Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

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 The hotel has actually withdrawn from their original lobby / conference building, and is now being run out of a new lobby in a repurposed space amongst the guest rooms.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.

I first wrote about this building when it was a former Quincy's. Now it is a former Maurice's. It seems the current recession has made a hash of the barbecue business, as this is the second Maurice's to close recently.

To me, the location seems a little awkward to get into and out of. I can't remember if that were the case when it was a Quincy's or if it is an artifact of all the road work that's been done on the I-26 / US-378 interchange over the last couple of years. However, the selling realtor is apparently quite upbeat about the plot as the the current asking price is $1,350,000.

UPDATE 8 November 2009: Forgot to hat tip commenter B.C.

UPDATE 22 September 2020 -- This place has been razed. Also, updating post tags and adding a map icon.

Shoney's is a place we often went while I was growing up. They were affiliated with "Big Boy" then, and always had "Big Boy" comic books as free premiums for the kids, and they had what was at that time my favorite desert, the Hot Fudge Sunday Cake.

Disaffiliating from Big Boy was supposed to help them grow, but somewhere along the line they went wrong. Perhaps it was when they overextended themselves trying to establish a hotel brand, but whatever it was, they started closing stores. Right now, the only fully operating one I can think of in Columbia is the one on Garners Ferry. (I believe that the one on Bush River Road, while still open, no longer does dinner).

I can only recall eating at this Shoney's once, more or less by accident. Our troop was coming back from a camping trip somewhere, and I believe we had some sort of van and several dads driving regular cars. Something (the van I suppose) broke down, and a good part of the troop was stranded at Shoney's (I forget whether we actually made it to the parking lot or had to walk a bit) while other transport was arranged. None of us boys had any money, so the adults brought us a meal while we waited. It never occurred to me until years later that that must have been an unexpected and unwelcome financial imposition on them. Perhaps my parents settled up later, at any rate, in the way adults had back then, nobody let on anything to the kids, and we all had a *great* time.

I guess that would have been around 1974, so the restaurant still had years to go at that point. I'm not in fact sure when it went under, but I think it was sometime in the early 1990s. At any rate, it has been a Mexican operation for a number of years now.

UPDATE 10 September 2020: Update tags, add map icon.

There was nothing particularly noteworthy about the Hardee's which once sat at the corner of Blossom & Assembly Streets, but it's a memory of a somewhat less grandiose scheme of things in that area.

I do remember two things in particular about it:

1) It was the first place I've ever seen ruin a toll-house cookie. I stopped there once feeling a bit snackish and could not finish the thing. It was like they cooked it on the same griddle with the burgers or something. At the time at least, Hardee's could do sweet, something they proved with their cinnamon-raisin biscuit, but not, apparently, after 10:30 am..

2) While the restaurant was on the way down, and maybe after it closed, the side of the parking lot facing Assembly street was filled with used cars for sale.

It's not clear to me what they are building, or going to build, there, but it couldn't have worse cookies...

UPDATE 19 June 2021: Several things. First, this building has long since been razed, and now the property is Innovation Center. Second, I will be adding the correct street address to the post title, third, I will be updating the tags and, finally I will be adding a map icon.