Archive for the ‘nightclub’ tag
Lorick & Lowrance Mercantile / The Bank of Columbia / The Argyle Social Club, 1537 Main Street: late 2000s 3 comments
OK, I'm not entirely sure what to make of this one. The Lorick & Lowrance Mercantile Building is another of those great old Main Street buildings, with all the fancy work on top, and is on the City of Columbia landmark list.
I don't know what Lorick & Lowrance Mercantile originally sold, but the name suggests general retail merchandise. Anyway, it seems prosaic enough.
Where it gets a little odd is with the introduction of the Columbia Atheneum and Argyle Social Club. If you go to the "history" tab on this site, you'll find the story of a 150 year old Columbia high-rollers club "[whose] location has been kept hidden from the general public" -- It almost sounds like a put-on, your 2nd grade secret-clubhouse on steroids..
At any rate, the plan apparently was to come out of hiding, sell shares and buy the Lorick building. (There's a litle more information here). Since this was all supposed to happen in 2007 and the building is for lease today, I would say that something went wrong.
Interestingly, the building now has its own web site..
Hi Hatt Drive In aka The Hi Hatt Club, 3830 Forest Drive: 1973 75 comments
UPDATE 7 June 2016 -- Many thanks to commenter Mandy for sending these pictures of the Hi Hatt:
Original post:
Well, there have been a lot of people over the past few years urging me to do this post. I have always put it off up until now as I have no personal memories of The Hi Hatt Club, and though I must have seen it many times up until I was 12, I cannot even recall the building. I was always hoping that I would run across a picture of the club, or would find an old ad that I could use to hang a post on, but that seems destined not to happen, so I will go with what I have been able to establish, and by consolidating various mentions made of the place in the comments.
Here's what I found out by looking through old phone directories last week. The Hi Hatt Club first appears in the Columbia Southern Bell listings in the August 1957 directory. The last time it was listed was in the December 1972 directory. At the start of its run, the phone number was given as SU-7-9143. That number was retained in each directory though with the advent of direct dialing the prefix changed from Sunset to became 787-9143. The name the club used for its directory listing was always Hi Hatt Drive In, and it listed under Clubs in the Yellow Pages though it never bought a Yellow Pages ad.
Given that other sources state that the club started in the 1930s, I'm not sure why listings only started in 1957. I suppose that in those days not every road-house felt it needed a phone, or perhaps the listing was under another name.
Here's what the Town of Forest Acres says on their web site in what seems to be a semi-official history of the town:
The town limits formed an irregular rectangle that paralleled Forest Drive. The original area of incorporation was two square miles with the northern and southern boundaries lying one half mile on each side of the road. The eastern boundary ran north to south a thousand feet to the east of Gill Creek. The western boundary lay two miles to the west paralleling the eastern boundary. The boundaries did not change right away, but over the years the city grew to the east and primarily to the north. Forest Acres was planned to be a residential area. Existing businesses were grandfathered in, but new businesses were not to be opened. Because of loopholes in the laws, this was not enforceable. To the chagrin of the local residents, the old Bethel School at the comer of Forest Drive and Landmark Drive (3830 Forest Drive) had closed, and the Hi Hatt (pronounced High Hat) Club had opened in the building. The Hi Hatt Club, an early form of nightclub, was in the area in 1935. The city founders would have liked to have seen it close, but it managed to stay open. Over the years, especially in the 1960's, the Hi Hatt Club was rumored to be a place of prostitution, or a "whore house," as such operations were called. Mothers shielded their children from it, but the Hi Hatt Club's reputation made it a big source of interest and a hot topic of conversation for teenage boys. Frowns and concern could never close it, but a good financial offer to purchase the land to construct office buildings finally brought it to an end. The city officials, from the beginning on, wanted only wholesome businesses in the area with protection and privacy for the nearby residential properties.
