Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

The North 1 Drive-In was on Two Notch road, though not as far out as I had remembered. However the area, between Alpine Road and Spring Valley was pretty much the boonies when I was growing up -- in fact the "1" in "North 1" is for US Highway #1. Two Notch did technically extend that far out, but people thought of that area by "highway" not a named road. The same still applies, I think, to Elgin though that may change as Columbia continues to sprawl.

As I think I said somewhere else, I only went to one drive-in as a kid, and I'm pretty sure it was on the coast somewhere. At any rate, by the time I was in high school, North had gone porno. That made it impossible to go to officially of course, though there were rumors among the kids that if you went to the right spot in the woods, you could see in.

I'm not sure when the place finally closed, though Dennis, who pointed out the location to me in a comment thinks it was about 20 years ago, which would be 1989-ish.

The pictures (aside from the Sunday 15 April 1973 ad from The State) are taken from Two Notch going down the old theater drive to the health club now built on the old North lot. It was one of those miserable rainy days we've had lately, so they're pretty subdued.

I noticed a few months ago that this little building on Two Notch Road, at the bottom of the hill between Pinestraw Road and Pine Belt Road, was now a Nationwide Insurance office. I see this month that they are moving to another location on Two Notch, leaving the building vacant again.

Insurance is usually a pretty staid business (unless you are AIG..), but this location has a somewhat racier past. In particular, back in 1987, you might have found the address listed under Escort Services:

The next iteration was a perfectly normal used car lot, except I always found the name, still on the shed out behind the main building, just a bit ironic:

UPDATE 20 December 2011 -- The Tonya D. Parks Nationwide has now moved into this place, following the other Nationwide office:

Walking through The Russell House this fall, I was struck, looking at the Russell House Theater coming attractions, how much the place had changed in focus.

When I was at USC, from 1980 through 1985, the theater was mainly a classics house. Sunday through Thursday, they would play a different film every night, and I probably averaged three or four movies a week, and ones I probably never would have seen otherwise. In particular, I recall Lost Horizon, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Lolita, The Pound, Cinderella Liberty, Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, Double Indemnity, Farewell, My Lovely, The Magic Christian, Singin' In The Rain, Citizen Kane, The Philidelphia Story, Bringing Up Baby, Sahara, Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, Captain Blood, The Private Lives of Elizabeth & Essex, Kiss Me Deadly, The Man With the X-Ray Eyes, The In-Laws, Stagecoach, Rio Bravo, The Quiet Man, The African Queen, Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange, The Lady Vanishes, The 39 Steps, The Birds, The General, Intolerance, Wings, Advise & Consent, and The Best Years of Our Lives -- to name a few!

I was a bit disheartened that as far as I could see from looking at the lobby placards, the theater is apparently no longer functioning as an exposure to cinema, but more as a second run dollar theather. Granted anyone who wants can always rent or buy all the pictures I saw, but there's still something about sitting in a theater with a bunch of people and a good movie, or a fun movie, and there's something about serendipity -- sitting down to a movie you never heard of because it's just a buck, and it beats studying and finding against the odds that its something you'll remember for the rest of your life..

This building, at the intersection of Broad River & Saint Andrews Roads is apparently Mr. Bingo now (it seems to have an attached strip with a number of little businesses as well), but I'm pretty sure it was originally a skating rink, and I believe it was the last place I put on a pair of skates. This would have been in 1979, when I was a senior in high school. I distinctly remember going out with a group of friends to a rink somewhere near Irmo. I had never been before and didn't go again, so I can't absolutely say this was the place, but it seems to fit.

I had never been much of a skater because I never figured out how it was done. Oh, I could put on the skates, and "walk" around in them, but the "knack" of it -- actually using leg sweeps to move had always escaped me until this particular night, when I finally figured it out. Maybe that's why I never went back -- after figuring out the whole "propulsion" thing, what else was there to do on skates?

I think the building went through a number of incarnations after the rink closed. I seem to remember both a strip club and a C&W bar there, and some signage on the corner seeems to indicate it was a "Smoke House" restaurant as well.

