Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

OK, first Zorba's on Decker closed. Then the old Zorba's sign proclaimed that a new Italian sounding restaurant would be coming. That never happened.

Then a Mexican operation repainted the facade

and nothing happened for a long time.

Then (no picture) they put a paper sign up on the front door seeming to say (I don't read Spanish) that tacos were for sale, but apparently there was nobody at the building during the time this sign was up.

Then they put handmade signs on the Decker street-level "entrance"/"exit" placards saying the place was open:

At the same time they added a ramshackle looking shed to the left of the portico and posted another sign in Spanish that appears to say something about Tacos and tortiallias (Tortas?), but note again that there appears to be nobody there.

Then they took the shed down, and again nothing appears to be going on at the place (the "OPEN" roadside signs are gone too):

And all the while the whole place appears to be for sale:

THEN they put a canopy on the outside deck. Still nobody seems to be there.

Then they turn the lights on the main sign, but the building is dark at all times:

So --- your guess is as good as mine!

UPDATE 2 November 2009: Now the canopy is gone from the deck..

UPDATE 7 August 2019: Add some tags and map icon.

The Wade Hampton Hotel was a fixture across from The Capitol when I was growing up, although I don't believe I ever set foot inside. The place had a "I was built in the 1940s" look which is enhanced by the marquee shown in one picture identifying the place rather antiquely as Hotel Wade Hampton rather than The Wade Hampton Hotel.

There was a restaurant inside the hotel called Maxim's which I have an ad for somewhere that I have not got around to scanning. It was to the effect that 5 Million Frenchmen are going to the wrong Maxim's!.

By the 70s, the hotel was on a downward slide as national chains built newer properties in more convienient locations as downtown lost its pull and the Interstates came through. By the time I started college at USC in 1980, the hotel had gone under and was being leased by the University as dormitory space much in much the same fashion as Benedict's ill-fated leasing of the old Quality Inn. I don't know if similar safety considerations in the aging building brought that situation to an end or if USC just built sufficient new space (I think Bates came online about that time), but at any rate the arrangement was terminated, and nothing took its place, so the building was finally demolished in the early 80s. I think it was an early morning implosion, which I missed since I am not a morning person, but I could be wrong.

The hotel's place on the block was taken by the AT&T building (or whatever it is called now) and a new building just going up. (Was there something else there in between WH and the crooked looking glass building?)

The views from the Capitol steps are interesting. I had totally forgotten that there was parking in front of the Capitol. Also, the Colonial Life / American Sentinel / WOLO building is really hanging in there isn't it?

Finally google turns up this. This is largely a nostalgia site but lest the retro-spectacle lenses get too rosy, there's a lot to be said for the present as well.

UPDATE 8 Sept 2010: Added Wade Hampton matchbook scan.

UPDATE 25 October 2021: Add full street address to post title. Update tags. Change expired link to wayback machine link. Add map icon.

I'm pretty sure this pizza joint on Decker, now the R & R Lounge didn't make it through the 1970s, as I was very conscious of pizza, and think I would have noticed it driving (or riding) by. On the other hand the location, in a little strip mall near Percival Road with not much parking probably would not have been very inviting. (In fact, this section of Decker may have have come up since the 1970s). The pictures are not great because the sun was against me, and I didn't want to stand right in front of that open door snapping away.

Whatever the merits of the pizza, I'm pretty sure I can safely say The Kingston Trio never gigged here.

UPDATE 11 April 2010: The Hungry I was definitely gone by 1977, as that is when Yum Yum's Oriental Restaurant had a Bellsouth Yellow Pages ad for the same storefront.

Fine Foods Smartly Served!

I can't actually recall any other operation in this building, right up the hill from Dick Dyer, before Ole Place Club. That operation seems to be pretty durable despite having, at one point when Two Notch was especially bad, to put up a tart sign saying This Parking Lot is not a Loading Zone for Hookers!

