Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I was having lunch at Carrabba's on Sparkleberry last Sunday, and as I was leaving, noticed an almost empty signboard for the surrounding retail area. One item on the almost vacant space was Pizza Buffet, which struck me as a bit curious since it was so generic.

As it turns out, there is a road behind Sparkleberry Square (parallel to Two Notch) that I had never noticed before called Graces Way. There seems to be very little on it, but that's where Pappa's Pizza To Go was. I had never heard of it, but googling around finds enough other hits that I conclude it is a chain.

I don't generally do pizza buffets anymore since I want my pizza how I like it without having to wait for something that's even partially how I like it, so I have no idea how the pizza was there, but it seems to me they could hardly have chosen a worse location. There is no visibility from Two Notch or Sparkleberry, and the Sparkleberry signage is so small and generic as to be almost useless. Further, while the hope may have been that Graces Way would become a fairly busy road, there is almost nothing on it, and while I was driving down it, and parked taking these pictures, no other cars went by. Granted it was a Sunday, but Carrabba's was doing a very good business.

It appears they are doing interior work so perhaps something else will go in there though the location still seems chancy.

UPDATE 29 March 2010: Added picture of the Sparkleberry sign.

Here's another Dutch Square casualty -- the food court is looking pretty thin right now. (Chik-Fil-A keeps chugging on in the same space its occupied since at least 1970 tough..). I know D'Avino's was not the first restaurant in this spot, probably not the second either. I seem to have a vague notion that a hot-dog operation was there at one time, but I could easily be mistaken about that. On the face of it, you would think that the location is ideal for folks taking in a movie at the AMC theater just up the walk to duck in and have a slice before showtime, but in the event, I guess not.

On the "up" side for the old mall, there's finally something going into the Old Anabelle's spot, Burger Time Chargrill & Bar

(Hat tip to commenter Evelyn)

UPDATE 15 Feb 2011: Added Sbarro to the post title based on the comments.

UPDATE 17 Feb 2011: Added A Slice of Italy based on the comments.

Well, recent weeks have not been good to pizza operations on Forest Drive!

I liked The Original Italian Pie but found it rather frustrating in a couple of respects.

Why did I like it? Well, they had a quite good pizza, with ingredients like "kalamata olives" which, while getting more common, still are hard to find. The crust was not too thick but neither was it too thin and was chewy without being mushy. They also had bottles of olive oil on the tables to drizzle over the pizza, and the staff was friendly. In fact at the time I was going fairly often, they got to know me by sight, and would just bring out a pitcher of unsweet tea for me so I could read before and after my pizza without them having to keep making refill passes.

Why was it frustrating? The main thing was the hours. For various reasons, I am often uable to make supper before 9:30 at the earliest. That was OK initially, since while they closed at 9:00 during the week, Thur-Sat, they were open until 10:30 and I could drop by then.

After a few months however, they went into the deadly Well, we weren't too busy, so we closed the kitchen early cycle. This is a prime violation of rule #1!, and really ticks me off. I got caught in it a few times, then one night I thought I was safe as I was able to make it at 9:15, a full hour and 15 min before the posted closing and they still sprang it on me. I confess I got as argumentative as I ever do in a restaurant (which isn't much, but..). Luckily, I had the support of a feisty woman who had come in just behind me and we did get served. After that, they changed the hours posted on their door, leaving just a dash for the closing time if I recall correctly (which is, of course Sign #1), and I was not able to eat there at night anymore.

In fact I rarely got to eat there at all, since I don't usually have pizza for lunch during the week if I'm going to have to be awake and thinking during the afternoon, but I was able to go for Saturday or Sunday lunch from time to time. The closing of the Italian Pie at Sandhill was not a good sign, but didn't seem to have much effect on the Forest Drive store. However, the last time I was there, in early July, I believe, I did notice that Sign #6 had come into play: The olive oil bottles on each table were gone.

