Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Commenter Dennis sends this picture noting:

There was a Yogi Bear's at the corner of Two Notch & Decker. Where K-Mart's parking lot is.

This sign is actually in Hartsville, and the store there is about the last one in the US. The one in Columbia had a sign identical to this one.

I don't recall this place in Columbia; I know several things have come onto that K-Mart corner though. The one in Hartsville I have seen many times -- we drive by it on the way to visit our cousins there. I believe they still prefer the chicken there over other larger brands like KFC and Church's.

UPDATE 22 June 2010 -- I get a lot of hits looking for Yogi Bear's Honey Fried Chicken. Just for fun, here are two pictures (like Dennis's above) from what I believe is the last Yogi Bear's still in operation. It's located in Hartsville South Carolina at 514 South 5th Street:

UPDATE 11 August 2022: Added the new picture at the top of the post which was sent in by Jimmy Freeman who says: "[ ] as you can see...... it was located in Winn Dixie shopping center next to that bank. When Columbia Mall was built, Winn Dixie was moved". This is actually a bit differently located than I had remembered it. Big thanks to Jimmy!

I'm also adding a map icon based on the location of Baker's Sports Pub, which seems to be pretty close to where this was.

UPDATE 12 November 2024: Commenter Aaron J. provides this link to an old The State want-ad establishing the address of Yogi Bear's as 7139 Two Notch. I will update the post title from "Two Notch at Parklane" to that number and update the map icon and tags. The ad also establishes that the place was open into late 1971 at least, so I will update the date from the vague "1960s" to the vague "1970s". Also note that the streets in that area have been reworked so much that having the actual street address may not say exactly where that address was back in the day.

Commenter Dennis sends in this link to a set of flicker photos he found of the old Burger Chef which apparently was at the intersection of Two Notch & Covenant roads. You can page through them with the "browse" box. I don't remember the place myself, but going by the picture captions, the owner was a forward-looking, stand-up guy.

Taco Cid is a local (a fact I didn't know until just now) Mexican fast-food chain. Well, I say chain but from their web site, they are down to one location, on the Charleston Highway, at present.

When I first became aware of them, they had at least three locations. The one on Charleston Highway, one on Broad River Road near Intersection Center, and this one, on Decker Boulevard just up from Decker Mall. At that time, I was just starting to sample Mexican food, and I was never a steady customer, but I had this odd custom that whenever I was going to drive to Charlotte (usually for the Heroes Convention, but sometimes for other reasons), I would hit the Decker Taco Cid for lunch first (I will rarely start any voluntary trip before noon!). I'm not sure exactly why this was. The food was better than Taco Bell, but not spectacular, and before the Completion of I-77 to Percival, Taco Cid really wasn't on the way to Charlotte in any meaningful fashion. Even now that connection is tenuous since you can only get on I-77 going the wrong way if you use Decker, but I would drive down Decker to Parklane to 277 and tell myself that made sense.

The Decker location was the first to close though it predated the total collapse that happened to Decker later. The Broad river location lasted years longer. I don't know exactly when it went under, but I don't think it has been more than 5 years ago.

The vet's office moved in a few years after Taco Cid vacated the building, and has been a steady presence there ever since as Kroger, Target, The Olive Garden, Red Lobster, and most recently Zorba's have crashed and burned around them.

UPDATE 15 Aug 2009: Added scans of Taco Cid matchbook provided by commenter Melanie.

UPDATE 18 April 2013: The building is to be Atlantic Seafood.

UPDATE 30 August 2022: Updating tags, adding map icon.

The Holey Dough Cafe started out as Manhatten Bagel and had been a fixture in Trenholm Plaza for probably around 20 years. In our family, whenever we faced an early-morning out-of-town trip, the saying was This is a bagel situation, and we would fuel up with bagels and coffee (or soft drinks) on the way to the Interstate. I used to go in there frequently on early Saturday afternoons as well, and there were always the same two customers there, very elderly men whom the staff took care to see got in and out of the store OK.

