Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Like Martin's Coffee House, Edisto Dairies first turned up in a comment thread, and seemed to have a number of people who fondly remember it, so I'm copying those comments here, and making a full-on Edisto post...

Grocery shopping has changed a lot in just my lifetime (I'm closing fast on 48..), but in the lifetime of someone like my father, it changed immensely. First of all, when he was growing up in the 1920s in Fernandina Beach Florida, how you went to the store was different. You probably walked most of the time. Sometimes you might take a horse cart. For one particular store, my grandfather would put a handcart on the local rails and you would see-saw there. You certainly didn't drive a car. When you got there, you would probably give your list to the grocer whose help would fetch your items to you. You certainly wouldn't go back into the stock yourself and pick things out. You might not even pay cash for anything, as the grocer would have an account for your family which you would periodically settle. And just to continue this digression in a seasonal mode -- if it were near Thanksgiving, you would go to the butcher, pick out a turkey, tie a string around its neck and walk it back to your house.

All that was if you actually went to the store. For a lot of things, you didn't have to. The ice-man would drive his cart to your house and replenish your ice-box, and the milk-man would come by in his wagon and leave full bottles on your doorstep and pick up your empties to clean and re-use.

Well, by and by the iceman cometh-ed not, but the milkman was a steady presence for over half of the 20th century, featuring in innumerable risque jokes and arriving at dawn or before day-in, day-out and year round. In Columbia, or at least my part of Richland County, the milkman was Edisto Dairies.

I've forgotten the milkman's name, though I knew it well at the time, but the Edisto truck would come off of Trenholm road and make its way onto my street and I knew that if I got up early enough, and ran down to the corner, the milkman would let me steer the truck from the corner to our house. The truck was something like a UPS truck, with the "doors" always open on both sides. The floor was corrugated metal with a very spartan seat for the driver. My mother would make sure I had on shoes before sending me off, as there were apt to be glass fragments on the floor of the truck. I would hop in from the "passenger's" side and take the wheel and the milkman would ease the truck into gear and off we would go.

Edisto's milk came in standard bottles. I think some dairies had long-neck ones, but Edisto's were short neck, and were sealed with flat, waxed paper caps. I'm unsure now what actually held the caps to the bottles -- perhaps they were put on while the milk was warm with pasturization and vacuum-sealed as it cooled. The caps were actually in some demand for school projects. I remember in particular at Satchel-Ford Elementary we had a "counting man" which was a flat wooden figure of a man who had no fingers. and we would somehow attach milk-bottle caps to his hands for various counting exercises.

I don't know much about Edisto the company. From the name, I assume it was a collection of farms along the Edisto river, but I could certainly be wrong. As a commenter notes, they advertised that their milk was "Golden Guernsey" milk, and aside from their milk-routes and, according to commenter Lew, a milk plant on Superior Drive, they also had several ice-cream stores in town. The one I recall was in Trenholm Plaza in the far corner, next to Trenholm road. The place has, I think, always been some kind of ice-cream store since then, and currently houses Hooligan's, a nice place to take kids for ice-cream and a sandwich. (Though that wing of the plaza is to be torn down soon). They also had several huge advertising displays in town. The one I remember most was on Beltline Boulevard, and was a huge animated stream of pouring milk flowing from a big carton into a big mug. (I suppose the milk stream was some sort of painted revolving spiral..

The government at both state and federal levels has always intervened in the dairy market. I think it was primarily the state governments until the New Deal -- as a child, one of my father's family tasks was to take the coloring agent that came with each purchase of margarine, break the capsule, and spread it on all the sticks of margarine to make them yellow since so as to protect dairy interests it was illegal to sell yellow margarine in Florida. After that, there was a web of regional price support rules, and it was illegal to sell milk more cheaply than the agreed local price. I think that started to change in the 60s and 70s, and the milk market became more national. I don't know if that had an effect on Edisto, but I suspect it may have. At any rate sometime in that timeframe, they were bought out by Coburg dairies.

The rise of supermarkets had already been reshaping the grocery market for decades, and with their ample refrigeration cases and centralized locations, at some point it no longer made sense for dairies to deliver to indivudal homes, or for families to want them to. I may be wrong, but I don't think Edisto/Coburg home delivery lasted much if at all past the turn of the 70s (actually potato chip delivery lasted a lot longer!), and today milk is a complete commodity, like sugar. You buy "whole", "2 percent", "skim", or "nonfat" and never notice whose name is on the top of the carton and if the cows are anything beyond "cow" (ie: Jersey, Guernsey etc), they keep it to themselves. Not to mention that the whole insurance industry would descend like a horde of locusts on any company letting an 8 year old "steer" one of their trucks.

