Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Sammi's Deli still has a Broad River Road location in Irmo near the Publix plaza, but this one in front of the old Intersection Center has changed hands and will become a Nick's.

Nick's seems to be using the Lizard's Thicket "hermit crab" strategy of moving into buildings which were already set up as restaurants. This will be the third new location they have opened or will open over the past year. They have already opened in the old Taco Bell location on Decker and appear close to opening in the old Tony O's Pizza on Saint Andrews.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

UPDATE 17 September 2012 -- The comments have reminded me this used to be a Taco Cid so I have added that to the post title. I have also copied commenter Melanie's matchbook scans here:

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

This 24 hour gym was in Boozer Shopping Center on the Bush River Road side just a few slots down from Dunkin' Robbins. This is not too far away from the former Curves gym on Colonial Life Boulevard.

Continuing yesterday's Mexican theme -- I have often noted this El Monterrey on Broad River Road, just North of I-20, and thought to myself that it was in an awful location: very close to the I-20 interchange (which is busy, and backs up) but without access to a traffic light.

That turns out not to be exactly true, as I found out when I stopped to take these pictures. In fact, the back of the parking lot has a cut-through into the Economy Inn parking lot, and thence to Briargate Circle, which does have a stop-light. It even looks as though they got enought business from the hotel side (or expected to get enough business from the hotel side) to set up the back of the restaurant with a second facade.

Apart from the access situation, I was never tempted to stop here because in my experience the local Monterrey chain comes in behind the Casa Linda, San Jose and La Fogota chains -- nothing drastic, just not one of my preferred marquees. (And if I was in the general area, I would probably hit El Chico anyway).

(Hat tip to commenter Thomas)

UPDATE 8 April 2014 -- Well, this place tried to open as La Reyna Del Sur, which I take to be a nightclub concept. Literally it means "Queen of the South", and is also the title of a famous Telemundo telenovela (and the novel it is based on). Just from the picture of the lady in question, it appears she was from *very* far south. At any rate, the sign went up, but the club never opened, and now the building is for sale:

UPDATE 21 July 2016 -- As commenter Andrew mentions, work is going on here. Judging from the interior, it will not be a restaurant, but some sort of office with a front reception counter:

Also, I'm taking the El off the original post title of El Monterrey Restaurante Mexicano Bar & Grill to make it match the sign and fall in the Alphabetical Closings with the other Monterrey locations.

Or has the Broad River Road / River Drive construction been ongoing since the late 1800s?

UPDATE 9 April 2014 -- And two years later, *still* not done!

UPDATE 19 January 2018 -- I should update here to note that the work is indeed finished, and has been for a while:

Commenter ED points out that the Bel-Air Barber Shop, a Boozer Shopping Center institution, has closed after 40 years. The old style places certainly seem to be closing faster than new ones are springing up. And of course it's depressing to note as well that if this place was 40 years old -- it is a lot *newer* than the places I started getting my hair cut..

(Hat tip to commenter ED)

I confess I had not known about Happy Frog Gelato Cafe until commenter Eddie mentioned that it had closed. I'm guessing that that probably happened at the end of May, but the place has already been comprehensively stripped. In fact, I couldn't make out which unit in the strip mall had been Happy Frog without walking from one end to the other and looking at the interior setups. In the event it turned out to be the leftmost unit on the main row of storefronts.

The walk was rather instructive as it appears that most of the units in this strip have never been occupied by anything, and are awaiting interior finishing touches specific to whoever finally moves in. Given that the Food Lion anchoring the development has been open since 2008, this seems a bit disappointing (though the Food Lion itself is very nice and seems busy).

(Hat tip to commenter Eddie)

This storefront on the Dunkin' Donut side of Boozer Shopping Center apparently came and went pretty quickly. It is listed in the February 2012 phonebook, but not the February 2011 one.

I like the (improbably long necked) logo.

This little storefront in the Food Lion plaza between Greystone and Brevard, was a UPS Store. This review says that they were having problems for a while, and I wonder if that suggests that the copier which appears to still be in there was unfixable.

I believe that a contract Post Office opened fairly recently at Boozer Shopping Center, so there are still shipping resources in the general area.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

UPDATE 9 September 2013 -- It's now Peking Wok II:

Well, this one is ripped from the headlines -- It seems that on the morning of Thursday 8 March 2012, somebody set fire to Club Crush (aka Crush Gentlemens Club) on River Drive just down from a defunct Cash / Title shop and the old A&P.

OK, I'm jumping the gun on the theory that it was arson, but given the recent history of the club (a woman was shot on 1 March and a tow truck driver was shot at on 7 March), I doubt that it just *happened to catch fire.

Actually I find the story of the woman being shot all the more remarkable in that it recapitulates the most famous incident to happen at this building. In both cases people inside the building were shot by bullets coming in from outside the club. Luckily, the woman is said to not be gravely injured -- in the first incident a man was killed. As I recall the story, the fatal incident happened while the building was occupied by Chastitys Gold Club. It seems that a man (a lawyer in fact!) was attempting to take liberties with a dancer that neither she nor club management would countenance, and the man was thrown out of the club, whereupon he went home, got a gun, came back and fired through the (closed) front door, killing a club employee.

I don't think that Chastitys ever really recovered from the bad publicity, and after limping on for a while, closed in 2009. The building shortly re-opened as another strip club, Savannahs Gentlemens Club (no apostrophies anywhere..) which didn't last too long and was replaced by Club Crush in late 2010 or 2011.

In fact, this building has always seemed to have sort of a revolving door problem. I was amused recently when both The State and The Free Times reported on Richland County mooting a change to zoning rules to close county stripclubs, and both papers seemed to believe that Chastitys was still open (unsurprisingly they noted they were unable to get a comment from the owners about the proposed regulations, given that the club was long gone..). Some other businesses I know of in this building were Coconuts Inc, The Club House and Crockmeyer's,which all sound like night clubs, and Swipe USA which doesn't. (In fact, I'm not sure what that sounds like..).

I'm not sure about Club Crush, but the building itself did not appear badly damaged, and based on history, I predict a club will be open there again soon, whatever the name.

UPDATE 13 December 2013: According to The State the building as been denied a permit to operate as a bar under new ownership, with, I think, the subtext being: this is for all time. To me this seems like visiting the sins of the past into the future..

UPDATE 19 January 2018 -- The place either is operating as or is about to open as Tryst:

Once upon a time, this building was The Whale's Tail and then Rubino's Italian Restaurant. More recently it has been the second location for Alpine Road's Little Pigs Barbeque -- in fact, after the Alpine Road store caught fire, and before it was repaired, this was the flagship location, though it's hard to imagine a place further away from Alpine Road but still "in the Columbia area".

The building does not seem to be up for sale, and is still furnished, so perhaps the owners have plans to re-open, or open a different restaurant here.

(Hat tip to commenter Nobody).

UPDATE 17 June 2013 -- Cletus' Roadside Grille is now operating in this building (and has been for a while):