Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Maybe there is no such thing as a recession-proof business...

On the other hand, this WPDE story speculates that perhaps Wal-Mart put some pressure on this Garden City strip club to close as they opened a new SuperCenter across the street. Certainly, the coming of Wal-Mart seems to be what closed the nearby Krispy Kreme (though the building is still standing so far).

I believe The Pink Pony building started life as a steakhouse, though the WPDE piece says the club had been there for a dozen years.

UPDATE 4 May 2011: Added Western Steer to the post title based on the comments.

UPDATE 12 April 2016 -- This place is now being renovated to open as Flapjacks Pancake Cabin:

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When you say you've been to see "The Doobie Brothers", that's almost as uninformative as saying you've been to see "The Drifters" given the convoluted group histories involved. Suffice it to say that the current incarnation of The Doobies hews to the original concept, and includes founders Pat Simmons and Tom Johnston.

I've seen several shows at the North Charleston Coliseum complex, including most memorably The Eagles and Blondie, but I believe those shows were in The Coliseum proper, a much larger venue than the Performing Arts Center. The center reminds me of the Koger Center both in size and the awful European style bank seating. It seemed that never more than 5 minutes went by before some portly person or another was making way across my seat towards the far distant center. I would say the show was about 80% sold with the crowd being entirely middle aged and white..

Lack of aisles aside, the sound was very good, and the security was just as casual as Newberry. I had emptied my pockets of all nail clippers and change in expectation of being herded through metal detectors, or at least being wanded, but no such eventuality occurred. In fact, many people were taking pictures and recording the show on their cellphones. If I had know that in advance, I would have taken the closing-cam in and gotten some very nice shots and videos. At any rate, I expect some to appear on youtube and elsewhere over the next few days.

The frontman for Charleston's Blue Dogs opened with an acoustic set which was generally well received. I thought he was pleasant, but frankly didn't hear anything which would make me seek out a Blue Dogs album.

After he finished, the Doobie roadies finished setting up the stage, which took about 15 min and then the band came out. They had an interesting configuration, one that I don't think I've see a rock band use before. Of course the classic rock band setup is lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass and drums. The Doobies have three guitarists and *two* drummers as well as bass, keyboards and sax.

So how were they? Well, I won't bury the lead too deep: They were excellent! Given the revolving door history of the band you have to start off a bit worried, but then Tom Johnston starts to sing, and well, they sound like The Doobie Brothers and if you get the chance you should go.

The setlist was what about what you would expect with all the hit singles up until the start of the Michael McDonald era (and they did do a very credible version of "Takin' It To The Streets").

The audience started a little skeptical but we were won quickly over. It's always a risk for a legacy group to try to sell new material, but the three songs from the new album were well received, mostly I think because they sounded like classic-era Doobies, not some new and evolved tangent. When they started a long blues jam with solos all round, they got their first mainly standing ovation as I think we largely came to the simultaneous realization: Hey, these guys are good!.

For me, the best moment was the encore set. When they came back out, they started a sort of non-descript mid-tempo rock where you were thinking yeah, that's ok, but what is it? and then Johnston started into the "China Grove" riff..

Woah ho, listen to the music!

I made a bit of a road-trip on Labor Day, and noticed this place between Camden and Hartsville. Beaver Dam Trading Post sat just up the hill from an old mill pond. While the mill was never in operation (that I can recall) while I was growing up, it sat there idle for years and years as the pond water rushed over the spillway. In general my parents didn't want us going near it for fear that something would collapse, but I recall getting up to the windows at least once, and seeing all the works and millstone still inside the place. Of course, despite driving past the mill at least a dozen times every year, and despite fancying myself as a shutterbug with my 35mm constantly at the ready on these family trips, I never thought to take a single picture of it until after it was gone.

Also at the side of the lake by the mill was an unlabelled upside-down "L" shaped pipe which was the outlet for an artesian well. This flowed 24/7/365, and we would always make our parents stop there so we could drink from this marvel. Once our dog got into the spirit as well, and jumped out the car window to join us at the pipe, managing to break her leg.

The small spurt of development that brought the Trading Post seemed to have put paid to the old mill and well. This is complete speculation but I suspect that people locating around the lake were distrustful of the old spillway, and that increased septic usage made a potable well somewhat iffy. At any rate, the mill went first, and the well a few years later.

After the route from I-20 through Bishopville to Hartsville developed, we travelled this stretch of road much less often, and in my case usually at night. To me it seemed that Beaver Dam Trading Post was doing neither better nor worse than you would expect for a convienience store in what was still a pretty sparse and rural area. It wasn't packed, but there were always a few cars there. This Administrative Court decision shows that they were apparently owned by a former Lee County Magistrate and got a permit to sell beer & wine to go in 1999. This set of game-day driving directions shows that they were closed by 2009. Judging from the growth of the tree around the gas island, I would say maybe 2007 or 2008, but given that the interior is still intact, probably not much earlier than that.

UPDATE 21 Sep 2010: I should probably note that although most google searches list this spot as "Hartsville", it is actually well outside the town limits and is much closer to the unincorporated little community of Kellytown.

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The climate of Columbia is such that its inhabitants have to live elsewhere

Time for Summer Vacation Phase-II, folks. I'll try to keep the spam in check and may respond to comments, but don't expect any new posts for the next three weeks or so.

This mysterious billboard is on the South side of US-501 in betwen Galivants Ferry & Marion. If I'm reading google maps right, it would be at the intersection of US-501 and SC-41. At any rate, it's before you get to Sparky's Fireworks. The sign has been up for at least two years, and was always a bit mysterious to me.

For one thing, there is no indication of what it's for. I mean, sure it says "Web Site of The Year", but that's not really an explanation. Is there a contest? Web site of the year according to whom? Why would anyone driving through the most rural and un-webby parts of South Carolina care? What's more, it's not pithy. Invariably by the time I got home, I never could remember exactly what it was: Um, bestwebsite.com? Yearsbestsite.com? Finally I took this picture to help me remember to check it out.

The first time I did -- it didn't help. I duly went to the site, but it was obviously the text provided by the hosting company. Stuff like

Insert description of your site here.

Insert URL of your logo

Write a few paragraphs describing your products and services. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Phasellus ligula lorem, consectetur ut mattis eget, varius at justo. Aliquam sodales gravida arcu. Etiam a viverra metus. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Nunc tincidunt nunc nec augue volutpat eget venenatis lacus pharetra. Donec mollis, leo auctor molestie placerat, eros ante tristique lectus, in accumsan enim nibh quis purus. Curabitur eget enim quis ligula fermentum faucibus eget tempus tellus. Etiam dignissim, augue non tristique fringilla, urna nibh viverra felis, vitae commodo eros urna et ante. In et odio erat. Nunc consectetur volutpat sagittis. Ut eu elit nisi. Nam accumsan sapien pulvinar elit pretium egestas sit amet nec elit. Phasellus mattis dapibus accumsan. Suspendisse egestas, justo ut imperdiet vehicula, dui eros tempus lorem, vel molestie dolor tortor vel dui. Vestibulum odio metus, tempus vel auctor sed, commodo nec leo. In sit amet magna et mi hendrerit vehicula vel et neque.

(OK, I used the Lorem Ipsum generator for that last paragraph..)

Anyway, I never got around to doing a post on it then, and now there is something of an explanation, if not a great one. Apparently someone is now using it to sell generic domain names, and push various small coastal oriented sites. It kind of has the feeling of an I might as well do something with it sort of project.