Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

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.

As far as I can tell, Moolah's Hide-Away was a fairly short lived operation, as it appears only in the 1977 Bellsouth phonebook. The restaurant was in the space once occupied by Biddie Banquet and occupied for a good number of years now by Sakura. From the ad, it appears that they were pitching it as a base-gate type operation to draw off of Fort Jackson. Wikipedia claims that the restaurant was actually operated by Moolah's daughter.

Judjing by Wikipedia, The Fabulous Moolah (real name Mary Lillian Ellison) had quite an interesting life, becoming the first woman to wrestle in Madison Square Garden. The Columbia High School graduate went on to become the most famous female wrestler of the the thirty years from the 50s into the 80s and appeared in videos with Cyndi Lauper during her wrestling era. She passed away in Columbia in November 2007.

UPDATE 10 Feb 2011: Added a better picture of the current location

This building, across the street from Richland Mall and just south of Moe's has been a number of things over the years, with none of them seeming to last long. Right now, I can only find two other names (and a Doctor's practice) before H2, but I'm sure there were many others as loopnet says the building dates back to 1969. Part of my difficulty may be that the address is sometimes given as "2100 Beltline Boulevard" and sometimes as "2100 N Beltline Boulevard". One operation I sort of recall had an odd name as though it was a Christian Youth Fraternity or something like that.

I'm not sure what "joining" means in the case of H2 and Tonic. I suspect it just means "we transferred your membership". The H2 facebook page seems unchanged since last year, so it's possible the place was closed for a while before I noticed it.

UPDATE 21 May 2010 -- Here's an ad for European Health Spas (as mentioned in the comments) from the 19 Feb 1979 edition of The State. I can explain why the street address doesn't match. The ad lists 2204, which apparently doesn't exist today (at least as google-able retail), but clearly the ad namechecks "Richland Mall". Perhaps there was a street renumbering in the 1980s? Anyway I've added it to the post title and here's the ad:

UPDATE 29 July 2010 -- Apparently it's going to be Austral Salon next:

UPDATE 7 June 2016 -- Many thanks to commenter Mandy for sending these pictures of the Hi Hatt:

Original post:

Well, there have been a lot of people over the past few years urging me to do this post. I have always put it off up until now as I have no personal memories of The Hi Hatt Club, and though I must have seen it many times up until I was 12, I cannot even recall the building. I was always hoping that I would run across a picture of the club, or would find an old ad that I could use to hang a post on, but that seems destined not to happen, so I will go with what I have been able to establish, and by consolidating various mentions made of the place in the comments.

Here's what I found out by looking through old phone directories last week. The Hi Hatt Club first appears in the Columbia Southern Bell listings in the August 1957 directory. The last time it was listed was in the December 1972 directory. At the start of its run, the phone number was given as SU-7-9143. That number was retained in each directory though with the advent of direct dialing the prefix changed from Sunset to became 787-9143. The name the club used for its directory listing was always Hi Hatt Drive In, and it listed under Clubs in the Yellow Pages though it never bought a Yellow Pages ad.

Given that other sources state that the club started in the 1930s, I'm not sure why listings only started in 1957. I suppose that in those days not every road-house felt it needed a phone, or perhaps the listing was under another name.

Here's what the Town of Forest Acres says on their web site in what seems to be a semi-official history of the town:

Here's a bit of information on the appearance of the club from commenter FirstDennis:

Commenter BR suggests the place was informally known as Goldie's:

Speaking of Forest Acres places, when Forest Dr was just 2 lanes (yes, how many of us remember that!) there was a honky tonk in the pine thicket about where the gold-glass reflective building is now located. It was called GOLDIES. Anyone else remember that?

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Again, maybe the Hi Hat club was owned by ‘Goldie’, so maybe they were the same. At the time, a frequent visitor to the place always called it the latter.

Commenter Michael Taylor passes along this information from his uncle:

Comments from anyone who actually visited the club are welcome (and you can be anonymous if it really was an establisment of ill-repute at some point :-)! Pictures would be great too..

UPDATE 14 Dec 2010: I got the Montgomery book for my birthday. You can get it here:

Anyway, there is a section on the Hi-Hatt Club. To answer some questions asked here:

1) Yes, 'Goldie' was the proprietress.

2) The 1968 movie with scenes at the Hi-Hatt Club was not Thunder Road, but The Road Hustlers. (It does not seem to be available on DVD or VHS).