I don't know what happened in the end. As you can see from the pictures, the place is going to re-open as The Pizza Joint, so perhaps the owners just switched franchaises. That doesn't seem too likely to me however as TPJ is a "late night" chain, which was definitely not the strategy of The Italian Pie.

I encountered The Pizza Joint when I was working in Augusta. They have a location on Broad Street, and one night when it was too late to hit The Mellow Mushroom, I decided to check it out. Frankly, I wasn't too impressed since it's a New York style operation and NY is not my favorite pizza. The smallest pie was also 14-inches, which means that a single guy has to order by the slice, which I really don't like. (Also, that part of Broad Street was a good place to get panhandled).

I see that since I moved back here from Aiken, they have opened a branch there. I guess they are gradually moving East from Augusta. Perhaps if it works out here, they will hit Florence and Myrtle Beach..

They appear to be building a dining patio -- if they are able to get that done and open as the weather starts to cool down a bit, it should be very nice.

UPDATE 23 Aug 2009: Changed the post title to add Hardee's after being reminded in the comments that a Hardee's was on this lot (in a different building) before the Italian Pie.

UPDATE 19 June 2021: Adding tags and map icon. I should also now note that this building is currently The Pizza Joint and has been for quite a while.

Well, this isn't a total surprise as Paulie's had been undergoing kind of a combination of Sign #2 & Sign #6 for a while.

To be a bit more specific, I used to eat lunch at Paulie's once or twice a month. I really enjoyed the Italian Sausage Sandwich with peppers and onions, and it was all the better in that they linked their own sausage in two different flavors: hot or sweet. The hot was excellent, and my favorite.

Then I would come in for lunch, and they would be out of the hot sausage, and I would have to get the sweet. Then after that, they would be out of both, and I finally concluded that while they weren't going to drop it from the menu, they weren't really going to have it any more either. Since I rarely eat pizza for lunch (it makes me want to sleep the rest of the afternoon..), I just stopped going there. (They also stopped putting out an un-sweet tea urn, leaving a half-empty pitcher with an implied and we're not making any more when that's gone!.

Their pizza, I do have to say, was excellent! Unfortunately, they closed so early (9pm during the week, 10pm Friday & Saturday) that I was rarely able to have any.

We'll have to see how the Village Idiot incarnation does menu and hour-wise. I've only eaten at VI in Five Points once, and was less than impressed since they had average pizza and no unsweet tea at all. I did not go in, but it doesn't appear that they've changed the physical plant much. The booths could really use some padding!

Hat Tip: Matt.

UPDATE 6 December 2023: Adding map icon and updating tags.

Well, this is unpleasant news:

Columbia Fire Department firefighters were dispatched at 11:09 p.m. to 486 Town Center Place, the location of Brixx Wood Fire Pizza, where a fire had spread up a flue from a pizza oven, Assistant Chief Aubrey Jenkins said.

Brixx is one of my regular after 10pm Tuesday night pizza hangouts (Pizzeria Uno on US-378 is the other), and it's pretty much a roll of the dice that put me at Uno on the 14th rather than enjoying the fun here. Luckily, nobody was hurt. I'm a bit surprised that the news story states that the fire was post closing -- Usually they don't close until midnight or 1am.

I think Brixx is a bit of a frustrating place in that they have a good concept and very attentive staff, but the food execution could be better. They have lots of different combos and some more unusual ingredients, but often when I get a custom pizza, the extra stuff on top is not hot, and the crust and sauce are acceptable, but not great. (Landolfi's at Pawleys Island is the best brick-oven pizza in SC, arguably the best pizza in SC period). Anyway, the sign on the door says closed until further notice, but I hope they come back soon and better than ever.

While I was in there once, one of the wait staff mentioned that the people living upstairs had been complaining about the noise at night -- I suppose that's the good old days now!

