Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

This corner space at Trenholm Plaza was most recently occupied by The UPS Store, but when I was growing up, it was Ed Robinson's, though I probably never knew it by name.

My mother did not believe in clothes dryers, opting for a clothes-line in the back yard. This was fine most of the time, but since rain is not unknown in the Columbia area, every now and then we would be faced with a need for clothes that were not yet dry. In addition to that, in the 1960s I had the impression that our washer was something of a lemon. There were fairly frequent calls to the service man, and more than once I recall the floor covered in sudsy water.

When we needed clothes washed or dryed, there were two choices: either the laundomat by what is now city hall on Trenholm Road, or the one in Trenholm Plaza. I think that when my mother had to deal with us children, we tended to end up at Ed Robinson since she could let us "free-range" around the plaza while the clothes were cycling.

As I recall, the staffed laundry was in the east end of the building with the laundromat area being in the west end. The laundromat area was filled with tables and wheeled hampers, and smelled of soap and hot lint. As I recall, the tables were some sort of plastic, or covered with plastic and hued aqua-marine. I would sit on them, and swing my legs back and forth (this must have been before I could read, or I would have had a book). As a boy I was fascinated by mechanical devices of all sorts, and I was particularly fixated on the gas dryers which lined the west wall. Not only did they have sort of retro-spaceship-control sliders for varying the temp from "warm" to "way too hot", but they were large enough (floor to ceiling) that I could imagine actually riding in one (this was during Gemini & Apollo) with more room to spare than the astronauts had. The start (or "blast off") process was particularly satisfying as you put your quarter in a slot way at the top of the machine (I had to use a chair), turned a knob which had a very satisfying action, heard your coin drop with a cheery plink, and then got to push the starter button which wound the whole thing up.

The washers were not quite as interesting, but did have a variety of little plastic tops you could put on the agitator for reasons which escape me now, and of course you could always play "open the lid -- washer stops" / "close the lid -- washer starts" until my mother would make me stop so she would get a full wash from her quarter.

I'm not sure when the cleaner closed. I know it was still there in 1970, but think it was gone by the time I left town in 1985. As for myself, while I agree with my mother that line dried clothes are nicer than tumble-dried ones, I don't have her patience. The line is still in the back yard, but the clothes go in the Kenmore. (And for all that I tend to be a "they don't make them like that anymore" guy, I don't think I've ever had to call service on a modern washer or drier..)

The original plan for Trenholm Plaza was to tear down the whole wing, and The UPS Store moved across the way in anticipation of that, but in the event the economy collapsed and management scaled their plans back to doing a remodel instead. Most of the spaces have been re-filled, but the old Ed Robinson space is currently still empty.

UPDATE 29 November 2011 -- It's to be a Cafe Caturra:

UPDATE 7 February 2012 -- The Cafe Caturra looks about ready to open:

Well, thankfully, according to WLTX nobody was injured though $2,000,000 damage was done to the building by the fire which started in an oil heater.

This AAA Car Care Center opened rather recently, being built after a number of pre-existing buildings were taken down in May of 2008.

UPDATE 25 Dec 2010 -- More pictures from 21 Dec and 22 Dec:

UPDATE 30 Dec 2010 -- Here are some more pix from 26 Dec:

UPDATE 25 Feb 2011 -- Well, they've completely knocked down the building now (and the burned out SUV is gone..):

UPDATE 25 May 2011 -- rebuilding has started, here are some pix from 13 May 2011:

UPDATE 1 June 2011 -- Work continues in these pictures from 29 May:

UPDATE 30 August 2011 -- Nearly done:

UPDATE 20 October 2011 -- Open again:

Back in the 1970s, Shoney's was a big deal, and we ate there quite often. At the time, they were afilliated with the Big Boy chain, and they always had "Big Boy" comic books as free premiums for the kids. I can't recall any of his specific plotlines at this remove, but he (Big Boy) and his girlfriend Dolly, always had some sort of food related adventure in the front of the comic leaving the back for puzzles and mazes.

We ate most often at the Two Notch location (now vacant) but I think we did come to this one from time to time.

After dropping the Big Boy tie, Shoney's coasted pretty well for a while, then started getting into trouble and closing a lot of stores. At one point they tried to diversify by getting into hotels (Shoney's Inn) something for which apparently they didn't have the necessary skill set, and that hurt them some more.

I believe this one closed well before the Two Notch one, and has been a Lizard's Thicket for quite a number of years now.