3) The book doesn't definitively settle the question of whether the Club really was a house of ill repute, but states "Due to a renewal of complaints about the Hi-Hatt Club's liquor violations and rumors of prostitution, SLED (State Law Enforcement Division) raided it in 1973.

4) There are no exterior pictures of the club given.

UPDATE 20 March 2012 -- Well, The Road Hustlers has surfaced (subtitled in Norwegian, of course). I have not watched the movie as such, but simply fast forwarding through it leads me to believe there is only one scene set at The Hi Hatt Club, stills of which, and a youtube embed, are below.

The exterior shots at the beginning (Hi Hatt sign) and end (front porch of Hi Hatt) are definitely the club. Unfortunately they are so dark as to be almost invisible. I don't *know* the interior shots for the scene to be the actual Hi Hatt Club, but it seems unlikely that a shoestring drive-in quickie would build a sound set for such a thing. Perhaps some old Hi Hatt patrons can comment..

In my childhood, this little strip in front of Richland Mall was the first (or first I knew of) location for Ambassador Animal Hospital, which later moved down Forest Drive east of Trenholm. Our dog always seemed to know when the car was headed in that direction. She would always act a bit off there, and I vividly recall the one and only time that she snatched a fly from the air and ate it was in the Ambassador lobby.

Since then the strip has been through a major overhaul, possibly at the same time the old Richland Mall went to the enclosed "Fashion" incarnation though I could be wrong about that.

I know that Wild Birds Unlimited was there for quite a while, but I never had the need to go in. I noticed the other day that the building was vacant, and a google search reveals that WBU has moved to the Piggly Wiggly plaza by Cardinal Newman.

UPDATE 6 March 2010 -- Here's the new location in Forest Park:

UPDATE 8 June 2010 -- Looks like some work is being done on the old location:

UPDATE 22 June 2022: Adding map icon and updating tags. Also note that they have moved from Forest Park as well.

I only ate at Duke Sandwich Company, on Forest Drive between Lizard's Thicket and Zesto, once. Frankly, I didn't think it was very good. This was due to several factors. First of all, I have certain expectations from anything calling itself a "sandwich company" and those weren't fufilled. I went in thinking I would probably get some sort of chese sub, maybe with some bacon or salami, and I found the menu almost entirely made up of "spread" type sandwiches that I had no desire to eat. I suppose the name should have tipped me off, but the only "Duke" product I know of was mayonaise, which I figured was ok for a "name" draw, but was not going to figure in the majority of sandwiches. Anyway, the fact was the menu was not at all to my taste, and I ended up with a grilled-chese sandwich which was pretty much processed-american-cheese-food between two slices of Sunbeam.

Second, I drink a lot of tea, and the store setup was the worst sort for that. "Normally" you either have table service and the waitress keeps you topped off, or you have an ice dispenser and tea urns on the restaurant floor so customers can self-top. The day I was there, at least, they had no urns, one *pitcher* of tea on the restaurant floor and no ice machines. That meant that every time I wanted an unsweet refill or ice, I had to go to the counter, which was very annoying. Also, if I recall correctly, my table turned out to be a "wobbler" that sloshed my drink a couple of times before I adjusted.

Anyway, that's a "Ted" centric apprasial (which is all I have..), if you liked deviled-egg sandwiches, perhaps this was your favorite place. In the event, I never went back. I hadn't known the place was closed until AJ mentioned it in "Have Your Say". I don't think it was open more than a year or two.

It looks like the next tenant for the building is already lined up, "Yummy Good -- Fresh Food With A Hip Attitude". I wish them well, as the building has been somewhat ill-starred since it was a Sub Station II and there was a murder there.

UPDATE 4 Feb 2010: Well, looks like Yummy Good won't be moving in, but you can still lease the building.

(Hat tip to commenter AJ)

UPDATE 7 March 2011 -- Look's like it will be Tokyo Grill:
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UPDATE 3 September 2011 -- Tokyo Grill is open:

UPDATE 32 March 2022: Updating tags and adding map icon.

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The soggy aftermath at Forest Lake Shopping Center on the 26th:

Well, I was not actually going to make another post until the New Year, but I don't think I can let the Great Christmas Flood of 2009 pass without notice. As we headed out over the river and through the woods, we found out that in fact the river was over the woods this year.

