Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

It's not clear to me how a play area could be "out of order". I suspect its more like the area didn't get enough traffic to make paying to keep it clean worthwhile.

(Hat tip to commenter Matt)

I noticed the other night that K & M Uniforms in the bulding with Forest Lake Travel and South Carolina FCU is having a closing sale. I believe that includes St. Anthony's as well.

After a bit of a kerfuffle with Richland County, the Palmetto Table Tennis Club ended up opening a ping pong plaza at Richland Mall, just behind the old TGI Friday's and in-between the elevator column and the entrance of the old Blacklion.

It seemed a nice use for an empty space, and there were perhaps half a dozen or more ping pong tables there at one time. When I went through in early December however, the plaza was completely bereft of tables (though all the posters and signage were still there).

UPDATE 19 December 2013: Well, I don't know what was going on, but the tables are back!

Sadie's, in the old S & S slot in Richland Mall is closed again, this time for good (though the sandwich-board sign remains optimistic). They had closed once before a year or so ago for a change of ownership, but apparently that didn't help in the end.

(Hat tip to commenter Matt)

Well, of course I never thought to get a picture of them, but every year since the 1980s, the main elevator court at Richland Mall hosted a full orchestra of animitronic bears playing Christmas music. The signage proudly announced that the conductor bear who stood with his back to the audience benches (which were in front of Barns & Noble facing the elevator) was 'Leonard Bearstein'.

Because, you know: Richland Mall, there was never a crowd for the bears, but generally there would be a couple of kids and parents, perhaps heading to or from Gymboree sitting on (or running around) the benches.

I don't know if there was too much wear-and-tear on the bears, or it's just that nobody cares anymore, or the last guy who knew how to put them together retired, but this year, the bandstand is not in evidence, Leonard Bearstein is not tapping his baton, and the holiday decor is Christmas trees only.

Well, we've pre-discussed this closing here, but the actual event finally took place on Saturday 9 November 2013 when this store closed as a Pig at 3PM.

As it happened, I was there a bit after 2PM, and found the store surprisingly well stocked. The entire right quadrant of the store, with produce, the bakery, the cafe and Dream Diners was empty, but the non-perishable isles were still pretty well stocked. I suppose the idea is that it probably cost the Pig less, or perhaps even made a little money, to transfer then to Bi-Lo rather than go through a drawn out sale, or trying to get them back to the warehouse.

As commenter Matt mentions, the store brand stuff did go on sale at deep discounts, because, well, Bi-Lo can always sell Dixie Crystals, but can hardly carry Pig Swig or other Pig branded items.

The store is to reopen next Friday, 15 November 2013 as Bi-Lo.

With this closure, the Garners Ferry closing and the Litchfield Beach closing, all the "nice" Pigs that I have personal experience with are gone. The one on Devine appears to be one of the older, smaller layouts, and is a bit of a drive anyhow.

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I used this location of Cartridge World a few years ago to refill the toner in my HP Laserjet, and that refurbished cartridge is still going strong. Sometime this year, this branch moved out of the Forest Park plaza next to Cardninal Newman, west down Forest Drive past beltline to a new location more or less across from The Pizza Joint and next to Lizard's Thicked.

It looks like the Forest Park storefront is currently being used for overflow storage.

Interesting tidbit in The Sun News.

Here's the thing, this store, the one at Pawleys Island / Litchfield Beach and the recently closed store on Garners Ferry Road are all relatively new and upscale stores. This one in Forest Park is especially nice, and the one at the beach is in the same class (though a bit smaller, I believe). When you're abandoning your best stores, that can't be a good sign.

Bumble Botique & Bee Maternal were really, as I understand it, one operation with the area under one nameplate specializing in kids' clothes and the area under the other specializing in maternity wear. Commenter Matt suggests the stores were doing OK, but were a sideline for the owners and eventually started to become too much to deal with.

I'm reasonably sure these are the storefronts previously anyway occupied by Corma's Health Foods and Bobby's Barber Shop though they have been extensively remodeled.

(Hat tip to commenter Matt)

I've noticed this little Korean place, on Percival not too far from Forest Drive, over a fairly long period of years, though I never knew the name.

Interestingly, while the sign says Cho Won, google doesn't find that incarnation at all. Apparently it is now a bar C & J Lounge.