These pictures are not very good because at first there was a group of men standing under the front awning with clipboards making some sort of assesment of the situation and I didn't want to just walk up and stick my camera under their noses, snapping away. After that, it started to rain, and I had to stand under an awning at Which Wich. There were some sort of hoses running to the upstairs apartments, but given my angle you can't see them.

UPDATE 20 July 2009: OK, some more pictures, a bit closer:

UPDATE 21 December 2011:

Well, Brixx is closed again, this time for good. I had not been there too much lately because my situation had changed, and I could get to some closer places that closed earlier. However, I did make it there several times after they re-opened, with the last time being on Sunday 11 December 2011. It still wasn't my favorite pizza in town, but a perfectly acceptable one, and my toppings were all nice and hot the times I got back there recently. The waitresses were always good about keeping the tea refills coming too.

I don't know what this says about the Village at Sandhill except that it can't be good news for them as they have taken several hits in 2011 including Talbots, Corked, AAA and La Fogata.

(Hat tip to commenter Sidney)

The whole area on Garners Ferry near where this Pizza Hut sat has been reworked so much over the years that it's hard to say exactly where the restaurant actually was, but I think it's not far off the mark to say it was about where Ruby Tuesday now is.

I don't know what the ownership structure of Columbia Pizza Huts in the 70s & 80s was, but as far as I could tell, they were almost all about the same, with no real standouts or bad stores. (I believe PH was in general better back then -- I don't care too much for it today). I say almost because this store was something of an outlier.

I remember that my sister and I stopped there once in the late 70s, and after our pizza came we ate for a few minutes before, independantly, coming to the conclusion that while the crust was fine, the cheese properly melted, and the toppings we had ordered had been duly applied -- there was no sauce anywhere on the pizza. I believe we raised it as an issue to the manager, but decided to take a discount on the check rather than wait for a new pizza to be prepared.

I didn't think much of the incident though obviously it did not move that PH to the top my "where to eat pizza" list. Still about five years later, I found myself in the area when it was time to eat and decided to stop by again. As I'm sure you already suspect, my pie was once again served sauceless. Now, the old saying is

Once is happenstance
Twice is coincidence and
Three times is enemy action.

and I didn't try a third time, so I can't rule out coincidence, but I can't help suspect that there was a management policy to cut costs by shorting the sauce. After all it's the least noticable bit of the pizza, being normally mostly hidden under the cheese anyway.

I can't remember exactly what happened to the place. Either it burned down (I know the one of Forest Drive did, so I may be conflating with that) or was torn down during one of the plaza remodels. At any rate, it was never rebuilt, and I can't say I'm too heartbroken about it.

UPDATE 5 March 2011: Changed the post title to use "Devine Street" rather than "Garners Ferry Road". I thought the name changed at Fort Jackson Boulevard, but actually Devine Street goes all the way to Wildcat Road.

UPDATE 26 June 2023: Updating tags and adding map icon.

The Forest Acres area used to have several Pizza Huts. There was one on Forest Drive more or less across the street from where Golden Corral is now. There was one on Garners Ferry about where Ruby Tuesday is now, and then there was this one on Beltline in between D's Wings and the Japanese steakhouse.

I was noticing that Casa Linda looks a bit like an old-style Pizza Hut (though with some additions) and that this building is one of the newer style Pizza Huts, so it's possible that they moved here from the Casa Linda building. However, I have no recollection of any such thing, so that's just speculation.

At any rate, this Pizza Hut was part of my ongoing disenchantment with the chain, becase the service was consistently... not good. In fact this store had an innovation I had not seen before, and have not seen since: A Neon Help Wanted sign.

Honestly, do you want your customers to notice that your help turns over so often that you have a built-in, lighted, Help Wanted sign? Much better to just continue to tape a paper one in the window every week. That will go below most people's radar.

