Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

The Lexington location of Educational Wonderland was on Columbia Avenue right next to Mi Pueblito / Mi Casa. The way the storefront looks almost makes me think it was a theater at one time, but I don't see anything resembling a ticket-window. This location is still listed in the new (March 2012) phonebook, so I'm assuming that it closed in 2011 (sometime before November, when these pictures were taken).

Educational Wonderland seems to be a school supply operation that caters mainly to the homeschool market and is now headquartered at Boozer Shopping Center. According to this old index to their site, in addition to the Lexington location, they also had a Dentsville location at 2400 Decker Boulevard, the site of the original WXRY radio station.

There are some adjectives that I never know what to make of when they are used in advertising or business names. Certified is one such. Are they certifying that the objects on their lot are indeed cars? It's sort of like those dodgy collectible items with a "certificate of authenticity" as if that couldn't be faked as well as the item.

At any rate, Certified Cars Online, Inc. seems to have been the last tenant in this apparently revolving-door lot on Sunset Boulevard between I-20 and Target. The one review I see for Sunset Tattoos indicates that it was in business as of 2008, and I'm guessing the other car operations before Certified came after that. (It's possible that some of them (Enterprise for instance) were run concurrently with Certified).

Here's an archived copy of the Certified site on the Internet Wayback Machine.

It appears the closing note could be taken as a confession of sorts, though I doubt that's how it was meant..

UPDATE 18 July 2013 I'm guessing that when I listed Enterprise Rent-A-Car in the post title above, I had googled the address and had that come up as one of the hits. As it turns out, that was something still in the future for this site at the time. Now Enterprise has made the move from 5184 Sunset, and is in operation on this lot now:

It looks like a lateral move for this Lexington storefront, which has now switched from one Mexican restaurant, Mi Casa to another Mi Taco. I don't know if the Mi in both names signifies the same ownership, but it seems plausible. I'm afraid I haven't eaten at either incarnation as I still get over to Lexington very rarely.

UPDATE 23 February 2012: Added Mi Pueblito to the post title based on the comments.

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This interesting looking "modern" building on Sunset Boulevard across from the Lexington Place shopping center caught my eye in the late afternoon sunlight a few weekends ago.

You can see the fenced in pet-run area on the far side of the building, but the vets have moved to 109 Palmetto Park Boulevard. Perhaps they were zoned out of this office. I note that the LoopNet listing for the place says:

Free standing building on 1 acre. Would make excellent Doctor's office, Dentist office, Salon, Spa or similar uses. Prohibited uses include veterinary related types.

I know dogs can be noisy, but it couldn't be any worse than the traffic on Sunset Boulevard!

UPDATE 25 May 2016 -- Now a strip mall anchored by Smashburger:

According to their archived web site this house was built in 1893, and it does remind me of the houses in Fernandina from that era that I used to see growing up.

After being vacant for a while, it was an event and catering operation. I was a bit surprised when I found that online -- I had expected that it had probably been a B&B. The last archived version of the web site dates from June of 2008, and given the threadbareness of the paint in several places, I would guess it probably closed not long after that. It's certainly a beautiful property and I'd like to see it survive even if only a a law-office or whatever...

Judging from this LoopNet listing this property was sold in bankruptcy (or that's what I take "Onsite Auction- By Order of Secured Creditors" to mean) on 30 Aug 2010, so obviously the hardware store closed some time earlier than that -- certainly all the branding is gone in the LoopNet picture.

It's not a good time to be a non-big-box hardware store I'm afraid. This little plaza is really hurting as well. It looked like the only business still in operation was a restaurant, though judging from the curb sign Radius Church will be moving into the hardware space in the near future.

UPDATE 15 Jan 2011: Added Piggly Wiggly to the post title based on the comments.

UPDATE 9 Jan 2011 -- That certainly is a conveniently specific insurance regulation, isn't it?

Monkey Business was an indoor arcade/amusement park off of US-1 in Lexington. I know it was open at the start of 2009, but am not totally sure that it made it into 2010.

The place was inside the largest part of a warehouse-like building (a Cheerleading school is in the smaller part), and had a number of different attractions. There were bouncy castles, jumbo slides, video games, skee-ball, a small carrousel, a snack bar and private rooms for birthday parties. I only went once, but my impression was that all the kids there were having a good time, and it appeared to be doing a good business.

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Commenter Andy pointed out that this Internet cafe just to the right of Publix in the Lexington Place strip mall had closed.

I admit that that's far off my usual beat, and I wasn't even aware it existed, but he says

Judging from their still extant web site, they went beyond the standard Starbucks/Atlanta Bread/Panera wi-fi model in that they also provided on site printers and computers. I have found such places to be very helpful when I'm away from home and need to print out work documents, driving directions etc..

The name apparently came from the fact that there were three owners. I hope the association with "Three Bean Salad" (which I have always hated) didn't hurt them..

(Hat tip to commenter Andy)

UPDATE 3 April 2011 -- It's to be a yogurt shop:

(Hat tip to commenter Elisabeth A)

I wrote about the Main Street location of Baker Brothers a while ago. I finally got around to looking for the Lexington location last time I was on Sunset. Of course it was a) nighttime and b) freezing cold, so these are night shots from the car. However you can see that the space has not yet been sold or leased and there is still a good deal of gear inside -- lots of chairs in particular.

When I did the Main Street closing, a number of commenters said that it was quite a good place, making me sorry I never got around to it (or this one). It looks like partaking would be a bit difficult now. According to their web site their current restaurant tally is:

Texas: 12
Iowa: 1
Indiana: 1
Kentucky: 1

making Bowling Green our closest option..