In 2006, the store dropped it's Manhatten Bagel affiliation. I'm not sure why. Perhaps given how well established the place was, the national name cost too much without providing enough extra value. At any rate, they changed the name to "Holey Dough Cafe" and redid all the signage (including that on the bagel van) and menus. I couldn't tell any difference in the bagels; they still seemed quite good to me.

In recent months, I had become aware that the store was opening a new branch downtown somewhere. I'm still not sure of the exact location, but I would see sidewalk signs near Gervais & Main. I presume, and hope, the new store continues after the main store's closure.

I suspect the proximate cause of the Trenholm store's closing is the ongoing renovation of the Plaza, which will involve tearing down that whole wing of stores. (The Oreck store is primed to move to the Piggly Wiggly plaza). As to why not just move it a bit up or down Forest Drive, I think the recent opening of Bruegger's Bagels across from The Happy Bookseller has changed the local bagel market. An established store could tough it out, but a new location would have to fight for mindshare with Brueggers.

Roadtrips won't be the same.

UPDATE 2 November 2009: When Holey Dough moved from Trenholm Plaza, it set up shop at 1200 Main Street suite 102. I'm not sure how long it was there, but it was certainly less than a year. Jumpin' Jacks Giant Jersey Subs now occupies the spot.

UPDATE 11 Jan 2010: Added "Manhatten Bagel" and full Forest Drive Street address to post title.

Columbia is full of little restaurants I've never visited, and The Capitol Cafe was yet another one of these. I keep telling myself I'm going to eat on Main eventually, but somehow I never get around to it. I remember in particular I how I kept meaning to go to The Frog & Brasierre and didn't before it went under. I say the same thing about the new place in that spot, The Whig, but I haven't made that one yet either. I haven't even made it to Drake's, and that one's been there (or at least on Main) since forever!

The State (in an article made difficult to google because they consistently misspell it as Capital instead of Capitol Cafe) says it will become a Dunkin' Donuts as does commenter Becca who liked the place.

I have nothing against Dunkin' Donuts, but I still say we need a Krispy Kreme on this side of the river.

UPDATE 2 November 2009: Well, Dunkin' has put up their marquee, but seems to be in no hurry at all to finish the interior and open the place.

Also added Cat & Cleaver to the post title.

Here's the thing. If you're going to call yourself The Grilled Cheese Company, you ought to have really great grilled cheese sandwiches.

I was feeling pretty low last year with a bad cold (which wasn't getting any better as in the end it turned out to be a sinus infection and to need antibiotics..), and I wanted some comfort food. A good grilled cheese sandwich sounded like it would really fill the bill, so I went out to Sandhill.

I guess what I was subconsciously expecting was some sort of deluxe affair with two or three kinds of cheese grilled between Texas toast. What I got was apparently a Kraft Processed American Cheese Food single between two slices of Sunbeam, and it was a considerable disappointment in a day that was already not going well.

Read whatever you'd like into my judgement given my general maliase and grumpiness that day, but I see the place is now gone, so I'm thinking that even if everyone else liked what they got, they also realized they could do the exact same thing at home with the ingredients they already had.

Antibiotics on the other hand, are great.

UPDATE 15 May 2010: Added full street address, tags.

UPDATE 25 February 2014 -- It's now a kids' gym, My Gym:

UPDATE 10 March 2021: Adding map icon.

Plato's Grecian Cafe was tucked into a strip mall across the street from Dutch Square; today it's a Personnel company. I went there several times over the years, but it never really clicked for me. I always thought of it mainly as a pizza place, and though the pizza was fine, it was not in the running for Best Pizza in Columbia.

The last time I was there, they had some sort of live music. I can't recall if it were a pop band or some kind of Greek folk thing, but anyway that seemed to be where their focus was that night, and I found the table service really suffered for it. Since my inclination to stop was never strong, I never got around to going back after that, and didn't notice for a while that the place was gone.

