Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

When I blogged the closing of the Harbison Wing Nuts back in June, commenter badger mentioned that the Lexington location on Sunset Boulevard had closed in March. Somehow it took me between then and now to get over there and get some pictures, but surprisingly the marquee is still up after six months.

(Hat tip to commenter badger)

I had driven past this Firefly location dozens of times over the past year or so, and never really cosidered the "& Games" part of the Firefly name. Since it was a bit off the beaten path, I had it mentally pegged as some sort of specialty toy store, perhaps educational toys, but never really considered that the "games" might be for "gamers".

In the event, it appears that they are, and the new location at 657 Saint Andrews Road continues to host gaming events.

(Hat tip to commenter James)

Commenter James notes that the larger part of this Sunset Boulevard building is now for lease.

It appears that this is the result of Good As New Consignments vacating the left suite of the building and consolidating with Good As New Furniture in the right suite.

(Hat tip to commenter James)

UPDATE 15 May 2017 -- As reported in the comments, the main portion of this building is now a distillery:

Here's an older house set up as a restaurant on Lexington's South Lake Drive. I try to keep tabs on local pizza, but this one is not really local to me, and I'm afraid I had never heard of it before they closed up shop. The place kind of sits on a little hill, and I think it would have been nice to eat on the deck and look over the comings and goings on the road.

According to their sign, they are moving, but to where is not clear. Commenter Brian notes that the main chef has moved to All Star Pizza Company at 2001 Augusta Road.

(Hat tip to commenter Brian)

UPDATE 20 May 2018: The State says this will open as the second location of Cafe Strudel on 21 May 2018.

Here's another Pig closing from last year. This one is on the East side of US-1 not too far from the Barnyard flea market. Interestingly, the address is Lexington, though I did not think Lexington started that far South.

Though several recently closed Pigs have become Bi-Los, there is no sign of another tenant for this one yet.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

UPDATE 1 March 2016 -- As mentioned in the comments, this is now KJ's IGA:

UPDATE 21 September 2022: Adding map icon. Updating tags.

This little sandwich shop is attached to a convenience store / gas station on the West side of US-1 heading into Lexington. I had driven past it a number of times in the previous months, but had never really seen it. This time, when I stopped at the store, I noticed that it was there, and that it was closed. What reviews I see online are positive, and indicate it was open at least into June of 2013.

Commenter TahoeChic (who was not impressed) supplied the name for this business that I noticed while taking pictures of Lexington's defunct New Life Fitness. New Life was at the back of Charter Oak Court, while Carolina System Built Homes is at the front.

Driving by, I couldn't quite (and still can't quite to some extent) figure out what the place was. There is obviously a patch of building sites with a mostly constructed building, a set of foundations and then a site with what looks like part of a roof coming out of the ground. The former showroom building seems to be complete though, and from the real estate sign, you can get the whole shebang for less than the price of an upscale house.

UPDATE 5 December 2014 -- Here is the craft beer operation mentioned by TahoeChic in the comments:

It appears from their facebook page that a commenter saw this location as Pancho's on 8 March, so I'm using that as a date, though it would have been a bit earlier.

I never ate at this location, but in general do like the one on Beltline. From the name, I suppose this is now a second location for Pancho's on Forest Drive in the old Redbone Alley building.

(Hat tip to commenter TahoeChic)

Commenter Brian says of Miss Mattie's in Lexington, Her red velvet cupcakes were the best I ever had.

The shop is in McCauley Square on Sunset Boulevard, north of Hudson's. This is the same strip mall that housed Yumilicious.

Commenter Brian also notes that the closing was originally flagged as temporary, but that was some time ago. All the furnishings are still intact, so that could still be the intention, but the flat Closed on the sign doesn't offer much hope.

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Here's an old-school, single island service station in Lexington. Just looking at it, I suspect it predates the BP era and probably goes back into the (original) Gulf age. This is the kind of place that used to exist to service cars -- which needed almost constant attention. Any thought to customer restrooms or any vending more elaborate than a soft drink machine was pretty much non-existent. Now, one by one they fall by the wayside as that generation of owners retires or they just can't compete against the new convenience store stations that use all the space that could have been bays to sell people stuff.

This one will be selling people Thickburgers soon.

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