, but Streetview confirms it was after August 2023. I can't find an exact date for their moving to 4839 Edmund Highway either, but it appears to have been sometime around May 2026

(Hat tip to commenter Marcel Miller)

The first time I saw The Swimming Pool Qs would have been around 1978 at the 4th of July celebration at USC's Bell Camp. If you were facing the lodge, the band set up to the right of it, at the bottom of the hill leading to the lake, and the audience was on the grass up and down the hill in the playground area. I had only discovered rock music in 1976, and hadn't made it to New Wave yet, so it was very memorable to hear these pulsing sounds & "Your baby is a big fat tractor, riding down the rows in the dust!" echoing out over the crowd & pond. I didn't quite know what to make of it, but it certainly left an impression!

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I'm pretty sure this location was one of the ones that closed during the chain's bankruptcy, though I did not get around to visiting it then, and then came back after the sale of some stores to Variety Wholesalers, but now they are closing again. A local Facebook post says that the building owners went up on the lease prompting this, but I'm not sure if that was speculation or well-founded. At any rate google reviews indicate that the place is mostly stripped, but that there are deep discounts on anything remaining. Given that report, I am using a September 2026 closing date though the end is not quite yet.

This building is a former Winn-Dixie, and you can see a picture of the original Big Lots incarnation at that post.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

I ate at this Five Guys a number of times, probably most memorably on a group trip from work to go downtown and buy some decent office chairs. Come to think of it, that may have been the last time I ate here, and that would have been probably ten years ago now. I like Five Guys (though the price is now amazing), but tend towards Columbiana or Forest Drive.

At any rate this one was caught up in the same property buyout that Monterrey was, and is now half demolished. In fact since these pictures are at least a week old, it is probably all demolished now.