As we tried to get to Trenholm Road, we found that creek (name unknown) was flooding Trenholm access from both Academy Way (first picture) and Sylvan Drive and that Eightmile Branch was flooding Gamewell Drive. Fortunately the WIllingham Drive bridge was still above water. At Forest Lake Shopping Center (Trenholm Road at Forest Drive) the Garden Center and Web Rawls Gallery in the old bank were flooded as was the whole of Forest Lake Park

In fact, water was coming over the Forest Lake Park embankment into Gills Creek at such great speed and volume that it made a line of waterfalls. As we watched, we saw several bits of flotsam & jetsam such as trash cans go over the falls. The park whirly-gig was entirely under water. We drove over to Zoe's parking lot, and I got some Quicktime video of the cataracts. There's not a lot of pictures because a) it was still raining cats and dogs & b) we were on our way out of town. By the time we got back mid-morning the 26th all the flood waters were gone though the Web Rawls and Garden Center folks were still working at recovery.

I think that makes two "100 year" floods here in the last 15 years..

UPDATE 28 December 2009: D'Oh! Video links were wrong, fixed now.

UPDATE 29 July 2010: Added the picture from 26 December.

This space, to the right of Barnes & Noble on the lower level of Richland Mall was the mall's drugstore, Eckerd Drugs.

I'm trying to remember if the original Richland Mall had a drug store and I don't think it did. Eckerd's came in with the enclosed Richland Fashion Mall stage, and may have ended there. I don't think it made it to the Midtown at Forest Acres stage, but I'm not sure exactly when that started, and I refuse to call the mall that anyway.

It certainly did not make it as late as the Rite-Aid buyout of Eckerd's. I'm not sure exactly when it closed, but I think it was the early 2000s. By that time, Eckerd's had already seen the writing on the wall which required corner stores, and had moved the Trenholm Plaza store to the current corner-equivalent location that RIte AId on Forest Drive now occupies. The Richland Mall store had no drive-through, and could never have one, and while the parking was as close to strip-mall parking as Richland Mall gets, it still wasn't as good as a real strip-mall.

UPDATE 10 August 2020: Add map icon, update tags.

I'm not sure when the Richland Mall Theater was built. I can remember going to movies before it was built (specifically at The Atlantic Twin and various theaters on Main Street), and my coherent memories start around 1965, so it can't have been built too long before the first picture I saw there 1968's "Oliver!". What I most remember about that movie is that it seemed interminable to a seven-year-old. IMDB clocks it at two hours 33 minutes, so I'm not surprised I felt that way -- I expect I'd feel that way now too!

The theater was on an outparcel of the "original" open-air Richland Mall. I recall it as more or less at the section of the parking lot fartherest down Beltline from Forest Drive, but I've been wrong here before about the original Richland Mall orientation vs the orientation of the current mall. I think it was more or less where Bank of America and the empty Black Lion building now are, as shown in the second picture, but I could be mistaken.

The layout of the theater was a central ticket window with doors on both sides, a central concession counter and a corridor to each screen at the left and right sides of the lobby. I say 'each' screen, there were only two -- though at the time even two was an innovation. As you can see from the ad in the 15 April 1973 issue of The State the theater was a "Rocking Chair" theater, and this figured heavily into their initial advertising. What this actually meant was that the seats were more thickly padded than "regular" theater seats, and they did indeed have springs such that you could rock them frontwards and backwards a certain extent -- and of course a certain number of kids were always going to be obnoxious about that! (The Palmetto at 1417 Main Street was also a "Rocking Chair" theater -- I expect it shared ownership with the Richland Mall Theater).

The whole "rocking chair" bit paled for me though. What I was always interested in was the theater's "time capsule". This was a bronze plaque set into the concrete of the theater's right-hand sidewalk. It was engraved to say when it was buried and when it was to be opened. I don't remember the date set for exhumation, but I assume it was probably 50 years after the theater opened, so around 2018. I was an avid science fiction reader, but somehow I couldn't even imagine a date that far into the future that involved me personally. In the event, it turns out I'm doing much better than the theater, and though of course you never know, I fully expect to be here in 2018, but the time capsule is long since gone. I don't really remember when the theater was razed to make way for Richland Fashion Mall, but I suspect that it was after I left town in 1985. Otherwise, I think I would have heard what happened to the time capsule. I'm sure it must have been dug up, but whether they opted to open it at that time or to continue to wait, I don't know.

Although I saw a good number of first-run movies at the theaters over the years, I think the bulk of my experience with them came through their summer kids' matinees. The idea was that a) it gets really hot in South Carolina in the summer, b) moms get really tired of having the kids around all day during the summer and c) we could use some matinee business at the concession stands. What Richland Mall (and other theaters) would do was have kid-oriented second-run movies every weekday during the summer for a nominal price (say, $1.00). Moms would drop their kids off (unsupervised!) at the theater and shop Richland Mall while they were out of their hair, the kids would get to see a fun movie and have lots of Milk Duds and popcorn out of the heat, and the theater would get to rake in concession sales during normally idle time.