UPDATE: Closing date changed from "1970s" to "late 1980s" based on commenter Weston's info.

UPDATE 10 September 2020: Update tags, add map icon.

Not really a closing, but I was at Bruegger's Sunday, and happened to notice that the building housing Be Beep and The Happy Cafe is being re-roofed.

The Be Beep area was roped off, but they aren't open on Sunday anyway so I doubt they'll have any downtime.

As usual, I got to the library about 5 minutes before closing time, and was trying to look up several things. One of them was old City Directory listings for Trenholm Plaza. In the event, I got two, one for 1964, when I would have been three years old, and perhaps dimly conscious that we were going to the same places a lot, and one from 1970 when I would have been nine years old, and looking forward to Western Auto visits to window shop at all the "hobby batteries" and bicycles.

I'm pretty sure Trenholm Plaza was a golf course not too many years before 1964, so that wave of stores is probably pretty close to the original list:

While many of those stores lasted for years, the USPO is the only original tenant left.

There are a lot of hold-overs in 1970, but a good bit of turnover as well:

Interestingly (to me), I can't for the life of me recall a Gene's Pig 'n Chick in Trenholm Plaza at all, and I would have thought it would have stuck in my mind. I don't recall those dentists either, and in fact am a little surprised by seeing non-retail there.

Of these TP stores, I've done closings for:

A&P (sort of)

Edisto Farms Dairy

Liggett Rexal

Standard (Federal)

Tapps Twig (sort of)

UPDATE 11 October 2013: Look at this great 1979 picture of Trenholm Plaza. Be sure to zoom all the way in, and pan around. Thanks to commenter Dennis for finding this!

As promised below, this is commenter Dennis's map of the original Richland Mall. He also sends this note:

Hi ted

Well, finally, here's a first attempt at a Richland Mall layout, circa 1968.
Please feel free to correct!

Obviously it is just a sketch, and proportions etc. are extremely
approximate. Not to scale!

1. J.B. White's

2. a jewelry store -- King's?

3. no idea -- what was in this area?

4. Hickory Farms

5. The Shop for Pappagallo (women's shoes way too expensive for our family)

6. Baubles 'N Things (not sure about this one)

7. Mr. Popper's

8. Meri's Records

9. maybe this was Baubles 'N Things

10. ?

11. Pet-A-Rama

12. Ruff Hardware

13. Berry's on Main (actually at Richland Mall - always thought this was a
dumb name)

14. Winn Dixie

15. Redwood Cafeteria - not sure this was a plain rectangle; it may have
been an L shape. For a while the corner closest to White's had a separate
entrance and a little soda fountain area.

16. Hickory Farms' second location after the moved "across the aisle."

17. Woolworth's

18. Colonial Stores / Big Star

19. Eckerd's

20. What was here? A little travel agency, maybe? Remember travel agencies, before the internet?

21. Gerald's Shoe Repair

22. Merle Norman Cosmetics (or maybe they were 23)

23. Russell Stover (before they put their own building way out in the
parking lot)

24. coin laundromat; owned by the cleaners next door. The manager had a little walk-thru between the two.

25. dry cleaner's -- Ed Robinson's, maybe?

26. automated Post Office, like the one at old Woodhill Mall. An exercise in frustration every time.

27. Russell Stover's own building, far enough from the mall to make sure
they went out of business.

The white boat shapes in the center walkway were fountains when new, then, like every other property owner that gets completely fed up with the trouble and expense of fountains, the owners turned them into planters. Sometimes they covered them with carpeted plywood and used them as stages. I met Jolly Jim and J.P. Sidewinder there one Saturday. Was there a third one down closer to White's?

The white lines between Woolworth's and Colonial show the bike rack, used constantly by me.

The little gray inset into Colonial was their loading dock, which always
stunk. Speaking of stink, there was a really ugly dumpster in the parking
lot right out the back door of Redwood Cafeteria that reeked and bred vermin in ways that defy explanation.

28., 29., 30. The shady backside of the mall had a few offices that held no
interest for me. One was a State Farm agency, I think, and one was the
mall's business office.

Thanks, Dennis!

Have at it folks..

UPDATE 19 Sep 2010 -- Well, I went down to the library today and ended up looking in the old "City Directories". I hadn't really paid a lot of attention to those, since they tend not to have interesting ads like old phonebook yellow pages. HOWEVER what it turns out they *do* have is complete (or at least pretty complete) listings of shopping center tenants. Herewith the Richland Mall listings for 1962 (which I believe was the mall's first year of operation), 1975 and 1985:

1962:

1975:

1985:

UPDATE 21 June 2011: Added [at top] a view of the old Richland Mall including Whites, Russell Stover, Richland Mall Theater, and part of Redwood Cafeteria from an old Chamber of Commerce promotional book.

