Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce... And everything else now too.

This Burger King is on 8th Street in Fernandina, which is the main road coming onto the island from the mainland. That makes it a high traffic location, and the store was in a decent area (there aren't any really bad spots on 8th), so I'm not sure what happened here.

Well, OK, apparently the place was just bad: The google reviews are sprinkled with one-star reports, including the classic

I recommend taco bell or starve.

and the Yelp reviews are worse. The question is how does that happen? I get that the franchaise system means local ownership, but at some level corporate has to take care of the brand.

Anyway, as I said it's a decent location, so I would expect something else before too long.

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7 Spices was the follow-on in this building to The Villa and opened in the Summer of 2023. I ate there twice, I think, and it was pretty good. Driving by recently, I noticed that it was gone and replaced by another Indian restaurant Hyderabad House. This appears to be more than a re-branding as the phone numbers are different, and the reviews (mostly positive) suggest the new place focuses more on "Nawabi style" dishes. I'm not exactly sure what that means given my limited knowledge of Indian regional cusine, but I will try to check it out at some point.

This place was the follow-on in this original Carrabba's building to Fiery Crab, whose signage was never taken down (granted, that would be an unpleasant & dangerous task).

When it started, it was billed as Vegan & Ghanian Fusion, but apparently they tried to go more mainstream later. I'm also not sure how the "Jazz Lounge" part comes into play as none of the reviews mention music.

I hesitate to post a closing this far out, but The Free Times has already weighed in, so why not?

Steve's Classic Burgers opened in this little Saint Andrews Road strip mall back in 2015, and I admit I have never gotten around to trying it, though I have noticed the billboards from time to time. Ashland Park is just not really on my radar, and I don't think I have been back there since Sandy's closed. The place sounds as though they do a bit of outreach as well as cooking, with Bibles on the tables, something that puts me a bit in the mind of Edna's #2 on Pinehurst, which unfortunately I never got any pictures of before it closed and was torn down.

At any rate, with retirement and other issues to deal with, the owners have decided to close next Spring, so if you want to check it out, you still have time to make several visits.

(Hat tip to commenter Heath)

This was probably inevitable given the chain's ongoing bankruptcy, but still it's sad to see a decades long area staple go. The ax came down rather quickly here, as CNN reported the latest closing list today, and by the time they had published, this location was already shuttered.

The State has a bit more.

(Hat tips to commenters Tom & Larry)

I think this is closed. There is never any sign of activity when I drive by and the Facebook has not been updated for quite a while, but yet google reviews always has a couple of reactions from the last few months...

Anyway I'm calling it closed, and if anyone knows differently, let me know.

Bennigan's never came to Columbia, but were pretty big elsewhere in the 1980s. I remember that when I was living in Fayetteville, it was a standard place to unwind when the out-of-town crew was visiting to help us set up for field exercises. After that the chain kind of lost its way, and ended up going bankrupt in 2008 which drastically reduced the number of locations.

Nonetheless, things survive & thrive in Florida when they don't elsewhere, and this Melbourne location, on US-192 just East of I-95 opened on 28 January 2016. I always meant to drop in and see if it was as I remembered, but always had some place I would rather eat with my limited time in the area. However this guy did and was a bit underwhelmed.

At any rate the place gave up the ghost in February of 2023, and is now a Mexican eatery, Agave D'Oro. I'm pretty sure I have a picture of it in operation somewhere, and if I find it I'll add it up top.

Greedy Rascals hot-dogs was the follow-on operation in this spot to Tripp's Fine Cleaners. There was also a location on Rosewood which closed before this one did. I'm not sure about the exact closing date, but the google reviews suggest it was around March of 2024.

I'm also not sure of the exact status of the chain. This Facebook page suggests they are opening a location on Airport Boulevard, but I can't quite make out the details from the information there.

UPDATE 12 August 2024: Changed the closing date from "Spring 2024" to "Early 2024" based on commenter Gypsie's input.

As predicted by commenter Mall Guy, this Hooters is gone.

I had been in a number of times over the years. They were open later than many other places, the food was competent, and, of course, the view was nice.

I did get the impression the last couple of times I was there that it was going downhill a bit, and the food was somewhat sub-par compared to times past. It's probably been at least two years since my last visit, so I can't say how it was at the end.

This building started out as a Hops brewpub, so we'll see where the chain of restaurant reincarnation takes it next. I would guess that there are competing Asian buffet places too close, so perhaps a Mexican venue as the nearest ones I can think of are on the small side.

(Hat tip to commenter Mall Guy)

It looks like the Sub Station II on Parklane has disaffiliated from the chain and struck out on their own as Leo's Deli.

As nearly as I can tell from looking at the google reviews, this happened sometime around February 2024.