Here's a bit of information on the appearance of the club from commenter FirstDennis:
Does ANYbody remember the Hi Hat Club on Forest Drive, not too far from Beltline? I asked William Price Fox about it, because he is a wealth of info on stuff like this, but he cannot recall it. I swear I’m not making it up, though. It was a white wooden building. Had a neon sign shaped like a top hat.
Commenter BR suggests the place was informally known as Goldie's:
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Commenter Michael Taylor passes along this information from his uncle:
Hi-Hat Club update: My 91 year old uncle is the last remaining person of that generation alive for me personally, and I’ve been hitting him up for city history a little at a time so as not to wear him out. The latest nugget should tickle all the “Hi-Hatters” out there. Dig this, before it was a honky tonk the building was a 2-room schoolhouse and my uncle went there for a bit. Unfortunately he is not a photographer and doesn’t even have a photograph of his old garden center. Oy vey!
Something a little less certain that I remember from my father talking about the Hi Hat Club back when it was still a working honky tonk in the 1960s is his insistence that a couple of scenes for the cult Robert Mitchum movie “Thunder Road” were filmed there in 1958 or so. According to this wikipedia entry for the movie, most of the principle filming was done in Asheville, NC, so this at least puts the production crew to within a few hours drive. It’s not uncommon to film several locations for one final composited location. In other words, if you were filming a honky tonk scene, you may film the interior of some place on the outskirts of Asheville and the exterior of some distinctive juke joint in the suburbs of Columbia SC and then edit them to look seamless. It seems excessive, but often one place looks better on the outside and the other place looks better on the inside and because they can, film crews do this stitching all the time and you’d never know it.
Going against my father’s story is that the South Carolina film database doesn’t have “Thunder Road” listed, however it mostly lists the films that have been primarily filmed here. It does list a “Thunder In Carolina” stock car movie (with Rory Calhoun and Alan Hale, Jr., the skipper from “Gilligan’s Island) filmed in Darlington in 1960, which my father could have been confusing with “Thunder Road”. But on the side of a film crew having filmed a few scenes at the Hi-Hat Club for “Thunder Road,” here is an interview with Mitchum’s son James on the 50th anniversary of the film where he mentions that some of the inspiration came from their South Carolina cousins’ moonshining and fast driving. I could see Mitchum coming down the short drive from Asheville for some scenes at the Hi-Hat Club, it was such a wild looking little honky tonk. I suppose one way to solve this would be to rent both movies and watch them with hawk eyes and keep an eye out for that crazy neon sign on top of the club. And speaking of signs, wonder what ever happened to that sign, bet it’s at the bottom of a trash heap somewhere.
I can see that place in my mind’s eye just as clearly as this computer screen, but sadly, 41 years or more later it’s not enough, especially with websites like this. Right this very moment there is a box of photographs with photos of places like the Hi-Hat Club and YOU may know the person who has them.
Comments from anyone who actually visited the club are welcome (and you can be anonymous if it really was an establisment of ill-repute at some point :-)! Pictures would be great too..
UPDATE 14 Dec 2010: I got the Montgomery book for my birthday. You can get it here:
Anyway, there is a section on the Hi-Hatt Club. To answer some questions asked here:
1) Yes, 'Goldie' was the proprietress.
2) The 1968 movie with scenes at the Hi-Hatt Club was not Thunder Road, but The Road Hustlers. (It does not seem to be available on DVD or VHS).
3) The book doesn't definitively settle the question of whether the Club really was a house of ill repute, but states "Due to a renewal of complaints about the Hi-Hatt Club's liquor violations and rumors of prostitution, SLED (State Law Enforcement Division) raided it in 1973.
4) There are no exterior pictures of the club given.
UPDATE 20 March 2012 -- Well, The Road Hustlers has surfaced (subtitled in Norwegian, of course). I have not watched the movie as such, but simply fast forwarding through it leads me to believe there is only one scene set at The Hi Hatt Club, stills of which, and a youtube embed, are below.
