Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

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This Dunkin' Donuts storefront, to go into the old Capitol Cafe site, was announced with more than a bit of fanfare in The State on 24 June 2008.

Since that's about a year and a half ago, and since there has been no apparent work done at the site since the sign went up, I think it's fair to conclude that this is not going to happen..

UPDATE 26 Jan 2011 -- Well, all the Dunkin' branding is gone, and work has progressed. It's got some fancy looking hanging lights in there, but whenever I tried to get a closer look at what was going on inside, I got dripped all over from some sort of overhead leak:

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:

I believe that this is the final radio ad and that this is the final promotion:

More pictures and audio after the jump..

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I never ate at this San Jose on US-1 near the I-20 interchange. Firstly, it's not near anywhere I usually am, and secondly (and more importantly..) it looked pretty suspect as far as quality goes.

At first I assumed it had just gone under (and was somewhat surprised at all the stuff left inside), but driving down the road towards I-20, I found a very nice looking new San Jose restaurant, so I assume it moved to the new building though there are so many San Jose places in Columbia that I can't swear it's the same operation.

UPDATE 16 Jan 2010: Commenter JB says this used to be The Oak Grove Superette, so I've added that to the post title.

UPDATE 4 March 2010 -- Here's the new San Jose building:

UPDATE 20 Jan 2011: Added "The Carolina Grill" to the post title based on the comments.

UPDATE 20 May 2021: Adding map icon and updating tags.

UPDATE 25 January 2023: Add tag.

I have never found a sub place I like as well as Dagwood's Deli in Surfside Beach. Most other sub places feel very down-market with indifferently bussed, hard, booths and the feeling that you're meant to wolf your sub and bolt the premises. It's been several years, but I recall the only Quiznos I've ever been in (in Arlington VA) the same way, and was not impressed.

Be that as it may, this Quizno in Five Points is now history, the latest of several fairly short lived operations in the Harden Street storefront.

I don't remember the Bad Ass Coffee Company at all, but apparently it received an SBA loan in December 2005 to set up business at 817. I do think I vaguely recall seeing the other recent business there, The Just Fresh Bakery Cafe & Market, but never stopped by. It will be interesting to see what goes in next.

(Hat tip to commenter MB)

UPDATE 10 Jan 2010: Added "Manhatten Bagel" to the post title based on the comments.

UPDATE 11 May 2010: Updated the post title to change "Quiznos Subs" to "Quiznos Sub". Interestingly (or not), in this post I remember my experience with Quiznos in the DC area as "not impressed" while today I recalled it much more positively. They say the memory is the first thing to, um what were we talking about?

I'm not really sure when this KFC closed, but the property looks so distressed that I'm putting it in the early 2000s rather than the last couple of years. I've never been a fan of chicken (or any other bird, come to that), so I have no standing to criticize the chain, but I always felt it was rather pusillanimous to change the official name from Kentucky Fried Chicken to KFC: You sell fried chicken! Stand up for it! (I also didn't like the commercials with the animated Colonel -- I remember the real Colonel in commercials, and it seems disrespectful of your founder to make a cartoon out of him now that he's gone..).

The only other thing I have to say about KFC in general is that every time I see the "Livers & Gizzards" signage up, I think 'Lewis Grizzard'.

It seems a bit odd that there seems to be no attempt to sell the property, or at least I saw no "For Sale" signs in evidence.

UPDATE 7 Jan 2010: Comments say I was wrong about the closing period, so I have changed the post title date from 'early 2000s' to 'late 2000s'.

UPDATE 30 January 2016 -- It's now China Wing Basket:

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.

Happy New Year to everyone. I hope your holidays were great, and that Santa was good to you!

Anyway..

I first did a closing on this building when it had just ceased being Tiffany's Bakery in 2008. The place was vacant a good while after that, then Granville's moved in.

This story from The State suggests that the place opened in July of 2009, so it had about a six-month run. While generally upbeat, that story also has some ominous IRS issues to be worked through mentioned. Whether that had an impact on the place closing, I don't know.

Commenter Mike D. gave the initial notice in Have Your Say and when I drove by to take these pictures, the place still had a hopeful Closed For Private Partysign in the door. He reports that since these pictures, a For Sale sign has gone up. Too bad!

(Hat tip to Mike D., obviously)

UPDATE 4 Jan 2010: Fixed typo in street address.

UPDATE 8 Jan 2010: Added a picture I forgot earlier.

UPDATE 13 April 2010 -- It's now Conrad's:

Well, it seems that the second location of Mangia! Mangia! is now history. I believe I ate there only twice, once in West Columbia, and once, very recently, in the new Spears Creek location.

I don't recall much about the West Columbia visit, but I chose pizza at the Spears Creek venue, and found it pretty good. Not necessarily "drive almost to Elgin" good, but nice.

I have no idea what happened to the place, but I suspect the "drive to Elgin" factor did have something to do with it. In the first place, "out of sight, out of mind" -- I only visited recently because I kept forgetting that the place existed. Second, timing. It's clear that the area is going to experience the eastward drift of the metro area as the Two Notch Corridor and Sandhills already have, but the recession has probably pushed that back, and the density just wasn't there yet. Or I could be completely wrong, though it sounds like the new operation there, Shag Bistro is thinking along similar lines, in antipation of the dining business from the Verizon call center relocation..

Added bonus, interesting clouds and sunset driving back from Spears Creek.

(Hat Tip to commenter Stewart)

UPDATE 22 February 2022: Updating tags and adding map icon. Also adding suite number to the title.

Here's another old-style Taco Bell that has moved to a new location (739 Knox Abbott Drive in this case) with drive-through capabilities and the new-style chain architecture. There is still an old-style one on Decker Boulevard (though I believe it already has a drive-through) but the ones on Devine Street and Broad River Road are gone and/or moved.

This is really too many pictures, but I like these buildings, and I like clouds. The last picture is of their new location, which is several blocks towards the river.

UPDATE 24 Sep 2010 -- As noted by commenter Jamie, the building has been re-painted, and there has been some work to convert it to a Wata Wing, but that seems to have stalled: