Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I had noted this place at the corner of Saint Andrews & Piney Grove Roads, a good while before it closed because it disaffiliated with Citgo at some point in 2010. I don't know if this was because of the iffy publicity Citgo had over the last few years based on its Venezuelan ties, or whether it was just an expensive branding arrangement. Because the disaffiliation only worked during the daytime, until they turned on the light for the street-corner sign, I was going to do some half-hearted joke post about "Citgo By Night" as a play on Marvel's Vampire By Night, but it really wasn't that funny, and I never got around to it. These first two pictures were to illustrate that concept, and come from 25 Sept 2010 and 5 November 2010 respectively.

When I was taking pictures of Wata Wing the other day, I noticed that the place had totally closed up shop, with the shelves empty and the pumps torn up. I'm pretty sure I drove by a couple of times in February and didn't notice anything, so I'm guessing it happened in late Feb. Someone who really follows gas prices could probably nail it to within a week..

UPDATE 5 May 2011 -- Open again, but not as Nick's:

I was a bit reluctant to do this post yet, hoping that the place was going to make it, but I've been by several times within the posted hours (including a Saturday evening) and found it dark (though the phone still rings..)

At any rate, I first wrote of this building when I did a closing for longtime tenant Little Mexico and follow-on Cancun.

After Cancun another Mexican operation Mi Tierra set up shop in the building, and lasted about a year. (And you should visit both of those closing links because the previous comments and pictures for Wata Wing are spread out between them).

After Mi Tierra closed, there were indications fairly early on that the place was to become a Wata Wing chicken wing operation. The setup seemed quite protracted, and with the stall out of the Wata Wing roll-out in the old Taco Bell on Knox Abbott:

combined with reports of some legal difficulties the chain (which I should stress is probably totally different people in different areas) was facing in Maryland, it seemed for a time that this location might not open.

In the event it did open some time between 3 November 2010 and 1 December 2010 when commenter Badger stopped by.

I had thought, given this sign:

that the operation might be headed in a Hooters, Wing House direction with the "Wata Girls" front and center, but that seems not to have been the case.

If this location is closed (and it certainly seems to be), then that would throw into question the opening of a Wata Wing in the old Shoney's/Santa Fe/Savannah's location on Two Notch Road:

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The way I normally handle a particular address is that the first time I write about it, I try to list all the previous tenants that I know about as well as the business that is the primary subject of the post. The next times something closes there, I just write about that particular business. That means that I have written about this particularly ill-starred building on Saint Andrews Road, just up the hill east from I-26 three times before this. The first time, I was primarily interested in D's Wings, but gradually found a whole lot of places had been there before. The second time was for Baja's Southwestern Grill, and third time was for Delmonico Diner.

The latest eatery to close here is Fast Tracks BBQ & More. I am not a barbecue person, so I never attempted to stop by there, but commenter Alicia reports that they have been closed since 10 December 2010, and that they plan to re-open in another location -- I hope so. She also reports that their facebook indicates that their lease was bought out, so perhaps we can look forward to yet another restaurant here. (Of course, the "available" sign would tend to suggest nothing is certain).

It still seems to me that this location would prosper more if they could work out something with the adjacent gas station to have a back exit with access to the traffic light at Fernandina road. That would make it much easier to return to I-26 without having to make a non-light left turn across Saint Andrews.

(Hat tip to commenter Alicia)

Cussin' Bill's is another place I would hear about but never go around to going to. It may be just as well. From the name, I always assumed it was mainly a restaurant, but this 1997 Administrative Law Court judgement makes clear that at least by 1996 it was operating as one of South Carolina's ubiquitious video poker malls.

At this remove, it's easy to forget how pervasive video poker was in the state at that time, and how odd the operating conditions were. Video poker was legal, but only just tolerated and the ostensible rule was that no one business could operate more than 5 machines. This, of course, led to many places implementing the "mall" concept. Each room of 5 machines was operated, on paper, as a separate business. In this case, it was found that Cussin' Bill's did not have employees in each room to maintain the fiction, and they got landed with a $5000 fine and lost most of their machines.

I'm not sure when Cussin' Bill's closed. I don't think that ruling was the end for them, but I could be wrong. At any rate, after they closed, the next operation in the building was BAWA Oyster Co about which I know nothing, other than presumably they served oysters (something I have less than no interest in).