The 1970 Southern Bell ad for The Celebrity Supper Club, as seemed to be common then, much longer hours than are now usual for a restaurant (though there were obviously entertainment elements as well). Nowdays almost everything closes at 10pm during the week, and if you walk in at 9:00, they act like its an imposition to stop mopping the floor and take your order.. It also seems like there were more "steak" places back then than now. I don't know if its 30 years of the food police harping on cholesterol or if tastes have just naturally changed.

UPDATE 17 October 2009: Added "(Mary's)" to the post title.

UPDATE 29 December 2009: Sadly Mary Dixon passed away on Christmas Eve 2009. From The State's obiturary:

UPDATE 29 June 2023: Adding tags & map icon.

I first wrote about this building back on 10 April 2009 when I was doing a closing on Kester's Bamboo House, and China Garden may have been closed even then, at least I don't recall seeing anyone inside, and from the pictures I took then (two of which open this closing), there already appear to be signs of work around the front door.

I'm not a big fan of Chinese food, and this wasn't one of my mother's favored places, so I never ended up eating here, but China Garden has certainly been a Five Points landmark for many years. The building has been there so long that when the fatal Harden Street renovation reached China Garden, they went under the sidewalk to shore up the foundations and found there were no foundations. This caused the street work to stall in front for an inordinate amount of time while they figured out what to do. Presumably that is all fixed now..

Anyway, it's definitely closed now, and it appears that it will reopen soon as a place called Grandma's, which I expect will no longer be Asian cusine. If they keep the "pagoda" sign as it appears they will be doing, we will have two non-Chinese restaurants in town with Chinese-themed signage. (The other is Bombay Grill.

UPDATE 24 June 2019 -- Add tags and map icon.

Bush River Mall was built as the twin of Decker Mall, and as far as Decker Mall has fallen, it has so far avoided Bush River Mall's fate.

Like DM, BRM was built as a long corridor with a Kroger Sav-On anchoring one end, and a Richway with the "TR7 Garage" roof anchoring the other. The central corridor was not all on one level, and as I recall it, moving from Kroger to Richway was a gradual uphill slope.

The mall also had a business mix similar to Decker Mall's, and I can recall in particular, a record store and a video arcade. One thing it had that Decker Mall did not have was movie theaters. I believe the Bush RIver Mall theaters were almost in the middle of the mall midway between Kroger and Richway. It was definitely a "plex" of some sort, I believe it was an eight-plex. I know I saw a fair number of movies there, but the one I recall best is Private Lessons in 1981 (the original one, not that Japanese version that used to come on cable all the time). I was living at USC in The Towers when my roomate and I decided we had to see a movie. He had a car, and I assured him I knew how to get to Bush River Mall, so we picked that venue. Well, I did know how to get there -- From Forest Acres! It turned out that the only way I could think of getting there from campus was the asinine route that involved going down Bull Street to Sunset Drive, taking Sunset to Broad River Road and then taking Bush River Road at Boozer. Needless to say we were 15 minutes late. Luckily, it's not a movie where the plot is paramount (or hard to figure out, come to that).

In the late 80s or early 90s, Bush River Mall, like Decker Mall, started to go downhill. When Richway went bankrupt it was taken over at Decker and Woodhill Malls first by Gold Circle and then by Target. I'm not certain, but I don't think that happened at Bush River. At any rate, both Kroger and whatever was in the Richway slot pulled out, and that didn't leave much in the center to attract trade. A couple of also-ran stores tried the Kroger building. I think there was a Ben Franklin and then maybe some sort of clothes store. The theater didn't help much either, though I'm not entirely clear why. It may have been that the new Dutch Square multiplex started before the Bush River Mall theaters went under though I can't swear to that timing.

Whatever the causes, the mall finally ticked over from troubled to dead with no businesses left. This state of affairs lasted several years, and would have been an ideal time to get pictures of the old place if I had thought of it (and it used to be a real choice whether use up $20 shoting and printing a 24-exposure roll of Kodacolor..). After a while they knocked the whole place down, and the only remnants were a "now playing" sign for the theaters at the corner of Bush River Road and the mall north access road, and some down-at-the-heels beauty and etc shops in an outparcel in the same corner.

