Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

This old-style walk-up soft-serve parlor was in Bishopville, on the north side of town near the high school stadium. I would pass by it several times a year on the way to family events, and always meant to stop some time or other, but the way it always worked out is that I was not alone, running late, or both.

I first noticed that it seemed to be closed on my way to Thanksgiving 2008, and finally got around to taking some pictures in March of 2009. It was a beautiful sunny day, and I had no qualms about heading out on I-20 with a camera and some good music. According to their sign, the place had been there more than 50 years, which I have to say is a pretyt good run.

Going by this last month for Thanksgiving, I saw that now all the signage is down, and the building is just sitting there empty with no indication of what it was.

UPDATE: Looks like there's a Facebook Group..

UPDATE 23 December 2011 -- Well, as these 24 November 2011 (Thanksgiving) pix show, the building is gone now.

UPDATE 24 December 2011 -- Oops! Building is still there, but boarded up. The pix were of a lot with a gas station destroyed by Hugo, so I've taken them out. I'll try to get the real thing next time I'm over there. (Didn't have my camera ready today..)

I don't know when this Burger King went under, but it may have never come back from that time in the 90s when the local franchisee (who owned all the Columbia BKs) got in a dispute with corporate and all Columbia Burger Kings closed. Eventually new ownership was found and a number of them came back (with special commercials featuring "Blues Doctor" Drink Small..), but several never did.

I'm not sure when the follow-on business: TitleMax/CheckMax closed, but I believe it was this year.

I find it rather interesting that the street number displayed on the building is clearly 1402, but google is adamant that the real number is 1400.

Adriana's was a landmark Five Points coffee house that had apparently been open for 25 years. Eva in the Free Times has the story of how the end came, and it seems to have been a number of factors.

I believe that I only stopped in at Adriana's once, and got an initial "not for me" impression that I never spent enough time in Five Points to correct. As I recall, it was a hot summer day, and I was walking around the area as I do maybe once or twice a year (actually more than that now that I'm taking pictures for the blog..) and I stopped in for an iced cappuccino, which was served to me sweetened. My theory is that you should never put sugar in someone's coffee unless they ask for it (or unless you're ordering some frou-frou drink which explicitly lists it).

Be that as it may, they survived the coming of Starbucks just around the corner for a number of years, which is no mean feat. The storefront is currently empty, or was when I took these pictures a few weeks ago and I have not heard of anything new going into the space.

I had just turned out of Grecian Gardens on the adjacent block when I remembered about Gooney Birds and decided to get a few pictures. Of course that was after supper -- perhaps I'll add a day shot the next time I'm in the area and think about it.

I only ate at Gooney Birds once. I had a burger, and it was perfectly acceptable, but not something so incredibly good that I would pass dozens of other burger places to get over there. I don't recall much about the decor now, but at this remove, I'm wondering if the eponymous 'Gooney Birds' could have been The Gamecocks -- most years it seems as though it would fit well enough.

As do many buildings fitted out as restaurants, Gooney Birds has found new life as a Chinese Restaurant. (The other possibility would be a Lizards Thicket, but there was already one of those in the same parking lot :-)

UPDATE 3 Nov 2010 -- Here's a daylight picture, finally:

I first wrote about this former steakhouse when Crazy Buffett folded, but it now appears that the second Chinese buffet operation in the building is history as well. I'm not sure why -- it seems like a decent location with good visibility and plenty of traffic passing by and I can't think of any other Chinese buffets in the area. There's the second Eggroll Station on Sunset, but that's not a buffet.

Notice how the left side of the building still proclaims it to be a "restaurante", a bit of signage remaining from the Mexican incarnation of the place..

UPDATE 16 May 2013 -- As mentioned by commenter Andrew, this place is being knocked down:

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.