UPDATE 9 February 2012 -- Well Richland Mall is rezoning:

According to The State:

The new zoning allows the mall owners “all kinds of options,” including space for offices, residences, hotels, restaurants and schools, according to Mark Williams, Forest Acres’ city manager.

UPDATE 21 May 2020 -- Here's a nifty color shot of the old Richland Mall centrial corridor at the Colonial. Unfortunately I can't inline it due to copyright, but it's worth a click.

This one was a well planned closing. The "for lease" sign, and the "closing sale" signs had been up for a couple of months before this little store, on Forest Drive right next to Bruegger's Bagels, shut down. I'm assuming it closed at the end of August since month-boundries make sense when you have time to plan, though I didn't notice the vacant space until today.

I never went into Jewelry Mart as it didn't seem targetted at my gender or demographic but one of my aunts did stop in once, and mentioned that the staff was very pleasant and she struck up a conversation, actually leaving with the manager's mix-cd of store music after she complimented him on his taste in songs.

I believe that this is the first vacancy for this little strip. It was all built a few years ago, so up until now it has had the original tenants.

UPDATE 2 Feb 2011 -- It's to be Wristwatch Doc watch sales & repair:

UPDATE 14 Feb 2011 -- apparently Artisan Jewelers is the official name (but why not put that on the roadside sign?):

UPDATE 16 November 2017: Adjust address in post title, add tags.

I've been putting off doing a post on Woolworth's because I don't have any pictures of the place, or even any ads. I'm sure I'll find a newspaper ad eventually, but they don't seem to have gone in for Yellow Pages ads at all.

Anyway -- Woolworth's was in the original open-air Richland Mall from the beginning. Woolworth's front entrance was on the Beltline side of the mall, and the back entrance opened into the mall's main traverse corridor. The way I remember it, Woolworth's was approximately in the middle of the mall. I'm definitely a little shakey on the layout of all the old stores, but I can definitely say that if you went out Woolworth's back door, a left turn would point you at White's on the far end of the mall. I believe that as you were walking to White's, you would pass Meri's and, in later years, The Happy Bookseller.

Conversely, if you came out the back door and turned right, you would go past Jackson Camera, Eckerd's and head down towards the laundromat and Winn Dixie.

If you came in through the front door, there was more or less a clear corridor to the back door, and there were registers in both the front and back. Still facing the back, the right side of the store was more or less devoted to clothes, and I didn't usually go over there. The left side was much more interesting and had records, pets, various school and office supplies, the lunch counter and the restrooms.

Every year, about this time, we would go to Woolworth's for new school supplies. I liked Blue Horse brand because all the items had coupons you could clip and send in for premiums. The fact that I never got enough to send in and never actually got a single premium didn't deter me. (Somewhere about the house there is probably still a cache of Blue Horse coupons..). For pencils I liked Ticonderoga #3 (and always avoided Empire pencils) and for notebook paper, I liked "college ruled". Aside from the stuff we actually used, there was neat stuff that we never used, though we each had several. This included protractors and drawing compasses (with the deadly points).

The pet department didn't have dogs or cats -- it ran more to hamsters and gerbils as far as mammals went, turtles to represent reptiles, and lots of fish. There were several places in town we would get aquarium fish, but I think we got most of our "neons" from Woolworth's.

Of course Woolworth was famous, or infamous, for its lunch counters, but as this store was built post 1964, I'm prety sure it always served everybody (at least officially). The lunch counter was, as I said, on the left side of the store, and fairly near to the rear. We didn't eat there too often, but as I recall it, there was an actual counter with padded swivel stools arrayed around it, and then some booths away from the counter itself. I'm pretty sure I remember the aqua-enamel covered Hamilton Beach milkshake machines, and that the fries were crinkle cut.