Now, of course, Wal-Mart has moved in, and has brought more businesses with it than ever were in the mall. For a new Wal-Mart, it was a bit odd when it opened in that it was not 24 hours, something unexpected that bit me once, but that may have changed by now.

UPDATE 8 June 2010: Several commenters send this link to a really great set of pictures from the last days of the mall. Check it out!

This building, now a Monterrey Mexican was once a Denny's. The chain has fallen on hard times in Columbia, losing stores on Two Notch, Wilson Boulevard and Airport Boulevard. They seem to be down to one store on Harbison at the current time. I believe the last time I ate in a Denny's was after a disasterous software demo somewhere in Texas when were were too beaten-down to even leave the hotel parking lot, and the time before that was at 3am after working 18 hours straight and the time before that was at 2am after spending all day preparing for another iffy demo, so even aside from the chain's checkered reputation, the place holds no draw for me. Give me IHOP or even Waffle House instead!

I suspect from the placement of this building that the Denny's may have been the "house restaurant" for the adjacent motel, but I don't know that for sure.

UPDATE 26 September 2009: Added 1976 Southern Bell Yellow Pages ad

I wrote about Chappy's and Cedric's here, and wondered how popular an English fish & chips theme was ever going to be in Columbia South Carolina. As it turns out, more popular than I expected. In addition to Cedric's & Chappy's, there was Aurthur Treacher and this chain, H. Salt.

The ad from the 1970 Southern Bell phonebook lists two Columbia locations for the chain. As far as I can tell, there is currently no 1212 August Street in West Columbia. If there were a building there, it would be in the parking lot of the former Triangle Safe & Lock at 1210 Augusta Road. (And yes the issue of "Augusta Road" vs "Agusta Street" is fraught at 12th Street!)

2529 Millwood Avenue however, still exists, and I can imagine the building on that lot being a fast food place at one time (though not a modern one as there is no space for a drive-through). I don't know when the Columbia stores closed, though I don't recall ever noticing them. I'm guessing the later 1970s. It appears the chain still exists though these days, it is confined to California where it started in 1965.

Here's another bygone Columbia restaurant I knew nothing about. Commenter Melton asked about it in Have Your Say, and commeter Dennis supplied this information:

Mr. Amerigo “Rick” Busa died Saturday, August 11, 2007. Born in Philadelphia, PA, he was the son of the late Joseph and Susie Formosa Busa. He was a veteran of WW II and the Korean Conflict. Mr. Busa was a Shriner and member of the Richland Masonic Lodge and Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Columbia. He was the owner of the Zephyr Restaurant in Washington, D.C., the Belvedere Restaurant and Rick’s Mammy’s Shanty in Columbia. After his retirement, he provided consultant services for food and beverage corporations.

Dennis also supplied the site information where I was able to order the postcard which forms the top picture above. In fact, looking there and finding other links, I've been able to get a number of postcards which I'll feature from time-to-time.

I'm not sure when the postcard picture was taken as there are no cars visible, and no postmark on the card. The building already seems a bit weathered though. Melton says he recalls commercials for the place going back into the 1950s though. I can verify that it was still around in the 1970 phonebook, but since I don't really remember it I'm guessing it didn't make it through the 1970s. I'm almost sure that when we bought our 1980 Corolla Station Wagon (which I stil have..), that Dick Dyer Toyota was already at 3201 Two Notch as pictured above.

Here's another bygone restaurant, this one on Two Notch Road fairly near the intersection with Beltline. The place today is Forest Oaks Apartments apparently a city of Columbia property. I suspect the Forest in the name is a rememberance of the restaurant, though it's generic enough that I could well be wrong.

The Yellow Pages ad from the 1970 Southern Bell phonebook makes it sound fairly upscale, with lobster and "roast prime ribs of beef", which means I would have turned up my nose at any attempt by my parents to take us there (not that I had veto power, but they rarely wanted to waste money on food I wasn't going to like). In the event, I can't even recall seeing this place though we must have driven by many times before it was torn down.