Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Zesto's is a Columbia area chain of almost-open-air walk-up restaurants. The older ones are generally odd in that while there may be a dining room, it does not connect to the order counter (which may or may not even be "inside"). The chain is greek influenced, and probably does most of their business in chicken, but for me the attraction has always been chocolate-dipped soft-serve vanilla cones. There's almost a little ceremony as the server fills the cone, then upends it and dips it into the vat of molten chocolate. Then, you take it, wrapped in a little napkin which soaks up the vanilla which is already running down the cone to your hand and, and bite into the just hardened shell -- perfection.

This lot on the corner of Harden & Blossom streets was for many years home to the Five Points Zesto. I believe the store was actually built as a Zesto and had a large ice-cream cone "statue" similar to the Triangle City store in Cayce. Although I typically went to the Forest Drive store across from Richland Mall for my chocolate-dip fix, I recall being quite sad when the Five Points store was demolished. What was even sadder is that the location would probably still be viable as a Zesto's, but the store which replaced it, a Record Bar offshoot called Tracks failed pretty quickly. Here's what commenter Hal had to say about Tracks:

I also worked at the Columbia Mall Record Bar. I worked from November of 85 untill the store closed in 91. Brian is correct in that there where two Record Bars in Columbia at the time. One at Dutch Square, which was store #9, and the one at Columbia Mall, which was store #94. The Tracks in 5 points open around 89 or 90, and was the mack-daddy of it’s day. It was the first two story store, which they later regreted because it had no handicap access to the second story, and it was a video rental store. It also got national news coverage when a drunk plowed his car straight trough the Blossom street wall. Hillarious.

At any rate, Tracks didn't last there too long. I forget if there was anything else before the current tenant, T-Mobile, which has been there at least five or more years.

The traffic cones, and the general drab & gray aspect of the picture are due to it being taken the day before the Five Points St. Patrick's Day fest -- what great weather they had this year!

UPDATE 4 June 2024: Update tags, add map icon, correct post title from Zesto's to Zesto.

1306 Charleston Highway:

7007 Parklane Road:

Chappy's Fish & Chips was a constant media presence on the radio (and in The State as in the coupon from 10 November 1987 above), though I think the most common image I had of the whole "fish & chips" concept came from that English N'er-do-well Andy Capp.

The 2911 Two Notch location referred to in this ad is now the McDonald's at the intersection of Beltline and Two Notch, though I believe the original Chappy's building was demolished. I never ate at Chappy's because I don't like fish (or the smell of fish), and have never been to England, so I can comment neither on how good nor on how authentic the fish and chips were.

Though it's not mentioned in this ad, Chappy's was connected with a very similar (identical except for the name perhaps?) operation called Cedric's. At this remove, it seems like an odd strategy to dilute your concept into two brands, especially since as far as I can recall, the restaurants were a purely Columbia phenomenon. The Chappy's radio commercials used to end with an exhortation to Be sure and visit my friend Cedric too!. I think the stores had at least one English "double decker" bus that they used for promotions. Wonder what happened to that?

At any rate, I'm pretty sure the stores didn't make it through the 90s. I don't think "fish & chips" was ever going to be "big" (though the coupon suggests they were moving in a more Southern direction as well -- "hushpuppies"), perhaps it wasn't big enough to support that many stores, perhaps the owners wanted to retire -- whatever the reason I don't think you can get fish & chips at all in Columbia now. And "Andy Capp" has long since left The State as well.

UPDATE 18 November 2009: Added pix of the Charleston Highway location, made minor edits to the text and added the Charleston Highway and Broad River locations to the post title.

UPDATE 27 May 2010: Added newspaper ad from The State 19 Feb 1979

UPDATE 27 June 2010: Added pictures of the Parklane location.

UPDATE 18 August 2017 -- The Charleston Highway location is now a Cricket phone store:

OK, anyone remember this one? The ad is from the Southern Bell Columbia phonebook for 1963. Given the lead time for a yellow-pages ad, I was probably one when this was prepared, and two when it ran. The address seems to match up with the current Sakura Japanese Restaurant in the remains of the old Forest Lake Shopping Center, behind Coplon's and at the other end of the corridor from the original Forest Lake TV location.