I don't even know that much about the most recent tenant, Cadallic's, which folded earlier this year. Judging from Have Your Say notes by commenters Joel & O'Reilly, it was connected with the 360 Sports Bar (also now closed) on Bush River Road, and may or may not have been a strip club.

I have to say it's a fairly attractive building (across Woodland Hills road from the old Steak & Ale and behind the old Na href="http://columbiaclosings.com/wordpress/?p=421">Steak Out) with a very nice deck. There is a lot of traffic, of course, on nearby I-20 and Saint Andrews Road, but the building is well off of those, and is fairly quiet. It seems to me that some sort of casual restaurant could do well there -- I certainly wouldn't mind having a burger or burrito out on the deck in the spring or fall.

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I've written about the Steak & Ale on Forest Drive, but this one I didn't remember as a S&A at all.

It finally struck me driving by that certainly a building that looked like that couldn't have been built as an Asian buffet (is anything?) and almost had to have been a Steak & Ale. Old phonebooks more or less confirmed that (though I never found an actual street address, just verbiage like "the Saint Andrews exit off of I-26"). At the time, I wrote down the last phonebook listing the place, but have lost that note somewhere -- I'm saying it was the late 1970s. (The ad is from the 75-76 Southern Bell directory)

UPDATE 13 Oct 2010: Well, I wouldn't have thought it given that I can't personally recall the place as a S&A, but it is in the 1998 phonebook (interestingly the address is given as 109 Woodland Hills Road, the cross street), so the comments about it being open into the 2000s are probably right, and I'm updating the closing date from "1970s" to "early 2000s". Wish I could get my age wrong by 30 years..

Here's another closed Food Lion to go with the ones on Two Notch Road, Taylor Street and Airport Boulevard. This Loopnet picture shows the store in happier times.

The story on the WLTX site, calls the store underperforming and gives 19 Feb as an upper bound on the closing date.

I had never been in this Food Lion, but I suspect it was an older store, which would have been up against a newer Bi Lo in the same general area. The newer Food Lion stores are actually quite nice -- I stopped at the one off the Ballentine I-26 exit the other day when I was looking for The Whale's Tail and it was very upscale.

Even after the Seven Oaks Shopping Center closing, there is still a Food Lion on Saint Andrews Road. It's on past the former Clusters of Whitehall towards I-26, in front of the discount cinema.

(Hat tip to commenter Jamie)

UPDATE 12 September 2011 -- Now open as a Big Lots!:

According to this Loopnet posting, there were three Larrry's Giant Subs up for sale at the same time, either retaining the Larry's franchaise, or as restaurant space. I would guess then that they were all run as part of the same operation.

I have not checked the Sunset Boulevard location, but both the Broad River Road and Garners Ferry locations have already been taken on by Steve's #1 Sub Contractor. In the case of the Broad River Road operation, this puts Steve's back very close to to their former location at Broad River & Saint Andrews.

I find it a little odd that the places flipped from one "guy's first name" chain to another "guy's first name" chain!

Also look how Steve's has pulled the "Giant" from the Garners Ferry sign. I know that it's just because it's not part of their branding, but it almost leads one to think that perhaps the size of the subs will be decreasing..

(Hat tip to commenter Alicia.)

UPDATE 28 Oct 2010 -- Well, Steve's didn't last long at all:

UPDATE 23 October 2011: Well, I wish I would have done this post as two separate entries, one for each location, but the Garners Ferry Steve's location is set to become Japan Grill:

UPDATE 3 November 2011: Well, it turns out I did do a separate entry for the Garners Ferry location, but never indexed it. What a mess! I'll copy the Japan Grill pix over there too and index it, but it will still be a mess!

UPDATE 25 October 2018: Add tags for both locations, but still a mess.

This building off of Saint Andrews Road is now an "Ultra Lounge". I'm not sure what it was built as, but I first recall noticing it in the 1980s, when it was a strip club, the name of which I can't remember. After that, it was for a number of years the original site of The Comedy House, now on Decker Boulevard in the old Winn-Dixie building. I think it may have been something after the strip-club and before The Comedy House and after The Comedy House and before Pure, but I'm not sure.

