Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

The humble tee-shirt is an American institution, and while I have never bought one myself (though, come to think of it, I do sell them), I have heard the name Eat More Tees off and on for years locally. It's one of those names that sticks in your mind because it sort of makes sense and sort of doesn't make sense.

At any rate if you want to eat more now, you'll have to go to Rosewood, as this West Columbia location (right across from the vintage WECO sign) has moved.

Rish Florist (aka Rish Flower Shop) is on that little strip of State Street in West Columbia that also houses Terra and The New Bookland Tavern. They appear to have expanded out of their original space over the years to take what looks like three different storefronts. I really like the Depression-era glass blocks in parts of the building.

The closing sign says that they had been there for 57 years -- that is certainly a record that anyone could be proud of.

(Hat tip to commenter JB)

UPDATE 20 September 2012 -- Well, somebody apparently has a plan for this building. The interior has been gutted, and there is some sort of zoning hearing scheduled:

Here's another of the Columbia area's many car title loan businesses that have gone defunct over the past couple of years. The sign says simply Car Title Loans but online I've seen both of America and of South Carolina tacked onto the end. Whatever the name, I don't believe it was was there all that long -- I have noticed this building off and on over the years, and I think that for a long time it was some sort of mobile-home & camping service center with propane and repair parts.

Arnold's Professional Garment Care (or Arnold's Cleaners as the building signage indicates) looks to have been in this building for a good many years. The plaza, at the North West corner of Meeting and 12th Streets is a bit of a hard luck location, losing its grocery long ago, but Arnold's kept going until this location (there are others) closed on the first of February. If you had clothes there, don't panic -- they've been taken to the North Main Street store.

(Hat tip to commenter Sam)

This little strip-mall, The Shoppes at Meeting Place used to be home of Ye Olde Comic Shoppe, and a number of other operations over the years. It's kind of interesting in that it seems that each storefront has a first-level street number, ie: the first storefront is 501 Meeting Street, the next one is 503 Meeting Street, etc instead of "501-A, 501-B etc.

I don't know anything about Alternative Health Center other than it was apparently already gone by August of 2008, judging by the pictures from the Ye Olde closing. It still gets google hits though.

Title Cash of South Carolina is still listed on the strip-mall marquee, and so departed more recently. It sounds like a standard cash-for-car-title loan place. Curiously a number of these seem to have gone under recently, even though it's the kind of thing you would expect to do better in hard times.

I notice that while the 501 Meeting Street storefront seems to have only one door, it has two papered-over business signs, so it's entirely possible that it's a suite with two halves. I've tried enlarging and different enhancements, but I can't read what's behind the sign covers..

This interesting little building is on Sunset Boulevard just south of the chicken plant. According to LoopNet it's now off the market, though the realty sign was still out front a few days ago when I took this picture. (The picture at LoopNet still has the WPC signage up).

I don't know anything about First Source or WPC Engineering or what happened to them, but apparently the town of West Columbia offices are also at 130 Sunset. I'm not sure if that means in the back of this building, or somewhere else on the lot. The utility-sounding West Columbia filtering plant is supposed to be at 130 as well.

UPDATE 5 Nov 2010: See the comments -- It was also the Free Times building for a while, so I've added that to the post title.

UPDATE 7 May 2012 -- This place is now Kickstand Studio a wedding and commercial photography studio. Looks like they got the kudzu or whatever off the building and power pole too:

Westland Square is just East of Grecian Gardens on Sunset Boulevard, and is a fairly typical Food Lion anchored strip mall. This unit, just up from the former Gooney Birds was a Burnette's Cleaners when I left town. Apparently sometime thereafter, it converted into another cleaning operation, Palmetto Fine Cleaners and then into a night club, which apparently closed this year.

If I'm reading this LoopNet listing correctly, Westland Square is not currently for sale, but was recently as a package deal with "Waterway Plaza (Little River, SC), St. George Plaza (St. George, SC), South Square (Lancaster, SC), and Clover Plaza (Clover, SC)". That's a pretty geographically diverse set of properties to bundle!

UPDATE 6 June 2012: I was in error in stating above that Palmetto Fine Cleaners took over this spot. I was relying on the fact that PFC had a street address of 2250 Sunset Boulevard, but as it turns out, they were at 2250-A, the other end of the strip mall from this suite at 2250-M. I have removed Palmetto Fine Cleaners from the post title for this closing, and have given them their own closing.

Golden City is listed in this year's (Feb-2010/Feb-2011) phonebook, so it can't have been closed for too long. I find it a little interesting however, that Loopnet describes the place as "recently renovated" while work is clearly currently ongoing.

I'm not sure how long Golden City was there. Without going to the library, I can confirm that it existed in 1998, but not in 1976. Again according to Loopnet, the building was built in 1970, so there must have been other operations there over the years. And, speaking of the building -- it's rather an interesting one. The back part is fairly standard looking, but the trapezoid in front is quite unusual.

I wonder how accurate the English name is. If each Chinese glyph equates to a word (or idea) then there are four words getting squoze down into the two word "Golden City". Can anyone translate?

I'm drawing a complete blank on Appliance Professional in West Columbia just across from Zesto. I'm sure I saw it open many times, but not being in appliance-buying-mode, my eyes just skipped right over it. Anyway, it appears they moved to Saint Andrews Road (East of Broad River Road) this summer and the building is now available.

Really, the building isn't that interesting, but I like the reflections of the Zesto cone.

UPDATE 24 Sep 2010: Added a picture of the front side of the building that I forgot.

I'm not sure when this plant store on Meeting Street closed -- there was a sign on the door, but none of my pictures of it came out because of glass reflections and light ink. According to their website though, they opened (or planned to open) in the Spring of 2009, so I'm guessing they were there about a year. Again, from their site, the place was to be more than a nursery, with local peaches and other produce as well as plants and trees. It sounds a little like the niche that Grice's was in.

To me it seems like a pretty good location (It's true that there are big-box stores (and Wal Mart) not too far away, but you have to go through the bottleneck of lights in Triangle City and the big merge on Augusta Road to get to them), but apparently in the event, not good enough.

UPDATE 9 Sept 2010: Changed closing date in post title from 2010 to 2009 based on comments.

UPDATE 20 July 2011 -- It's now a drumming studio: