Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I think I have a picture of this building standing.. Somewhere. Anyway, apparently the buildings at 2801 & 2835 were originally owned by Continental American which was bought out by Aflac in 2009. At some point after that, Aflac moved their all their operations to either Laurel Street or Huger Street depending on which report you read.

In 2016, the property was sold to Devine Station LLC, apparently for

mixed-use development that includes apartments and retail space

I guess they are now getting started on that.

Rose Bud was the follow on operation in this location to Kiddie Korner. Possibly at some point in between, it was also Ectax Services. I don't actually know when Rose Bud closed, but Kiddie Korner was about 2009, and when I took these pictures in November 2017, it looked to have been vacant for a while.

RealtyTrac says the building was built in 1958, which I can believe looking at it.

Rose Bud was behind (or in front of, depending on your point of view) Pizza Man and as commenter Andrew notes both those buildings have now been razed.

Devine Foods was unfortunately a place I only got to once or twice. Spanakopita is my go-to Greek dish and as I recall, theirs was quite good. My problem was that they closed quite early both for lunch & dinner making it difficult to fit into my eccentric schedule.

Here is a story from The State on the closing, and an appreciation from The Free Times

UPDATE 8 May 2018 -- This place is being razed to the outer walls:

To a first approximation, Pizza Man on Woodrow seemed like the kind of place I would like: Open late & serving pizza.

In the actual event, I only ended up going there once. The pizza was a style I didn't really care for, and was a bit overcooked, and the place was so dim that I could hardly see a page while I waited for my order. I probably should have given it another chance, but in the end never got around to it.

Here is a State story on the (then upcoming) closing, and here is a story on the final auction.

(Hat tip to commenter Justin & co)

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According to The State and ColaDaily, this Shandon gallery started out in this nice little house as a fine tea emporium in 2000, gradually adding other, art and botique, items. I was still living in Aiken in 2000 otherwise I might have heard and stopped in as I certainly like my tea. In the event, I missed out, but 17 years is certainly a very good run.

(Hat tip to commenter Justin)

As you can see, it was raining pretty hard, so I did not get very good pictures, but I noticed the For Sale sign on this office building a few weeks ago when I was in the Owens Field area. That's right, Columbia has *two* roads named "Airport Boulevard", something I did not know.

From what I can gather National Distributing Co is a wine wholesaler, which left this building around 2010 for a site off of Bluff Road. They no longer seem to be listed in the phonebook, so I believe they left the Columbia market after that, though they are still in business nationally.

Note the City Roots greenhouse (or whatever you call it, since it is not enclosed) to the right -- I didn't realize this was where they are located.

The State reports that lulumon athletica (which apparently is spelled without capitals) has closed this Shandon showroom, of which I was completely unaware, and will be opening a full store in Trenholm Plaza on 18 November 2016, apparently in this slot:

which featured here back in August.

Family Dollar has left their original home at 1901 Rosewood Drive and has moved across the street to 1825 Rosewood Drive, which is the former KFC lot. You can see the new, custom built, building in the background of some of these shots.

I really should have crossed the street to get a better picture of this building. It has kind of a grocery store look to me, though that would put it awfully close to the old Piggly Wiggly

We were having one of our many gray December rainy days while I was trying to get pictures of Rosewood Florist so I couldn't really frame anything except out the passenger side window without getting my lens wet.

Commenter Frank reported this store closed in early December, and it does seem to be up in the air at the moment. Their Facebook page reports, in a comment, that they are moving, but there are no details as yet.

(Hat tip to commenter Frank)

I've always liked Za's, though I go there less since they stopped being open to 11:00 on Thursadys. The only things I would change would be to make the individual pizzas a little larger, and to brew stronger tea. I suspect, however, that more than that is slated to change as the place is now closed for revamping as The New Za's. Commenter David suggests that it will then be under the same ownership as Cantina 76, a place I have somehow never gotten around to.

(Hat tip to commenter Dennis)