UPDATE 18 Feb 09: The post was initially titled "Skating Rink". Tom in the comments identifies it as a Red Wing, and I have chaged the post title to reflect that.

Welcome Facebook users 11 July 2017: I see a lot of hits on this old page from Facebook today. Welcome to Columbia Closings. Normally this site focuses on Columbia South Carolina, but there are some other Fernandina pages you may be interested in:

A1A Gas Mart, 816 South 8th Street (Fernandina Beach FL)

Amelia Con 2014, Fernandina Beach Florida

Amelia Con 2016, Fernandina Beach Florida

Island Cinema 7, 1132 14th Street (Fernandina Beach FL)

Kmart, 1525 Sadler Road (Fernandina Beach)

O'Kane's Irish Pub And Eatery, 318 Centre Street (Fernandina Beach)

Sonny's Real Pit Bar-B-Q 2742 South 8th Street, Fernandina Beach FL

Topsy's Downtown Gulf, 710 Centre Street (Fernandina Beach)

A1A Gas Mart, 816 South 8th Street (Fernandina Beach FL)

Indian River Fruit Stand, A1A (Yulee Florida)

And check the Alphabetical Closings page for other Florida references.

And now back to the original post:

Well, I'm on the road, and didn't get all the pictures I wanted to take done beforehand, so I'm going to throw in a few ringers this week.

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Well, the spot doesn't look like much now, but this Dutch Square storefront just outside of White's was once the home of The Barrel O' Fun video arcade, and was a pretty hoppin' place. The 80s were the heyday of the video arcade, and Barrel had all the standard ones like PacMan, Galaga, Defender, BattleZone, Tempest, Gorf, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Space Invaders, Joust, Missle Command, Dig-Dug, Galaxian and Phoenix. My memory is very hazy, but I think it had some of the less common ones that I really liked such as Qix, StarCastle and Pengo. That last was a very "cute" but nonetheless creative game where you (as a penguin) would kick ice blocks around the screen to crush the killer Sno-Bees. You could also keep them from hatching if you kicked their ice blocks before they emerged. I think probably a lot of guys were embarassed to play it because of the "cute" factor, otherwise it would have been huge.

Of course you could find the games, even the uncommon ones, elsewhere, so what really made Barrel O' Fun distinctive was it's polished wood entranceway. This was done up as a cross-section of a huge wood plank barrel, was very eye-catching and gave the place a bit of class. Even after the arcade closed, you could see the entrance for a number of years, draped with some sort of plastic. I'm not sure when they totally blanked out the storefront as they have now done, but it wasn't too many years ago. I'm not entirely sure when the place closed. The last time I can specifically remember going there was after I walked out of a movie at Dutch Square Theater in 1987 and killed some time there while my sister and her friend finished the show. Dutch Square itself was clearly in decline by then, as were video arcades, so the two factors together probably finished the place, and I don't think anything else has ever gone into that slot.

UPDATE 24 Aug 2010: I have posted two photos from commenter Trey above. One is of the Barrel Of Fun sign in his workshop, and the other, entitled "Inside Coin Booth", seems to be of the old round entrance to the arcade. Also, given this evidence, I have updated the post title from Barrel O' Fun to Barrel Of Fun

Thanks Trey!

At one time, the area that is now the CVS & Food Lion plaza on Two Notch Road hosted a drive-in theater. I can't remember the name of the place now, but as I recall, the entrance was more or less where the CVS now is with the screen behind that and a tilted a bit leftwards. Growing up, we only saw a movie at a drive-in once (I think it was Cat Ballou somewhere on the Grand Strand), so I never made it to the place while it was in operation. I think a number of area drive-ins went porno in the 70s -- I know the one near Spring Valley did, and the one off of Sunset/River Road did, but I don't think this was one of them (though the nearby Atlantic Twin Theater did).

Anyway, after the drive-in business went under, the lot was used as a flea-market for a number of years, with the speaker poles still strewn amongst the tables -- I did stop by several times while it was in that configuration though I can't remember actually buying anything. I think the lot was vacant for several years after that with the heavy development of the strip mall starting in the 90s (and as you can see still continuing to this day). Personally I'd rather still have a drive-in (and one day I really will make it out to Moneta, this time for sure..)