The record section was to the right of the lunch counter (though still left of the central corridor) and almost against the back windows. There were a certain amount of "real" records shelved alphabetically, certainly not a deep selection, but probably a fair number of the days hits. The attraction for me however was the cut-out bins. In these, would be remnants: records that didn't sell for whatever reason (usually because they weren't very good...) with a notch cut out of the covers to indicate their status, and boxed up indiscriminately to be sent to places like Woolworth's at reduced prices. The records were in absolutely no order of any sort, but I was obsessive in those days (and broke, which helped) and I would look through each and every record in every cut-out bin. I know I got a number of records there over the years, but at this point, I can definitely recall two, both by the discount repackager Pickwick Records. Both were cheapo repackaging of Beach Boys material from the Capitol era. One, "Wow, Great Concert!" repackaged the first Beach Boys concert album, leaving off several tracks, and the second was an 8-track tape repackaging album tracks from the first two Beach Boys LP's (Surfin' Safari and Surfin' USA) leaving off the hit singles and adding their own typos to the song titles -- For years, I assumed that "Moog Dog" referred to the synthesizer, when in fact it was simply a typo for "Moon Dog". Actually, come to think of it, I also bought a non-Pickwick repackaging the Beach Boys pre-Capitol tracks at Woolworth's as well. (Always beware if you see an off-brand looking Beach Boys package that boasts "Surfer Girl" & "Surfin' Safari" it probably dates from the Hite Morgan sessions and has much earlier and more primitive performances -- interesting, but not what you heard on the radio).

When I first started going to Woolworth's, the bathroom was unique amongst all the bathrooms (that I was aware of) in Columbia: It was a pay bathroom. The door handle had a protruding mechanism with a coin-slot, and the handle itself was more like the handle on a bubble-gum machine than a usual door handle. I loved that thing, and annoyed my mother to no end by "holding it" while we were in White's (which had nice, free, restrooms) so that I could use the coin bathroom at Woolworth's. In later years, they disabled the coin mechanism and the restroom was free to all, though you could still see that it had once been pay.

If all this weren't enough, possibly the neatest thing about Woolworth's was the arcade game past the front checkout counters, against the front wall. This was the pre-electronic, pre-videogame era when in general, pinball machines were the only option. This particular machine had the general pinball format -- about two feet wide and four feet deep, but it wasn't a pinball machine. I wish I could remember the name of it, but it was some sort of "shoot the aliens" game. You would put in your dime, and your joystick would activate. The joystick would traverse right and left, and had either a trigger, or a firing button on top of it. It was connected to a plastic laser cannon at the front of the console, and moving the joystick would swivel the cannon right and left.

Shortly after the game came to life, a mechanical flying-saucer would pop up at the back of the game and move randomly left and right (and sometimes pop down behind the scenary to move invisibly). You had to point your cannon at where you thought the saucer was going to be by the time your blast got to it -- you had to guess what it was going to do and lead it. Every time you pushed the firing button different segments of lights along the top of the game would light up, indicating the progress of your laser bolt. To some extent you could still change the direction it was progressing in by adjusting your joystick, but the gross direction was fixed at the start of your shot.

If you guessed right and the saucer was in the area where your bolt impacted, it would make a very satisfying sound effect and all the lights would flash to indicate the destruction. You would also get points, but that was pretty secondary to me, since there were no prizes and I generally wasn't playing against anyone. And really, it was almost enough to just watch the machine go through its paces whatever the outcome. It's amazing what they did totally without computers or any electronics -- just mechanical know-how and electricity.

Woolworth's survived the change from the open-air Richland Mall to the ill-fated and enclosed Richland Fashion Mall. As I recall it, the new store was on the second level. If you came into Whites from the Beltline side, it would be out the right mall entrance to Whites. The new store was smaller than the old store, and didn't have pets. By this time, I was in college, and I only went there once or twice. I recall it as a pretty sad looking affair, and in fact the whole chain was in trouble by this time.

Fairly shortly thereafter, Woolworth's rebranded itself as Footlocker and shed its dimestore history. They kept a Footlocker store in Richland Mall (I think it was out the left mall entrance to Whites) but I had no interest whatsoever in that concept, and never went in.

Wonder if I still have that 8-Track?

I've written about this building before, both in a closing for Steak & Ale (the original tenant of the whole building) and in one for House Brand (a furniture store which used the east side of the building after it was divided).

I see now that since the House Brand signage has been off the east side of the building, the previous Buster's Bistro sign is again visible.

I don't know much about Buster's other than it was the first tenant in the newly subdivided building and that according to several commenters on the Steak & Ale closing, the chef, Sig Buster, started at Fresh Pastabilities in the Forest Park (Piggly WIggly) shopping center on the other side of Trenholm, and opened Buster's Bistro after closing that.

The place is not listed in the 2008 phonebook, and so would have closed during or before 2007.

UPDATE 16 June 2022: Adding tags and map icon.