UPDATE 11 October 2011: Added a photo above of an old Edisto sign currently on display at the new Mast General Store on Main Street.

Lum's was a small chain of hot-dog restaruants. I say small, because I only knew of two stores -- I suppose it could have been huge somewhere else in the country, but as far as I know, in South Carolina there were only this store on Greene Street (now Andy's Deli) and a store in Myrtle Beach by the Family Kingdom amusement park (the home of the "Swamp Fox" coaster).

I don't know why it is, perhaps because hot-dogs just seem such a casual food, but hot-dog restaurants don't seem to make it big. I know Sandy's is locally beloved, but those are small stores with no table service, and I believe the same is true for the only other famous hot-dog outfit I can think of: Nathan's. If I recall correctly, Lum's did have menus and table service. It's been so long ago that I was there that I'm on very shaky ground here, but I believe their big claim to fame was hot-dogs cooked in beer. I'm sure we wouldn't have been allowed to have such a thing. I have an even vaguer memory that perhaps I had a "cheese-dog" there, a hotdog covered with melted cheese. I also think that perhaps the hot dogs were plumper and less firm than I now prefer -- I enjoy the consistency of an Oscar-Meyer dog myself (cooked on a fork over a stove eye is fine if a grill isn't available).

Whether because folks just don't associate hot-dogs with a real "restaurant" or for Lum's specific reasons, both the stores I was familair with closed long ago -- I don't believe either made it out of the 1970s: Guess they coudn't cut the mustard...

UPDATE 20 April 2010: Added full street address to post title, and corrected spelling of "Greene" Street.

UPDATE 9 June 2010: Changed post title from "Lum's Hotdogs" to "Lum's Restaurant" as that was how they listed in the 1970 Yellow Pages.

I don't think I ever ate at The Winner's Circle, unless I was quite young. My father knew the family who ran the place, and I believe he ate lunch there from time to time. My understanding is that it was a "general" restaurant with Greek influences, and for many years was a USC area landmark (it was right across the street from the Law School).

At some point when I was living out of town, the place closed. I was disappointed because, like many places listed here, I had always figured that I had plenty of time to get around to trying it. I am unsure whether the current tenant, FEDEX/Kinkos, is using the old restaurant building, or whether they knocked everything down to build their operation. Unlike The Winner's Circle, I actually have gotten around to visiting the Kinko's. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but at one time they were open quite late, later than the other Kinko's in town, and they also had for-hire scanners, which I used several times before getting one of my own.

UPDATE 20 March 2010: Added full street address to post title.

Monterrey Jack's was an Americanized Mexican restaurant on Santee Avenue behind Yesterday's. Actually that's a bit inaccurate: While Santee was the "main" entrance, there was also an entrance on Devine Street. The main entrance debauched into the bar area while the "back" entrance led into the non-smoking section.

It was also the case that, even if you were a non-smoker, you wanted to sit in the bar area since a) the waitstaff actually checked those tables from time to time, b) the lighting and decor were much better, and c) the bar had possibly the largest CD collection of any Columbia restaurant, and the music there was always interesting.

The food was, in retrospect, not that good. This place was one of the ones that started in the era when jokes about the spiciness of Mexican food were a staple of comedy and commercials, and it was thought that Mexican food had to be toned down and domesticated for American (and especially, I suspect, Southern) patrons. I don't disagree with tampering with authenticity as I've said in a number of posts on Mexican restaurants. Authenticity for it's own sake is not necessarily a virtue (for instance, while American pizza is only loosely based on the Italian model, that's not a flaw) but in general I like going the other way -- adding much more spice. As I recall, the chips here were always burnt tasting and the beans were especially bland and gloppy. Still it was edible, and the atmosphere was interesting. We usually ate lunch there, but I think the main draw for the college crowd was the bar in the evenings.

