Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Here's another place I have no memory of. Notice that the 1970 Southern Bell Yellow Pages ad lists the address as "522 12th Avenue". I'm fairly sure that's wrong, since there is no 12th Avenue in West Columbia, but there is a 12th Street. Given that, I found that the storefront is in the same strip building that houses that classic Triangle City landmark, Zesto, and is now a payday loan office. I don't know why I didn't take a horizontal format shot as well as this vertical one to put the place into context better.

The illustration looks makes it look a bit upscale, but the text describing it as a breakfast and lunch buffet place seems more down to Earth. I'm not sure when the place closed. As far as I can remember, Zesto has been there forever, and it would seem odd to have two restaurants backed up together like that, but perhaps they were neighbors for a while.

Well, normally I wouldn't do two pizza places so close together, but after Primarily Pi came up in Have Your Say today, I got to thinking about how it was right next to Atlanta Bread, which is not normally one of my favorite places, but that sometimes during the fall they have pumpkin soup, which would be really nice -- so I drove over there for lunch.

Primarily Pi came to my attention when I did the closing on Pizza House which is just on the other side of I-26. At the time, a discussion started up in the comments for that closing about the new pizza place which was setting up, and I was looking forward to trying it out.

It finally opened in the summer (early July at the latest), but the hours were not such that I could normally go. They were only open until 9pm during the week, and 10pm on the weekends, but I was finally able to get over there one Saturday evening and try it out. Frankly I was not bowled over. The pizza was perfectly acceptable, but nothing special, and the fixtures struck me as rather industrial and not very homey.

I went about 9pm, and noticed that very few people were there. I'm guessing that that was an ongoing problem that led to the situation that apparently came to a head on 13 November (Friday the 13th, natch..). From the location of the place and the early hours, they must have been counting on lunch traffic from the medical center which for some reason did not materialize. According to the comments over at the Pizza House closing, these were experienced restauranteers, so I'm sure they had plans based on assumptions that seemed reasonable, but there are always business conditions and economic times that just can't be anticipated.

(Hat tip to commenter Larry)

UPDATE 3 Nov 2010 -- It's now a La Fogata Mexican:

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.

I've only eaten at Qdoba once. That was at the store on US-17 Bypass at SC-544 (between Surfside Beach & Socastee). This was after the Moe's in Murrells Inlet closed, and I was really in the mood for something similar. In the event, I wasn't too impressed. First of all, they picked an unpronounceable name, second unlike Moe's, Qdoba doesn't give you chips and salsa as part of your meal, and while I have very rarely had a blow-out at Moe's (though it's a bit worse since they went from steaming the tortillas to heat-pressing them), my Qdoba burritto blew-out immediately, leaving me with a plateful of messy goo to pick my way through. Thirdly, I don't think the booths were cushioned either. I was not greatly surprised to see both Grand Strand locations close fairly soon thereafter.

This one on Two Notch Road in the old Circuit City plaza (and by a still operating Hollywood Video!) was not open for too long. My guess would be about a year. The decline of the plaza can't have helped it any, but I'm not really sure why it closed. The one on Garners Ferry near Panera seems to be OK for now.

(Hat tip to commenter Jason!)

This storefront on Devine Street between Beltline Boulevard and Fort Jackson Boulevard is now a tax service, but while I was growing up it was the town's best known French restaurant, or at least that was what I thought from always hearing the radio ads on WIS.

In general I don't now have any great interest in French cusine (though the best cheese sandwich I ever had was in Paris), and I certainly didn't have any growing up when I was as cheeseburger as the day is long, but the ads did have a certain appeal. I didn't know any French at the time, and the cadence the announcer used always made it sound like "Lupity Shadow" to me, which had kind of an aura about it. It seemed to me that those ads ran for years, always with the same announcer and same cadence. I'm not sure what the heraldry used in their 1970 Southern Bell ad is supposed to mean. "We cook" would be the basic message there, I suppose.

Looking at the tax storefront, the space Le Petit Chateau would have had to occupy seems pretty constrained to me, and parking along that strip of Devine is somewhat fraught as well -- it can't have been a very big place at all.

I'm not sure when the restaurant closed, but I'm going to guess the 1980s because I went to a comics store in that strip several times then, and can't recall seeing Le Petit Chateau on those expeditions.

UPDATE 14 November 2009:

From commenter Michael Taylor, a possible drumhead for the band "Lupity Shadow" (read the comments):

UPDATE 20 Oct 2010: Changed closing date from "1980s" to "1990s" based on the comments.

The Delhi Palace has been my favorite Indian restaurant in town for several years now. I'm no expert on Indian food, but I always order from the vegetarian items on the menu, and have found everything tastes very good to me. I noticed a while ago that the old Bojangles on Saint Andrews Road had been tagged as a Delhi Palace, but I wasn't sure if it was a second store or if the original place was moving. (The new place worries me a little bit as the signage indicates Chinese as well as Indian food, but we'll see.)

In the event, it was a bit of both I think, as they opened the new location a little before closing the old one, but the transition is complete now, and the Briargate location is closed. The last few times there, even before they handed me a card with the new info, I had started to figure they must be closing this one because they had obvious AC issues that weren't being addressed. Once is just bad luck, twice you know they aren't going to pay to fix it.