I saw a number of comedy shows there including one guy who made me laugh so hard it hurt, but whose name (or act) I cannot now recall at all. I'm not sure what happened to The Comedy House as it was non-existent for a long while after closing shop here. Normally if a place is moving just as a normal course of business, they will do it as quickly as possible to keep a revenue stream active, but I think it took over a year in this case.

UPDATE 15 October 2009: Added a bunch of extra names to the post title based on the comments.

UPDATE 29 March 2023: Adding map icon. Also this building has been razed. Click on the address tag for details.

When the sun is just right, you can look at the "tower" at the north-west corner of St Andrews Center and almost read the outlines of the lettering that has been taken down from the top. If you actually could read it, it would say The Clusters of Whitehall.

The way I remember it, at one time, The Clusters of Whitehall was a very tony place. It seemed to me that many of the shops had radio ads on the old WIS radio, and when the announcer would sonorously intone "...located in The Clusters of Whitehall", it sounded as though he might as well be saying "...located on Rodeo Drive".

Times change and areas go up and down. Saint Andrews Road as a whole has certainly seen better times, and The Clusters were really convienient neither to I-20 nor I-26 as traffic in the area increased and more stop-lights were added. By the 1980s, The Clusters were in decline.

I'm not really sure of the original store roster (we rarely went to that side of town at all) but I think they had a Fresh Market as sort of an upscale anchor. This report says that as of December 2000, The Clusters were only 55% occupied and that a new call center and Tuesday Morning would bring them up to 94% occupied. It also gives a partial list of former stores: Heavenly Ham, Nocturnal Home Diagnostics, Gregory's To Go, Gold Leaf Gallery and Avant Gardener.

After that, google turns up another hit for the property being sold to Ziff Properties Inc in April 2006. There is another story from The State that was widely linked, but is no longer generally available. There is enough text left in the google hit, however, to say that by May 18 2008, the place was being referred to as "the former Clusters of Whitehall", leading me to guess that the new name St Andrews Center was probably coined in 2007. Currently while the place doesn't appear in any terminal distress, it is obviously now a lower rent type operation than before with correspondingly lower expectations for the quality of tenants and level of occupancy.

Finally, I was always confused about The Cloisters of Whitehall vs The Clusters of Whitehall. I haven't made a deep study of the matter, but my googling for this post suggests that the Cloisters is a real-estate subdivision in the area while the Clusters was the mall.

UPDATE 27 January 2023: Adding tags & map icon, adding the full street address in the post title.

I had seen this place on Saint Andrews, and think I saw some of it's flyers, but since I'm not a really big steak fan, I hadn't ever really looked into it. I see that the concept is take out or delivery for steaks instead of pizza, burgers or subs, and that strikes me as pretty odd. First, I have never gotten the appeal of "take out". I'd say that's because I work at home, but even when I spent most of my life at the office, I still didn't want to eat at the house. At a restaurant they have people to bring stuff right to your table and you don't have to wash the dishes or take out the trash. Second, steak seems like an odd take-out item. People are very finicky about it and considering how often burger or pizza topping orders go awry, it's a big leap of faith to expect the right cut and the right degree of doneness when you can't send it back.

I have to say the business strategy being explicated by the door sign seems a bit dubious as well. I want Columbia businesses to succeed and certainly hope they will be back, but it's hard to see how several months without any money coming in will help to make that happen. (And if they remain part of the Steak Out chain, how can they revamp the menu?) It worked for Stevie B's, but more often than not any sign using the word remodeling is followed by a sign that says For Sale.

(Hat tip to commenter Kc!)

Update 24 Jan 2010: Well it seems to me that I can move this one from the "temporary" category to the "not coming back" category. The note from 4 May 2009 promising a "Fall 2009" reopening is still posted on the door, but now an un-picked-up phonebook is on the doorstep and un-picked-up mail is on the floor inside, also as far as I can tell no work at all has been done inside -- everything appears to be in an identical state as to when I posted the original closing.

UPDATE 7 May 2010 -- This is pretty conclusive, I'm afraid:

UPDATE 27 May 2010 -- Now it's up for lease:

UPDATE 19 July 2010 -- Finally got around to taking a picture of the original Steak Out location at 2421 Bush River Road (now Real Mexico):

UPDATE 13 Oct 2010 -- Tony O's Pizza is now open in this building: