Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Judging from the Google reviews, this place probably closed sometime this Spring. The closing is also marked "Temporary", but we'll see. You might think that sitting across from two campuses of hungry kids would be a good place for a sandwich shop, but I have to say that the Google reviews have about the highest concentration of one star ratings I have seen anywhere, so perhaps you really can't sell sizzle.

Looking at the Google Reviews, as well as the cafe's Facebook, it seems that O'Hara's was not making book as a table-service cafe, and tried converting to a counter-service bagel shop, which didn't bring in enough new traffic while alienating the existing clientele. This also invoved Rules #1 & #6.

The owners remain committed to the spot, and it sounds from the most recent Facebook post, that something new may be in the offing.

(Hat tip to commenter James R)

Perry's Gourmet Flaming Grilled Chicken (there's a mouthfull by itself!) opened in this former Taco Cid building in on 29 August of 2022. WLTX had the story here.

Apparently the chicken was Portuguese style, which I am not familiar with, but they had traditional Southern items as well. The Google reviews are almost uniformly positive, though there are not a ton of them, which may be an indication they weren't getting the volume they needed.

And of course, the building is odd and old, something Taco Cid finally gave up on, so there may well be a lot of issues to be addressed as indicated in the Closed For Remodeling sign. Unfortunately I don't see any work going on, and those signs are often more aspirational than accurate. Hopefully that won't be the case here and they will be back, but we'll see.

(Hat tip to commenter Payne)

I had meant to go by the Festival on Saturday when I would have had some time to walk around, but in the event forgot about it completely somehow, and ended up dropping by Sunday afternoon. By that time all the Galaktoboureko was gone, but I did snag some Baklava & Kataifi to take home. There looked to be a pretty good crowd, and the weather was great, in fact unusually warm for late September!

Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce... And everything else now too.

This Burger King is on 8th Street in Fernandina, which is the main road coming onto the island from the mainland. That makes it a high traffic location, and the store was in a decent area (there aren't any really bad spots on 8th), so I'm not sure what happened here.

Well, OK, apparently the place was just bad: The google reviews are sprinkled with one-star reports, including the classic

I recommend taco bell or starve.

and the Yelp reviews are worse. The question is how does that happen? I get that the franchaise system means local ownership, but at some level corporate has to take care of the brand.

Anyway, as I said it's a decent location, so I would expect something else before too long.

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7 Spices was the follow-on in this building to The Villa and opened in the Summer of 2023. I ate there twice, I think, and it was pretty good. Driving by recently, I noticed that it was gone and replaced by another Indian restaurant Hyderabad House. This appears to be more than a re-branding as the phone numbers are different, and the reviews (mostly positive) suggest the new place focuses more on "Nawabi style" dishes. I'm not exactly sure what that means given my limited knowledge of Indian regional cusine, but I will try to check it out at some point.

This place was the follow-on in this original Carrabba's building to Fiery Crab, whose signage was never taken down (granted, that would be an unpleasant & dangerous task).

When it started, it was billed as Vegan & Ghanian Fusion, but apparently they tried to go more mainstream later. I'm also not sure how the "Jazz Lounge" part comes into play as none of the reviews mention music.

I hesitate to post a closing this far out, but The Free Times has already weighed in, so why not?

Steve's Classic Burgers opened in this little Saint Andrews Road strip mall back in 2015, and I admit I have never gotten around to trying it, though I have noticed the billboards from time to time. Ashland Park is just not really on my radar, and I don't think I have been back there since Sandy's closed. The place sounds as though they do a bit of outreach as well as cooking, with Bibles on the tables, something that puts me a bit in the mind of Edna's #2 on Pinehurst, which unfortunately I never got any pictures of before it closed and was torn down.

At any rate, with retirement and other issues to deal with, the owners have decided to close next Spring, so if you want to check it out, you still have time to make several visits.

(Hat tip to commenter Heath)

This was probably inevitable given the chain's ongoing bankruptcy, but still it's sad to see a decades long area staple go. The ax came down rather quickly here, as CNN reported the latest closing list today, and by the time they had published, this location was already shuttered.

The State has a bit more.

(Hat tips to commenters Tom & Larry)

I think this is closed. There is never any sign of activity when I drive by and the Facebook has not been updated for quite a while, but yet google reviews always has a couple of reactions from the last few months...

Anyway I'm calling it closed, and if anyone knows differently, let me know.