The situation with the Economy Inn at I-20 and Briargate Circle (frontage on Broad River Road) which houses this restaurant is rather interesting and unusual. The hotel has actually withdrawn from their original lobby / conference building, and is now being run out of a new lobby in a repurposed space amongst the guest rooms. I attended an "Album Show" in the conference area probably ten or so years ago, and it was still reasonably kept up (though the show had more high-priced vinyl and fewer "import" CDs that I hoped for). In recent years though it has really gone down as you could tell by traversing the area from the restaurant to the restrooms. I think that at one time, a church was meeting in the old lobby, but in recent months it has still had ponsettias on the tables as if it hadn't been touched since last Christmas. With the closing of the Delhi Palace I don't think there will be anyone using the front building, and it would not surprise me to see it razed (though the Economy Inn doesn't strike me as prosperous enough to undertake any major projects).

I wrote a few days ago about the Sunset Boulevard location of Maurice's Gourmet Barbeque closing. This location, on Garners Ferry Road / Sumter Highway just past I-77 also closed about the same time. In the second picture you can see that it sits next to the former Fantasy Lingerie, which itself closed recently.

I've never been in this, or indeed any, Maurice's location, but what strikes me looking in through the window of this building is how little it looks like a former restaurant inside. It could almost be a generic office building just judging by what's left. The flowers are a nice touch though.

Hat tip to commenter Terry for the heads-up.

UPDATE 22 September 2020: Updating tags and adding map icon.

I'm pretty sure this building, on the North side of Knox Abbott Drive just past Silver City was once a Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits. I think various folks have tagged it as such in the comments, and it has that odd "Why not cover our store with a facade of fake rocks?" 1970s look of the other two older Popeyes locations in Columbia that I know of: This one on Farrow Road and this much restauranted building on Decker Boulevard (which has actually just had the rock facade ripped off in the last month or so).

Currently the building hosts the Vacuum Center vacuum cleaner store, but I'm unsure if this was the immediate follow on to Popeyes or if there were one or more other tenants intervening. I have the vague feeling that Vacuum Center may once have been in Parkland Plaza and that I may have bought a reconditioned Electrolux from them, but that may have been another store entirely. Popeyes in the meantime is still around in some form and has Columbia Stores on Augusta Road and Garners Ferry Road. (And, yes, they spell it without an apostrophe, which really grates on me..)

UPDATE 26 January 2022: Updating tags and adding map icon.

I think I vaguely remember the Varsity Restaurant being open, but never ate there. It was apparently a fixture in Columbia for decades. The old building is in sad disrepair, and seems to have been remodelled several times, judging by this postcard shot at flikr.

The 1970 Yellow Pages ad pitches the pizza, so I guess they were trying to stay current in a changing world -- that certainly wouldn't have been on the menu in 1935. There is currently a Varsity D Jasz restaurnt nearby the old Varsity (at 1212 Sunset Drive, almost at the corner of North Main and Sunset), but I have no idea if its related to the old one at all. It appears to be a small lunch-counter type operation.

UPDATE 6 Feb 2013 -- It looks as though somebody started renovations on the old Varsity building, but didn't get too far before the city stopped them:

UPDATE 13 July 2014 -- final days (pix from 10 November 2013):

UPDATE 15 July 2014 Buh-bye! (pix from 5 April 2014):

The last time I was in Doc's Gumbo Grille would have been 11 May 2007. In fact, that was only the second time I had been there, the first being for another Qs show. I can't say I was as enthusiastic about the food as some folks. It may have just been that I was ordering the "we have to have this or some guy in a group will always veto us" menu items instead of the gumbo, but I thought the food was average. That said, I wasn't there for the food, and the place was a pretty good venue. In particular, the acoustics were much improved over the last place I had seen the Qs, the New Brookland Tavern, and the staff was friendly. It's definitely a shame to see another local music venue close. (Not that I see shows these days, or really regularly any days..)

Eva has the story of the closing in The Free Times, and it appears the biggest blow to the place was the SCE&G lunch crowd's recent departure from downtown. I hope that doesn't have any other knock-on effects in the Vista.

As usual with anything on the west side of a street, these pictures are not great as I never get out early enough to have the sun behind me. Unfortunately, I also missed the neon sign being lit. The last time I saw it on, I was driving somewhere and couldn't stop to take the picture.

UPDATE 3 November 2009: Added "Kinch's" to the post title based on the comments.

UPDATE 4 November 2009: Added "Shealy's Sandwiches" based on Badger's comment and looking in the 1970 Yellow Pages

UPDATE 9 April 2010: For whatever reason, someone turned on the sign the night of the 6th, so I got some pictures of it lit up and have added them at the front of the pictures.

UPDATE 14 April 2010 -- Here's the new Doc's location at 3830 Rosewood Drive:

UPDATE 15 May 2011 -- The follow-on operation on Assembly, is now open (and has been since at least mid 2010):

Also, the Doc's on Rosewood went under after the move.