Sakura is the only restaurant that I can ever really recall being there, but I learned from some comments here that at one time the location was Moolah's, run by (or licensed by?) a famous female wrestler. Did Biddie Banquet come before or after Moolah's? My mother used to shop at Colonial Grocery (now Coplon's) all the time so they both must have been gone by the late 60s or I would have noticed them.

I have to say that apart from my whole "I don't like chicken" thing, the bottom line

Shrimp -- Fish -- Chili

sounds particularly unappetizing, and what's the deal with the quotes on "The" Original"?

I do think the chicken art is very nice!

UPDATE 10 Feb 2011 -- Here's the Biddie Banquet location, now occupied by Sakura:

I first wrote about this building, near the corner of College & Harden in Five Points, when I did a closing on Rising High. Rising High was killed (mostly) by the Harden Street roadwork of a few years ago which also claimed The Parthenon, and The Congaree Grill was the next operation in the building.

I never actually got around to eating there, and people have offered varying opinions in comments to other posts as to how good it was. My impression gleaned by osmosis was that it was supposed to be a somewhat upscale interpretation of Southern Food.

The new restaurant in the building is Pawleys Front Porch. The name invokes a certain casualness, and when I went in last week after having my taxes done across the street, it did seem rather laid back. I got the impression from the layout that its central identity is as a bar, but the Bacon, Lettuce & Pimento Cheese sandwich I got was excellent as were the onion rings.

Today's picture comes from reader Thomas who says:

Here is a pic of the old S&S on Gervais. I took it in 97 when I was USC and they announced it was closing and would be torn down.

I can only recall eating at this S & S once. If I remember correctly, we took my aunt from Florida there for some reason -- perhaps after shopping downtown. What always impressed me about cafeterias as a kid was how different the rice was from what we got at home or family gatherings. Family rice was very sticky and fluffy. Cafeteria rice, on the other hand, was a dish of discrete rice grains which did not stick together at all. I suspect now that cafeteria rice is parboiled or converted as Uncle Ben might say. Why anyone would prefer it that way I can't say, but it would make it easier to clean the dishes at a commercial establishment, I suppose.

S & S still has an operation at Richland Mall, where it replaced the old Morrison's cafeteria, which in turn replaced the older Redwood cafeteria (which was the cafeteria we mostly went to when I was a kid). For some reason, there is a Japanese facebook page devoted to the Richland Mall operation, though I can only make it come up in English if I use the google cached version.

Thanks Thomas!

I'm not entirely sure I have the title for this post right. Googling "201 Harbison" Columbia brings up Popeye's as the most common hit, but also suggests the place may have been Harbison Exxon, or Taco Bell. In fact the place does look like it had gas islands. Was it an Exxon convenience store with an attached restaurant which flipped from Taco Bell to Popeye's perhaps?

I suppose if I paid more attention, I would remember, but I don't eat at either restaurant, and I would never stop for gas at that point on Harbison -- it was after 6 when I took these shots, and Harbison was still a real mess. I had gone out to take some pictures of Circuit City, and it was still really difficult to get where I wanted to go in the area across all the traffic.

UPDATE 17 March 2012: Updated the closing date to "March 2008" based on research in the comments. Also added a note that the attached gas station was a BP in the post title.

UPDATE 26 January 2022: Updating tags and adding map icon.

UPDATE 8 Mar 2009 -- More pictures:

I wanted to get a front shot of this building, but as you can see, traffic was pretty bad on Broad River Road at the time; perhaps I'll get one later. At any rate, this place, now a TitleMax loan operation was once a Steve's #1 Sub Contractor sandwich shop. Google suggests that there are still several branches of the chain in town, but not in places that I normally go -- this is the only one I can recall seeing. In the event, I never made it there, because it's a long way to go for a sandwich.