The exterior shots at the beginning (Hi Hatt sign) and end (front porch of Hi Hatt) are definitely the club. Unfortunately they are so dark as to be almost invisible. I don't *know* the interior shots for the scene to be the actual Hi Hatt Club, but it seems unlikely that a shoestring drive-in quickie would build a sound set for such a thing. Perhaps some old Hi Hatt patrons can comment..
Dr. Feelgood's, 922 Main Street: mid-1990s 10 comments
Someone mentioned in Have Your Say a while back that they thought Miyo's on Main Street was closed. When I was in the area and decided to check it out, I found it to not be the case.
However, in looking at the Miyo's building, I noticed the old wall markings for Dr. Feelgood's, a place I had never gone to and had not even thought about for years. In fact, while I had heard the name, I never realized that this was the location. I just assumed it was in Five Points or on Rosewood. (I also have sort of a mental blank spot for Main south of the Capitol -- If someone says "it's on Main Street", I automatically think of Main from Gervais to Elmwood..).
UPDATE 13 Feb 2010: Changed closing date from "1980s" to "mid-1990s" based on comments and looking in the 1998 phonebook.
Club Essence, 8605 Two Notch Road, 22 December 2009 2 comments
I confess that this story in The State came as a complete surprise to me:
Club Essence on Two Notch Road in Northeast Richland, the scene of nine separate shooting incidents over the past three years, is closed.
Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said pressure from police and neighbors persuaded the building owner not to renew the club's lease.
"Santa Claus came early for this community," Lott said Monday. "This place has been a hell hole."
I had driven past the place many times during the day, noticed the signage with a guy playing saxophone over the legend "Club Essence Jazz Club" and thought to myself "hey, that sounds nice!". I couldn't imagine that jazz would draw much of a crowd and imagined it as a smoky, low-key kind of place. Shows how detached from reality I get sometimes, I suppose.
(Hat tip commenter Matt)
UPDATE 3 June 2010 -- It's now Pandora's Lounge:
All Star Cafe / Club Kryptonite, 2925 Hollywood Drive (Myrtle Beach): 31 October 2009 6 comments
Club Kryptonite was in what is actually one of the more normal looking buildings in its section of US-17 Bypass (just north of Broadway At The Beach) in Myrtle Beach. Sure it is somewhat cylindrical, has huge torches and a comic-book logo on the front, but it's not a pyramid like the nearby Hard Rock Cafe or a really awkward looking sphere like the next-door Planet Hollywood.
I would hear the Club Kryptonite commercials from time to time on the radio at the beach, and they always made it sound like a really hip, risque, happening, appealing place, except for the fact that I'm years past the target demo, don't dance, hardly drink, don't much like loud techno or hip-hop and get stopped up if there's any smoke in the air... Still I wouldn't have minded seeing the inside.
Looking at the club's fossil web page and various fliers one thing that is somewhat surprising is that there is no mention of any connection with DC Comics. It's obvious that the club's logo is meant to invoke Superman's chest shield and, of course, Kryptonite is the fictional substance that is Superman's one weakness (OK, he's also vulnerable to magic, but that's not as widely known..). Obviously the club couldn't use the famous "S" logo without permission, but apparently DC neglected to ever trademark the word "Kryptonite". (I actually think the spelling "Klub Kryptonite" would have worked a little better, appropos to nothing).
According to the Myrtle Beach Sun News, Halloween 2009 was the club's last gasp:
The party’s over at Club Kryptonite.
The business’s owner, Maximus Entertainment, LLC, was sued by Burroughs & Chapin Co. Inc. on Nov. 4 for a breach of contract and served an eviction notice the day before for unpaid rent, according to court documents. The club rented the building from B&C.
Club Kryptonite, located at 2925 Hollywood Dr. in Myrtle Beach, had until Nov. 17 to vacate the building or respond to the notice, and the decision was made to vacate, said co-owner Andrew Manios.
