Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

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I did a closing for the Two Notch Road Floor It Now back in early 2009. Now the other local location, in or near Irmo, is closing as well. This one is on Broad River Road just past exit 101B on I-26 and not far from Friarsgate Plaza and the former Tez's / Monterrey.

I suspect that the housing market and the economy in general played a big part in both of these closings. If you're buying a house, you may want to redo the flooring or carpet, or if you're flush, you may decide one morning that that old carpet just has to go. If nobody is buying houses, or decides that old rug can stay down a few more years, then flooring stores are going to take a hit.

Or it could be the shag.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

UPDATE 16 July 2013: This is now Main Street Home whose owners provide this picture of the new store in the comments:

http://static.squarespace.com/static/51131961e4b064b9ab645b18/t/51d0dfdce4b08819bd7f5b9a/1372643294026/storefront_rightangle.jpg?format=750w

UPDATE 8 May 2017 -- And finally took a shot of my own:

UPDATE 22 September 2021: Adding map icon.

I first wrote about this building when it was LulaBelle's:

and before that, it was a Roadhouse.

Since it became a Hudson's, I had reports of its closing a couple of times, apparently because it does not open on Mondays or Tuesdays, and people would drive by and see no cars there.

As WIS reports a fire broke out on 6 April, closing the place for real, if presumably only on a temporary basis, though interestingly when I went by, there was no signage estimating a re-opening date, or indeed noting anything -- even the chalkboard noted only normal hours.

UPDATE 17 May 2011 -- Well, they have a sign up now with a little more information:

UPDATE 24 October 2013: As commenter Andrew points out, the property has been sold and the closing is clearly no longer "temporary", so I have taken that tag off the post title.

UPDATE 13 December 2013 -- Well, this place has been demolished:

The closing for The Devine Street Al-Amir was the first one I ever posted on this blog. I also did one for the Sparkleberry Crossing location, and this one makes three.

It's a shame because I really like the food at Al-Amir -- the Damascus bread, tabouli, hummus and falafel are all very good. Luckily, they still have locations on Main Street by Moe's and at Sandhill in the old Shane's Rib Shack location.

This closing had a very fast turn-around. I know I ate at this Al-Amir sometime in February, and now it is not only closed, but re-opened as a burger and pizza place called Stinger's.

(Hat tip to commenter E.J.)

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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This Piggly Wiggly was in the High Point Centre shopping center at the north-east corner of Lake Murray Boulevard and Columbiana Drive. As far as I can tell, it closed in 2009, and seems to have pretty well put-paid to the whole plaza in so doing. I rarely get over to Lake Murray Boulevard (as you can see here, I still haven't managed to make it to this Pig in the daytime..) so I don't know the market too well, but this closing seems a bit odd to me.

This is one of the newer, larger, Pigs, so it's not one of the tiny old stores that they are trying to transition out of, and there's certainly no lack of traffic in the Harbison area. In fact, this store sounds as though it were a flagship of sorts, at least this story from 2005 paints it as the store chosen to do the public launch for PW's new "Pay By Touch" system.

This LoopNet listing has a daytime picture of the store with Pig branding (and confirms that it was built in 1994, which still seems pretty recent to me).

UPDATE 9 March 2011: Update closing date to 2 Feb 2008 based on comments.

UPDATE 22 June 2021 -- Now a Stars & Strikes bowling and fun center:

Also adding map icon and updating tags.

I never visited the Atlanta Bread Company on Lake Murray Boulevard, though I did do a closing on the one at Sandhill and do visit the one on Sunset every once in a while. In general, I consider ABC a step down from Panera but perfectly acceptable (though both chains skimp on the AC outlets..)

The first thing I would say about this ABC is that it's a very attractive building, especially in the evening sun.

The second thing is that I don't believe I have ever seen a closing note as extraordinary as the one taped to the door here. In its own bland and elliptical way, it's pretty devastating, especially considering the source!

UPDATE 26 September 2011: I'm marking this one as "open again" based on commenter julie's report. Presumably all the problems the first iteration had have been worked out.

UPDATE 30 September 2011 -- COmmenter Andrew sends this picture of the We Are Back sign:

UPDATE 1 April 2017 -- Finally getting around to noting in the post itself (already noted in the comments) that this place is closed again, and in fact a new operation Urban Cookhouse is now up and running:

Home Furniture in Irmo closed in late September. To the best of my recollection, I had never been on the segment of Lake Murray Boulevard below Columbiana Drive before, and there was a lot more development there than my memories of visiting the Lake Murray area 30 years ago would have led me to expect.

According to this PDF though, Home Furniture had been around a lot longer than 30 years ( and a lot longer than I have for that matter!) -- 63 years. Also, from the PDF, it appears that they had a temporary closing back in January 2010 so the original owner could retire. Assuming those plans went through, I'm guessing the continuing housing slump kept the store from coming back full strength after the transition. At any rate, this closing seems to be final, unfortunately -- the electronic sign was cycling through an offer to lease the building along with the closure notice.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

UPDATE 14 July 2013: Commenter Andrew points to this story in The State saying that Home Furniture is open again. I have updated the post title to reflect that.

UPDATE 14 April 2014: Fixed above update date to say July 2013 instead of July 2014..

This Sprint/Nextel store was next to the Kwik Kopy Business Center in the Publix plaza, and commenter Chris puts the closing date in 2008, while commenter Michael opines that it moved and then closed for good.

It seems to me that for such a large industry, with so few players, these shops move around and go under a lot more often that I would expect. Back in the day, you knew it was futile to go to the Southern Bell ("We're the phone company, we don't care, we don't have to!") office, but you knew where it was, and that it would be there forever..