Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

This ad from the 1974 Southern Bell Yellow Pages is similar to other ads for the Flaming Pit that I have seen in that it never gives a real street address for the place. That, and a complete lapse of mind that let me confuse I-20 with I-26 led me to originally post some pictures of what was certainly the wrong building for the place!

We never went to the Flaming Pit, though I seem to remember radio commercials that made it sound like a very exotic place. (I didn't do "exotic"..). I'm not exactly sure what "Open Hearth Charcoal Cookery" is, but combing that with the name of the place, I envision a large central grill in the middle of the dining area (hopefully very well ventilated with charcoal involved..) where your orders were cooked as you watched.

I'm a little surprised that the bar was The Wells Fargo Lounge given that Wells Fargo is, in addition to its evocative history, still around and presumably trademarked..

UPDATE 15 June 2010: Removed incorrect pictures, and corrected the text in which I was completely wrong about the location!

This little fast food joint has been a fixture on the Northwest corner of Harden & Taylor Streets for years, and with its location across from both Allen and Benedict, it comes by the name College Corner honestly.

A Subway opened on the Southwest corner fairly recently, which may have put some pressure on it, though the food mix is not the same. I'm not sure if the place is gone for good, or will be coming back after an uplift. Some work is going on for sure, and not all the fixtures have been removed.

UPDATE 21 Jan 2011 -- Open again:

UPDATE 2 December 2013 -- Closed again, for good. It's now Empire Grill:

The College Corner sign is still legible from Harden Street, but sort of painted over from Taylor Street

I've writen before about The Shrimper on Knox Abbott Drive. This was the chain's other location, on Two Notch Road in front of Atlantic Twin Theater and more or less across the street from Dick Dyer Toyota.

The Southern Bell ad is from 1974 -- I'm not really sure when The Shrimper closed; 1980s is just a guess, but it seems like quite a while ago to me. The building was split into two storefronts after that. I'm not sure about the one farther from Beltline, but the end towards Beltline has been a copier store at least since 1998, and probably before (though it looks to have had some trouble lately).

I note that the ad offers Calabash Style seafood. It seems to me that that's a selling point I see mentioned less and less in recent years.

UPDATE 9 June 2010: Added "Lum's Restaurant" to the post title base on comments (and the 1970 Yellow Pages).

UPDATE 18 September 2020: Here is a Shrimper cup I found at my sister's house:

Also updating tags and adding map icon.

This place is tucked about a building's length off of Gervais Street, and I was completely unaware of it until commenter Mike D mentioned that it might be closed (and commenter Jeff suggested that the building was for sale).

I haven't verified that with 100% certainty as there was no sign on the door, or other indication of defunct-itude. However, when I took these pictures, the place was locked tight and it was a Saturday, and after their posted opening hours, so I'm pretty sure it's gone. (Also, the last events mentioned on the "upcoming" page seem to be Christmas themed).

The web site pitches it as sort of a networking hub for Columbia's upcoming movers & shakers, with a whiskey & cigars subtheme.

(Hat tip to commenter Mike D).

UPDATE 4 June 2010: Updated closing date in post title to "May" based on comments.

UPDATE 19 Nov 2010 -- Looks like the place is open again. They have events scheduled during Vista Lights:

UPDATE 28 March 2011: Apparently it's not actually open to the general public again yet.

UPDATE 19 October 2011: Ok, now they definitely are open again. The new web site is www.RustColumbia.com.

Well, this much re-purposed building on Firelane Road, behind Lowe's, the old Spring Valley Theater, and old Byte Shop locations is vacant again. That's probably a good thing in the last few months, as I think Firelane Road has been pretty well shut down for bridge work, or at least there was a detour sign up at Two Notch to that effect for a while. Somehow I never made it to any of these businesses. Granted the bars or daycare would have been a stretch, but an Italian restaurant should have been right up my alley. I guess I was living out of town for its whole lifespan, because I don't recall it at all.

It's a little hard to put all these businesses in chronological order. I have links for two ABC permit rulings that establish that Dazzler's, Inc. was granted a permit on 13 Oct 1994 and L. A. Nights was granted a permit on 17 Aug 1998.

The ruling for L. A. Nights establishes Fatties, Bogie's and Callaros as having preceded Dazzler's, but doesn't give a timeline. It does suggest that all the previous occupants caused parking problems for the local community. Commenter Allie in Have Your Say suggests a 1988/1989 timeframe for Callaros, so I have put it first.

I'm not sure where the Arong Cafe fits into the timeline. I know I always somehow had the impression that this building started as a Korean nightclub, but that would have been a long time ago, and apparently Arong was recent enough to be in some online sources.

The timeline for One to One Daycare and Aunty's Daycare is a bit unclear as well. Apparently both business ran afoul of some regulations you have to follow if you have a private well, One to One in 2004 and Aunty's in 2007.

That would imply that Aunty's was the last business there, except that the surviving signage is for One to One...

At any rate, the last operation was certainly a daycare as the playground equipment is all still in place.

(Hat tip to commenter Allie).