UPDATE 2 March 2011: Add full street address and ad from the Feb 1990 Bellsouth Yellow Pages

After establishing itself on Divine Street, Al-Amir opened a second location on Clemson Road at Sparkleberry (near the I-20 interchange). At the time, I was working in Augusta, and living in Aiken. Since I spent the weekend in Columbia more often than not, I was very happy about a location I could drive straight through to from Augusta and hit while it was still open on Friday evenings. I really liked the fare at Al-Amir, but it could be a challenge getting to the Divine location if I were running late. In my opinion, the Clemson location was very slightly below the Divine location in quality. The Damascus bread seemed thicker, harder and less puffy and the seating was less quirky and inviting than the wraparound booths in the back of the Divine building. Still, it was completely acceptable, and somewhere I liked going. However, the last time I went there, they were in violation of Ted's Rules for Restaurants #1: Honor your posted hours. I got there at 8:30pm on an evening when they were supposed to be open until 10:00pm and was told: "Well, it wasn't busy, so we closed the kitchen". Shortly thereafter, they closed.

After Al-Amir, there was a short-lived Mediterranean grill of some sort. Perhaps that was Mirage, or perhaps Mirage is the incoming operation which is now hiring. It appears they are keeping the nice fountain that Al-Amir installed. I wonder if the brick oven is still in there?

UPDATE 12 April 2010: Added full street address to post title.

(7 Jan 2011):

11 April 2011:

This Krispy Kreme on US Highway 17 in Garden City had been there since forever (although it was obviously converted from a gas station at some time in the past). We used to badger our parents into stopping there from time to time growing up. It had the interesting distinction of being the only Krispy Kreme store I know of which didn't make its own doughnuts. Honestly, what is the Krispy Kreme concept without the Hot Doughnuts Now! sign? Not that they were stale, there are at least three stores up the road in Myrtle Beach that make hot ones and could supply this store on a same-day basis.

From the note, it appears that the whole "dead plaza" area around this store is to be re-developed, which w accounts for the Krispy Kreme and the auto-parts store both losing their leases. I suppose you could say re-development started a few years ago with the new Walgreens in the same block.

I was a bit surprised to see that the new Krispy Kreme location (a few blocks North, still on US-17) still doesn't make its own doughnuts.

UPDATE 3 September 2012: Added pix from 7 January 2011.

UPDATE 26 Jan 2013: Add pix from 11 April 2011.

UPDATE 4 April 2012 -- The place is now open, completely remodeled, as a Verizon store:

Also, the first new Krispy Kreme location mentioned above (north of here on the west side of the road) has now moved across the street to the east side of US-17 and *does* now make its own doughnuts, with the requisite Hot Doughnuts Now sign.

UPDATE 13 March 2025: Updating tags, putting real street address in post title and adding map icon.

The only time I ever ate at a Steak & Ale was in Tampa Florida in the late 1980s. We were setting up a new office in Tampa at the time, and I had been seconded from the Fayetteville office to work on the software infrastructure down there. In the event, I ended up spending quite a bit of time in Tampa, but never really got to see much of the city because we were working such late hours.

At any rate, most of the team working on the office startup would eat together every night, and one night I was dead tired and just wanted something simple and to go to bed. I recalled seeing what I took to be a Western Sizzling type steakhouse down the road, so during the usual "where do you want to go/I dunno, where do *you* want to go" scrimmage, I just piped up and said: "Steak and Ale". I figured there would be burgers and a salad bar and apparently beer so the guys who wanted a drink could get one. Well, it turned out to be a little fancier than a Western Sizzling. In fact it turned out to be a lot fancier, and I found to my regret that I couldn't get a burger at all. (In those rare situations, I can usually get a baked potato & French Onion soup -- my "too fancy" fallbacks).

I never went back to that Steak & Ale, and it fostered no desire in me to go to the one in Columbia. Nonetheless, it had always seemed something of an institution to me, and I was quite surprised when they closed up shop a few years ago. After they left, there was a very short-lived operation called Buster's Bistro (which I also never visited) in the building, and now the place is split between some kind of furniture shop and some sort of athletic shop.

It looks like the chain is still around, but the closest one is in Greenville.

UPDATE 25 June 2010: Added full street address to post title.

UPDATE 13 Oct 2010: Added yellow pages ad from the 1975-1976 Southern Bell phonebook.

UPDATE 16 June 2022: Adding tags and map icon.