After Monterrey Jack's closed, there was another "Mexican" operation in the location: Nacho Mamma's. This was an Yo Burrito / El Burrito type place that, I believe, started as on Broad Street in Augusta. Or at least there was one that opened in Augusta while I was working there, and the local press made it sound like the first, so I always assumed the Five Points location was the second, and their attempt at becoming a chain. I can't speak for the Five Points one, but the one in Augusta struck me as severely sub-par. They had only shredded beef (no ground beef) as your cow option, and the chips and salsa were not very good. At any rate, the Columbia Location did not last long. I believe there were a couple of other short-lived eateries/drinkeries in the storefront before the current tennant, The Pub on Santee moved in. I haven't paid close attention, but I think that operation has been there several years now.

UPDATE 26 May 2010: Added a lot of former names to the post title. Also note that 5 Points Pub is gone now too. This will continue on the entry for The Elbow Room.

UPDATE 30 January 2019: Add tags, map link

Well, I wasn't going to do a post on Martin's Coffee House mainly because I don't remember it at all. However judging by the comments left about it on my post about the neighboring IHOP it seems to be very fondly remembered and to have a strong constituency.

Martin's was a 24 hour restaurant which like the IHOP, was torn down to make way for the Walgreens at the apex of Devine Street and Garners Ferry Road. I have copied the comments about Martin's from the IHOP post to this one.

The original location on Rosewood Drive:

The final location on Main Street:

I've already done one post on this storefront which was the former home of Tio's Mexican Restaurant before its move to Sumter street.

Before Tio's, however, 928 Main Street was the home of The Basil Pot vegetarian restaurant. There may have been other vegetarian places in Columbia, but The Basil Pot was the most prominent. The place was founded in 1973 by Basil Garzia and was originally on Rosewood Drive before moving to Main Street. I don't know the exact year it closed, but one 2007 Free Times article mentions that it was "more than 3 years ago".

I could easily be a vegetarian if I didn't like meat. However, while I enjoy many meatless dishes, going to an actual vegetarian restaurant is something I've never done. I guess that's because I've always had the feeling that while I might go there (if I actually went) to enjoy a meal, the rest of the patrons might be there for deep philosophical reasons which it would annoy me to hear them discuss. Yep, I'm shallow.

I really can't think of a vegetarian restaurant in Columbia after the passing of The Basil Pot, though the new tenant Which Wich can make a decent veggie sandwich..

UPDATE 17 Nov 08: Thanks to commenter Dennis for the black and white picture of the original Basil Pot (and staff) on Rosewood!

UPDATE 21 December 2023: Fixed bad linke for Basil Garzia article, update tags, add the Rosewood street address & add map icon for the Main Street location.

Redbone Alley on Forest Drive in a Wal-Mart outparcel was the Columbia incarnation of a Florence based restaurant. While the Florence location apparently made clever use of a vacated mall anchor slot, the Columbia operation built a completely new building, which perhaps in the end was a bridge too far.

I believe I was still living in Aiken when the place opened, and only ate there once. Looking at their online menu, I'm pretty sure I would have ordered a burger. Whatever I had, it didn't impress me as either exceptionally bad or good. I do remember thinking that the atmosphere was a bit upscale to become a regular hang-out for me. Apparently a lot of people felt that way, as the place did not last long at all.

The next tenant in the building was some sort of Memphis barbecue operation. I'm not a barbecue person, and so had the burger again, and again it was fine, but nothing to write home about. I recall that The Free Times was not impressed with the barbecue, leading to an amusing letter to the editor from one of the Free Times rack jobbers saying that he should have been warned that the FT had just panned the food before being sent to restock the FT rack there!

That place had a very short run as well, and the next operation was a San Jose mexican operation. This led the San Jose up Forest Drive by the Rite Aid to put up a We Are Not Moving! sign as people just assumed that they must be the San Jose handling the new operation. I never ate at that incarnation..

The San Jose had, I think, an even shorter run than any of the other operations there, and the place got new management which changed the name to Pancho's. I believe it's been that way for a year or so now, and I have yet to eat there either.

UPDATE: Commenter Matthew identifies the barbecue operation as Corky's

UPDATE 20 November 2009: Added Corky's to the post title, also added the full street address.

This triangular lot across from the old Kroger Sav-On was once the site of the coldest IHOP in Columbia.

There are, to my knowledge, now three IHOPs in Columbia: One on Two Notch Road in the Home Depot parking lot, one downtown on the corner of Assembly & Senate Streets and one on Saint Andrews Road near I-26. I believe the St. Andrews and Two Notch stores are affiliated while the downtown store is under seperate management. I don't know if the Divine Street store was connected with any of the others, but if it had been, I'd guess downtown because it was a similar, old-style, IHOP building, while both of the other two are more "modern" and characterless. I can't recall if it were a 24-hour store as the downtown one is though.