According to this press release Baker Brothers American Deli came to South Carolina on 29 November 2007, with the opening of the Lexington store. That was to be the first of three stores in the Columbia market. I believe this store, beneath the upscale Adesso condos (themselves built on the site of the former mini-mall housing Pappy's and Robo's Video Arcade) was the second Columbia location. A google search suggests the third store was at 1730 Main Street, but I can't bring that one to mind without driving by.

At any rate, according to the franchaise map here all the South Carolina stores are now gone. The map is actually rather interesting in that persuing a Texas, Iowa, Indiana and Kentucky stragegy seems a bit unusual. Things could apparently be going better though, since apart from Texas (which is the home state and has 12 locations) each other state has only one. I never ate at Baker Bros. From the menu and web site, it seems sort of like another McAlister's Deli, a restaurant I never really warmed up to.

As mentioned by commenter Dave, the next business in this slot looks to be a yogurt operation called Yog Hut. My impression based on peering in the corner entrance is that Yog Hut will not be using the full Baker Bros space though.

UPDATE 21 May 2010: Commenter ChiefDanGeorge says the Yog Hut entrance is a different space, so I've added a picture of the Main Street doors. He also suggests that the Yog Hut opening is stalled.

UPDATE 8 July 2010 -- Well if it was stalled, it's unstalled and open now:

(Hat tip to commenter Mike)

UPDATE 28 June 2019: Add tags, map icon.

Actually, I don't remember this place as a Caribbean restaurant at all, but that's what google is turning up for it. Apparently it was an attempt at doing well by doing good, as this 1999 ABC permit hearing decision notes:

The permit was granted despite some misgivings by a neighbor business, but as far as I can tell, the restaurant did not last long at all. I have not verified that by any phonebook research, but note that the only "Five Points Association Member Sticker" in the window is for 1999. The building certainly has not seen much if any work since then, and appears to be in a fairly advanced state of disrepair.

Now, despite not finding any online evidence for it, what I remember this place as is some sort of night club which used the roof as a deck. You can see the hutch that presumably terminates a staircase from the ground floor, and the roof is also directly accessible from the side street as the building is more or less cut into a hillside. I can remember thinking that it was pretty neat though I never visited the club.

I did find this 1998 zoning board minutes which implies that the place was some sort of restaurant in 1990 which was forclosed on at some later point, but no other details are offered..

I think I also remember some sort of drumming studio here as well.

Read the rest of this entry »

We never ate at The Whale's Tail growing up. I wasn't a big seafood fan (which is to say I refused to eat the stuff), and my parents didn't push the issue too often (in fact we used to go to Oliver's Lodge before 5pm because I could get spaghetti before 5 but not after. (Which really sounds odd to me at this remove, but I'm pretty sure thats right..).

Anyway, while I never went there, I used to see the billboards from time to time, and I decided to go looking for it today. The old phonebooks (the above ad is from the 1977 one) never give a real street address for it (it was pretty far out in the boonies back in the day) but I took exit 97 both ways and didn't see anything that looked probable. There's certainly a lot of new construction in the area, and I suspect the building must have been torn down long ago. Can anyone confirm or refute that? The only possible place I saw was Little Pigs barbecue which looked to be the right vintage, but I always imagined The Whale's Tail as a bigger building.

UPDATE 27 May 2010: Added shots of Little Pigs which turns out to be the old Whale's Tail building.

UPDATE 15 February 2012: The Italian restaurant was Rubino's Italian Restaurant and I have added it to the post title along with the full Broad River Road street address.

I just thought this one was a little odd. The ad is from the 1985 Bellsouth phonebook. Sometime between then and now, the name of this backgate restaurant at Fort Jackson Boulevard & I-77 was changed from Saki to Saky. If you look at the photo, you can see how the 'I' was replaced by a 'Y' in the mural (which is very similar, though not identical to the Yellow Pages art).

The only reason for something like this that I can think of is that the ownership changed at some point, and the new owner didn't have permission to keep using the same name, but was able to keep something very similar..

Well, it is a bit sad to see their street sign proclaiming their first anniversary and then to have them closed 16 days later, but that's how it happens sometimes. (Though they apparently still have an operation in Florence).

I wrote about this building first in a closing for Cancun / Little Mexico, so the building has been at least three different Mexican restaurants. Loopnet says the place was built in 1980 and is a "Spanish Style" restaurant, so it probably has been Mexican restaurants since it was built. Notice also the fundamental tension in the Loopnet write-up (apparently left over from 2007 or so) between keeping something secret and posting it on the Internet..

I did not yet notice any "for sale" signs on the building last week, but I suppose it will be another Mexican restaurant someday.

(Hat tip to commenter IrmoJeff)

UPDATE 29 Sep 2010: The restaurant is being converted into a Wata Wing -- or maybe not.

Commenter Matt found this PDF of a legal action in Maryland against Wata Wing which seems to basically indicate that while there may be legit WW restaurants, the franchaising operation is pretty much a scam. The work being done on the Mi Teirra building matches the description in the PDF pretty much to a tee, right down to the work on the floors and the note on the door indicating that it was started without getting the proper permits. To me, the oddest thing in the PDF is that apparently none of the people in Maryland investing in WW franchaises ever asked to visit an operating WW, or at least that's the implication I'm getting. The Taco Bell on Knox Abbott seems to be in a similar state of Wata Wing stall-out.