The decrease in sales this year, combined with the increase in rent and additional insurance policies the business had to take on, made it hard to pay the bills, Manios said.
The club opened in April of 2002 and had its last night of operation on Halloween.
I believe that this is the final radio ad and that this is the final promotion:
More pictures and audio after the jump..
Sound Advice / Dugan's Sports Bar / PowerOne Computer Warehouse, 1807 Bush River Road: December 2009 26 comments
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.
Strip Club / Flight Line / Uncle Doctors, 1734 Mobile Avenue: 2005 2 comments
I have noticed this building on Mobile Avenue (off of Airport Boulevard fairly near the airport) a number of times over the years, though I don't believe it has always had the castle-like facade.
I used to fly out of the airport fairly often (though luckily I haven't had to fly for a few years now), and it seemed to me that for a while it was something different every time I drove past. I think in the 90s it was a strip club that morphed into a night club or vice versa, and a few more things before it became The Flight Line and then Uncle Doctors.
Google gave me a pointer to the old Uncle Doctors web site, and I was able to find some zombie versions in www.archive.org from whence the logos. Apparently Uncle Doctors was a sister club to Ground Zero in Spartanburg as they shared a site. The current occupant in the building apparently does wedding receptions and catering.
Paul & Ernie's / Limelight / Shangri-La / Diamonds Strip Club / Comedy House, 14 Berryhill Road: mid-2000s 29 comments
This building off of Saint Andrews Road is now an "Ultra Lounge". I'm not sure what it was built as, but I first recall noticing it in the 1980s, when it was a strip club, the name of which I can't remember. After that, it was for a number of years the original site of The Comedy House, now on Decker Boulevard in the old Winn-Dixie building. I think it may have been something after the strip-club and before The Comedy House and after The Comedy House and before Pure, but I'm not sure.
I saw a number of comedy shows there including one guy who made me laugh so hard it hurt, but whose name (or act) I cannot now recall at all. I'm not sure what happened to The Comedy House as it was non-existent for a long while after closing shop here. Normally if a place is moving just as a normal course of business, they will do it as quickly as possible to keep a revenue stream active, but I think it took over a year in this case.
UPDATE 15 October 2009: Added a bunch of extra names to the post title based on the comments.
UPDATE 29 March 2023: Adding map icon. Also this building has been razed. Click on the address tag for details.
Decker Billiard Club, 1803 Decker Boulevard: fall 2009 7 comments
I don't play pool (now air-hockey is a game!), so this club has only been on the periphery of my notice over the years, but I was conscious enough of it that it caught my eye when I saw new signs up the last time I drove down Decker to I-77.
Doing a little googling I find that it has something of a tragic history, with the co-owner being fatally shot there in 2006. Google also insists that the place has been called Sue's Lounge though the Google Streetview for "Sue's Lounge" brings up the old Decker Billiard signage on the place.
The new name of the place is La Parranda which apparently means "The Big Party" in Spanish (and a song of that name was a hit for Gloria Estefan..), so I'm assuming that the ownership has switched from Korean to latin, though the graphic on the sign seems to indicate that pool and alcohol will still be available.
UPDATE 25 April 2013 -- Well it's back, sorta. I hope they didn't pay too much for those signs:
Total Communication Systems Inc / Indecent Exposure Hookah Lounge, 3400 Fernandina Road: fall 2009 5 comments
I have to admit that I always wondered about this place as I would see it from I-26 driving to Harbison. It seemed somewhat contradictory to me in that I always figured a hookah lounge would be a middle-eastern place with very modest dress, but the name Indecent Exposure made it sound like the front for a strip club.
Given the exterior windows, it plainly wasn't a strip club, and I guess the market for hookah smoking isn't that large in Columbia because I don't think the place was there much longer than a year before folding.
UPDATE 7 October 2009: Added "Total Communication Systems Inc" to the post title based on the comments.