After this place went under as a Pizza Hut it became a Rising High. This was sort of interesting because it was one of the most protracted re-purposings I can recall. My memory is that the Coming Soon Rising High! sign went up at least a full year before they got around to opening, with the actual work seeming to happen on a very off-and-on basis. I suspect that opening this store while also trying to cope with the road-work on Harden Street was what drove Rising High under. At any rate, this store didn't last long.

I think there may have been another operation between Rising High and the current tenant, Shane's, but if so I can't now recall what it was.

UPATE 26 June 2023: Updating tags and adding map icon.

I've mentioned in one of my other posts, my gradual disenchantment with Pizza Hut which over the years has, due to bad corporate choices, turned from a place I looked forward to going to into a place which provides a mediocre experience at best.

I believe this former Pizza Hut on Knox Abbot Drive in Cayce is, to date, the last Pizza Hut I have eaten at in Columbia. There was nothing particularly bad about it that put me off Columbia Pizza Huts, in fact the staff was quite friendly and attentive -- it's just that in my own stomping grounds, I generally have better options for pizza. This was, however, about 10pm on Christmas Eve 2002, a date and time when anything higher up the food chain than The Waffle House that's still open is pretty hard to find. I was en route from Augusta to Pawleys Island. I can't quite picture now how I ended up on Knox Abbot unless I was cutting down I-26 to get to I-77 and the Sumter Highway, still it was a welcome break.

I don't know when this store went under, and it seems a bit odd, since I can't think of another Pizza Hut on that side of town. At any rate, the tax place has now been there several years. Perhaps they can get you a deep-dish refund.

UPDATE 25 January 2017: Added the full street address and some tags

UPDATE 23 February 2022: Adding map icon.

UPDATE 26 June 2023: Update tags.

Although I originally designated Tuesday as my "pizza night" to conform with the practice of the local Pizza Hut when I was living in Fayetteville, I generally don't go to buffets anymore. I would rather wait and pay to have something exactly like I want rather than take what's out. That being the case, I've never been to this Stevie B's Pizza located in an outparcel strip at the Wal-Mart complex on Forest Drive.

Judging from their signage, their main marketing pitch (for supper, at least) was for after-game free-for-alls by kids' sports teams. That certainly seems like a viable market niche to me, especially with no Chuck E. Cheese on this side of town. In the event though, perhaps not. I may be wrong. This place may come back on October 29 as the closed for remodeling sign suggests, but closed for remodeling is a standard, hopeful, dodge of places that have actually gone under. Add to that the fact that this is a new building with Stevie B's being the first tenant, and that looking inside shows no actual remodeling being done, and I have my doubts, especially since their phone number has been disconnected.

UPDATE 3 Nov 2008:

I was wrong -- they're back. Good for them!

UPDATE 17 June 2009:

Gone again!

UPDATE 26 Aug 2009: Took the 'temporary' out of the post title -- they are gone for good this time.

UPDATE 25 March 2010: Added full street address to post title.

UPDATE 21 March 2011 -- It's now a Navy Federal Credit Union:

I like The Italian Pie, though I have only eaten at their Forest Drive location. My only problem with that place is their initial violation of Ted's Rules for Restaurants #1": Honor Your Posted Hours.

For a while they were open until 10:30pm Thurs-Sat and I got there at 9:30 to hear the dreaded: "Well, we weren't very busy, so we closed the kitchen". After that, they took down their posted closing hours, and I can generally only get there for lunch now.

I don't know much about the Sandhill location. Since Forest Drive is so much closer, I never made it out there for a meal. I did read in The State a while back that they were reducing their open hours, is Signs Your Favorite Restaurant is About to Close #1. Apparently after that, they reduced their open hours down to zero.

Judging from the salt shakers still on the tables, the end probably came fairly quickly. It looks like a French-ish (I add the "ish" because of the "Pepe Le Pew" spellings on their sign) place is to open there soon. Perhaps they can open before the new Panera Bread, which seems to have been in the offing for a lot longer than necessary now. Maybe they're looking for salt shakers...