UPDATE 6 Feb 09: Found out that the place was originaly called the Twilite and later renamed the Starlite, so I've updated the post title. I found that out here, which also has pictures.

UPDATE 19 March 2013: At some point I have to do some research down at the library to definitely untangle the Twilite/Starlite story, but in the meantime, the new Whole Foods has a photo mural of the old Starlite which used to occupy their location on Fort Jackson Boulevard:

Celebrations Columbia Incorporated was a party supply rental store. I think they did a lot of weddings, at least I recall the one time I stopped in there, there were outdoor wedding, um, trellises. That day I was actually looking for propane space heaters on poles such as you see on restaurant patios when its chilly but they still want to let people sit outside. They turned out not to have any, and I never found occasion to go back. (A place on Two Notch did have the heaters, but they wouldn't deliver, so I ended up hoping for a warm day, which worked out OK).

I noticed in the middle of last year that they were either closing shop, and as of yet nothing else has replaced them in the building.

UPDATE 3 Feb 09: Commenter Steve says they just relocated, not closed. I have adjusted the post title to reflect that.

Now I may be misremembering this, but I think that this vacant storefront on Sunset Drive between SC-277 and North Main Street was Wal-Mart's first attempt at a warehouse-store. Wal-Mart was not really on my radar at the time, and the details are very fuzzy in my mind, but I just recall hearing that this store required you to buy a membership and that they had huge lots of everything. Wal-Mart later refined the concept into Sam's Club, but I don't think this building was ever a Sam's Club per se. I'm not sure why though I would speculate that the location is not ideal.

Though they are apparently trying to sell it, Wal-Mart still owns the property. Occasionaly I would see Wal-Mart 18 wheelers idled there, and from the signage, the chain used (or uses) the place to sell used store fixtures. I wonder how recent the DHEC "A" rating on the door is?

UPDATE 15 March 2011: It's clear now that this was, in fact (contrary to my recollection), a Sam's Club, so I have updated the post title. Also there's some discussion of closing dates in the comments. 1998 seems likely to me.

UPDATE 20 January 2012: Finally added Beltline Drive-In to the post title.

Well, given the events of last Friday, I suppose it's time to do a closing on South Carolina's biggest white elephant. That's the date that Hard Rock Park "chose" to move from Chapter 11 reorganization to Chapter 7 liquidation. Why?

The park, which said it was worth $400 million when it opened in April, was unable to attract any bidders willing to pay at least $35 million for the park at a Dec. 15 auction, according to court documents.

I find that amazing, even with all the other financial beef-wittery that has come to light lately. The Sun News's stories on the park are filled with comments from the locals to the effect that they could have told the owners what was going to happen, although it also appears that many people did tell them. One of the articles (which I don't have a link to right now) detailed the park's origins: Apparently the pitchmen were thrown for a loop when they were told that the Hard Rock empire was approachable for branding the rock-and-roll park they were pitching. The problem was that they weren't pitching a rock-and-roll park, but a "standard" amusement park, and weren't planning to pitch to Hard Rock, but they brainstormed some rock-related ride names on a lunch napkin and sold the concept. That's the kind of story that becomes a legend if a venture succeeds, and a cautionary tale if it doesn't...

In the event it seemed that the owners were better at promoting to corporations than to tourists, and aside from the unforseeable blunder of trying to launch a venture in the annus horribilis of 2008, they priced tickets too high ($50 + $10 parking), didn't advertise, and didn't promote with local hotels.

I had two chances to visit the park. The first was on the Fourth of July 2008, when I was taking pictures of Waccamaw Pottery. As I was standing in the parking lot, I could see the Led Zeppelin roller-coaster running in the distance, but it was about lunch time, and after that, I ended of taking a helicopter ride over the beach instead. I also had a week to myself at the beach in August, and thought about taking in the park then, but it was hot, I didn't feel like getting on 501 in tourist season, and I figured it would be better in October, but that was not to be as the doors closed in September.

Oh well, it's only rock and roll!

UPDATE: Here's a link from commenter "Beach Guy" that has the origin details I mentioned.

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