That said, what I really want to see in Columbia is something like Dagwood's Sports Bar & Deli in Surfside Beach. They have nice booths, table-service, honking-big glasses, which they keep filled, and a great you-name-the-ingredients sandwich building option with sandwiches that come on an excellent in-store fresh baked sub-roll. I've tried a number of sandwich operations in Columbia without finding its equal. I was not impressed at all with Duke's, Which-Wich is very industrial, with fountain-tea, most of the per-se "sub" shops have uncomfortable seating, Panera has odd sandwich choices, as does McAlister's and Groucho's has so-so bread. I think Very's on Two Notch comes the closest. Any suggestions?

Hops is a brew-pub chain which underwent a near death experience in the early 2000s. The chain was bought by the same owners who took over another near-to-dead chain, Don Pablo's, but both Columbia locations closed, and in fact, I don't believe there are any Hops left in South Carolina.

Curiously enough, though I ate at this Hops a number of times, I never did try the beer. My father, sister and I used to stop for Sunday lunch from time to time, and I recall the food as pretty good. They had the standard list of burgers as well as chicken and pasta, but their "branding" item (aside from beer, of course) was the croissant. They would bring out a plate of criossants almost as soon as you sat down, and though I don't know what a Frenchman would make of them, they were warm from the oven and drizzled with frosting and I found them quite good.

I always meant to try the beer some time, but beer doesn't really fit into my meal routine. I like un-sweet ice tea with my food (lots of it actually), not beer (nor soft drinks for that matter though I did notice that they actually had in-house brewed root-beer as well as regular beer).

I think cold closings are more the rule for restaurants than the exception. For every one where the owner announces that he's retiring and gives you notice to come in before its too late, there are ten where you show up one day and the place is empty. That's how it was for Hops.

The place was empty for a while, then Hooters moved in, and as far as I can tell, is doing a good business (though that's what I thought about Hops as well).

At one time, the side of the lower Intersection Center strip mall that faced Service Merchandise was something of an Indian complex, with a grocery, a clothing store and the Touch of India restaurant. I'm guessing that there was probably common ownership involved, but I don't really know.

Touch of India is the one Indian restaurant in Columbia that I haven't eaten at yet (though the one across form the Bush River Wal-Mart has changed ownership at least twice since I stopped there, so perhaps I shouldn't count it anymore). I always meant to stop, but the place was tucked away out of sight and mind and I never got around to it. They re-located last year out of the dying Intersection Center and onto Garner Lane, the hotel access road at the I-20 on-ramp off of Broad River Road. I've driven by the location a few times, and actually stopped by once when it happened not to be open. The new location looks a lot better, but they've traded an unattractive location for one that's hard to get to, at least if you're coming from Forest Acres. Still I'm going to make it eventually.

UPDATE 13 September 2009: Finally got some pictures of their new location at 1321 Garner Lane, #C:

UPDATE 15 March 2010:

Well, I finally did make it to Touch of India a few months ago. The menu was quite a bit different from The Delhi Palace where I usually go (or did before they moved). I thought the dosa (if I have that right -- the pancake-like things) were pretty good.

Unfortunately, they closed shop on Sunday the 14th. Eva's story in the Free-Times says business was down, and in my opinion, the location can not have helped there -- As I said in my original post above, Garner Lane is just hard to get to, and some people simply aren't going to "go against" Interstate on-ramp traffic.

UPDATE 16 May 2010: Added the full street address for the original location, tags.

UPDATE 20 May 2011 -- The place is now a strip club. More pictures later, but here is the start of the facade change:

UPDATE 22 January 2020: Add map icon (for Intersection Center location) and update tags.

I had done a closing on this building, already operatiing as Shane's Rib Shack to remember it being a Pizza Hut and a Rising High.

It now appears that a third restaurant has gone under in this spot. I'm not 100% certain that it's gone for good, and there is a bit of room for hope in the fact that the phone has not been disconnected. The sign suggests that the closing is intended to be temporary, due to a gas leak, but I would say that more than enough time has gone by to correct that, so we'll have to see. I never ate at Shanes as ribs are yet another taste I didn't acquire, but I heard a number of people say good things about the place.

Thanks to commenter MB for the heads up.

UPDATE 7 Oct 2010 -- Zazby's is now open in this building (and has been for a while):