Anyway, pancakes are comfort food, and every now and then I get in the mood for them as do and did the rest of my family, especially my father. I believe it was he who proposed a trip to IHOP one weekend for lunch, and we ended up at the Divine Street location. Now, when I say this place was cold inside, I'm not talking a little chilly. After a few minutes we had to fetch sweaters in from the car (it was not a cold day), and even that did not help. We asked to be moved to another table, not under a vent, and that didn't help either. My sister and I were uncomfortable, but my father who had always been cold natured and more so as he got on in years could barely handle his utensils. We made it through lunch somehow, and put the restaurant on the "boycott" list. I believe my sister later told me that she had been back with friends and it was just as cold then too. It was just very odd, and I can't believe we were the only diners who decided not to go back. You expect a place serving comfort food to be, well, cozy.

Sometime after that, Walgreens brought the property, tore down the IHOP building and put up a 24 Hour drugstore -- I've been several times, and it's quite comfortable!

Lorick Road is off of Folk Road, which is off of Wilson Boulevard, which is what North Main Street becomes as it nears I-20. As I was riding out that way early last month with my sister & niece on our way to a "Country Farm Adventure", I noticed Ray Lever's Bar-B-Q (or possibly just Lever's BBQ, depending on if you believe the roof or the front door placard) sitting abandoned off of the road.

It struck me as a very "barbecue" location -- off in the middle of nowhere (sorry Blythewood!), and at that first drive-by, I wasn't even completely sure it was closed. Barbecue places tend to have odd open days and to be as a rule, rather delapidated. (There's a place in the DC area whose slogan is "The Best Barbecue You'll Ever Eat In A Building That Hasn't Already Been Condemned"). When I drove back out there and got out though, it was apparent that the place was genuinely defunct. The name was vaguely familiar, so I did a bit of googling and found that the place is very fondly remembered by a good number of people though the owner got himself in some serious legal trouble before the final closure of the place. Lever's son reports that the family recipies have been passed on to Southern Pig BBQ also in the Blythewood area.

UPDATE 15 May 2017 -- As mentioned in the comments, this place has now been razed:

The Steak 'n Egg Kitchen was in this building on the bank of Gills Creek across the street from Trenholm Plaza and in front of Forest Lake Park. Commenter Lisa B's parents ran the restaurant (and another in Cayce), and she has an interesting rememberance here.

What I remember about the place is that it had a counter fitted with round, floor-mounted, stools on which a kid could twirl for as long as a parent could stand it and unpadded booths, like at the Waffle House or Huddle House lining the outside walls. I don't remember much about the menu, though I think it inclined towards hearty breakfast and lunch fare, but I do remember one item in particular. We didn't get to go there often (and in fact generally ate only one meal a week 'out'), but when we did, I had to have "Black Bottom Pie". I don't remember what was inside the chocolate cracker crust, but whatever it was, it was good! I think it's rather interesting that with the Steak 'n Egg Kitchen, there were at least three lunch counter operations in this block of Forest Drive. The other two were Liggett's Drugstore (later Ligget Rexall) at Trenholm Plaza and Campbell's Drug Store at the other end of Forest Lake Shopping Center. All three are gone now..

I'm not sure how long the Steak 'n Egg Kitchen lasted, but I'm pretty sure it was gone by the time I started college in 1980, and think it was in fact several years before that. This article from 1987 says that the chain still had 130 units then, but that it was troubled and that the new owners were attempting a turnaround. I don't find a corporate web site, so I'm guessing it didn't work. Anyway, after Steak 'n Egg Kitchen closed, another restaurant set up shop briefly in the building (which was remodelled). I can't recall the name of the place, but I got the impression that it was family run, and it had home-made raw fries. I think there was a non-retail business after that, perhaps an insurance office or some such and then the current tenants arrived and split the building. I've bought brandy & rum for cooking from the liquor store, but I don't know anything about the other two outfits. At any rate, none of them have Black Bottom Pie..

UPDATE 30 Jan 09:

Here's the old Harden Street location (mentioned in the comments). It's now El Burrito.

UPDATE 14 July 2012: Added the full street address for the Forest Drive location, and added the "Dobbs House" name to the post title. Also added some tags.

UPDATE 11 October 2013: Here is a great picture of one of the incarnations of this location. Thanks to commenter Dennis for ferreting this out!