Some movies I specifically recall seeing this way were Alkazam the Great (a US dubbed [Frankie Avalon!] version of the classic Chinese "Monkey King" story), The Apple Dumpling Gang, Blue Water, White Death (the precursor to today's "Shark Week".., and a bit strong for the kiddies, really..) and The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin (a now forgotten Disney flick that I loved!).

These programs still exist in some form during the summer, but as most moms work now and most households have air-conditioning, it's just not the same.

I'm trying to think what the last show I saw at the Richland Mall Theaters was. I'm not sure, but it could have been a midnight-movie showing of Peter Falk's classic The In Laws ("Serpentine, Shep! Serpentine!").

The new Richland Fashion Mall did (and does) have theaters on the top deck, but I don't believe they are related to the original Richland Mall Theaters. (And if they were, they aren't now, having changed ownership at least once, from "Litchfield" to "Regal").

"Please sir, I want some more."

UPDATE 3 Sept 2010: Commenter Dennis sends this link which has information about and pictures of a number of old Columbia theaters, including this picture of Richland Mall.

UPDATE 21 June 2010: Added [at top] pictures of Richland Mall Theater and a Richland Mall view with the theater in the distance from an old Chamber of Commerce promotional book.

Well, recent weeks have not been good to pizza operations on Forest Drive!

I liked The Original Italian Pie but found it rather frustrating in a couple of respects.

Why did I like it? Well, they had a quite good pizza, with ingredients like "kalamata olives" which, while getting more common, still are hard to find. The crust was not too thick but neither was it too thin and was chewy without being mushy. They also had bottles of olive oil on the tables to drizzle over the pizza, and the staff was friendly. In fact at the time I was going fairly often, they got to know me by sight, and would just bring out a pitcher of unsweet tea for me so I could read before and after my pizza without them having to keep making refill passes.

Why was it frustrating? The main thing was the hours. For various reasons, I am often uable to make supper before 9:30 at the earliest. That was OK initially, since while they closed at 9:00 during the week, Thur-Sat, they were open until 10:30 and I could drop by then.

After a few months however, they went into the deadly Well, we weren't too busy, so we closed the kitchen early cycle. This is a prime violation of rule #1!, and really ticks me off. I got caught in it a few times, then one night I thought I was safe as I was able to make it at 9:15, a full hour and 15 min before the posted closing and they still sprang it on me. I confess I got as argumentative as I ever do in a restaurant (which isn't much, but..). Luckily, I had the support of a feisty woman who had come in just behind me and we did get served. After that, they changed the hours posted on their door, leaving just a dash for the closing time if I recall correctly (which is, of course Sign #1), and I was not able to eat there at night anymore.

In fact I rarely got to eat there at all, since I don't usually have pizza for lunch during the week if I'm going to have to be awake and thinking during the afternoon, but I was able to go for Saturday or Sunday lunch from time to time. The closing of the Italian Pie at Sandhill was not a good sign, but didn't seem to have much effect on the Forest Drive store. However, the last time I was there, in early July, I believe, I did notice that Sign #6 had come into play: The olive oil bottles on each table were gone.

I don't know what happened in the end. As you can see from the pictures, the place is going to re-open as The Pizza Joint, so perhaps the owners just switched franchaises. That doesn't seem too likely to me however as TPJ is a "late night" chain, which was definitely not the strategy of The Italian Pie.

I encountered The Pizza Joint when I was working in Augusta. They have a location on Broad Street, and one night when it was too late to hit The Mellow Mushroom, I decided to check it out. Frankly, I wasn't too impressed since it's a New York style operation and NY is not my favorite pizza. The smallest pie was also 14-inches, which means that a single guy has to order by the slice, which I really don't like. (Also, that part of Broad Street was a good place to get panhandled).

I see that since I moved back here from Aiken, they have opened a branch there. I guess they are gradually moving East from Augusta. Perhaps if it works out here, they will hit Florence and Myrtle Beach..

They appear to be building a dining patio -- if they are able to get that done and open as the weather starts to cool down a bit, it should be very nice.

UPDATE 23 Aug 2009: Changed the post title to add Hardee's after being reminded in the comments that a Hardee's was on this lot (in a different building) before the Italian Pie.

UPDATE 19 June 2021: Adding tags and map icon. I should also now note that this building is currently The Pizza Joint and has been for quite a while.