Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

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.

Well, this isn't a total surprise as Paulie's had been undergoing kind of a combination of Sign #2 & Sign #6 for a while.

To be a bit more specific, I used to eat lunch at Paulie's once or twice a month. I really enjoyed the Italian Sausage Sandwich with peppers and onions, and it was all the better in that they linked their own sausage in two different flavors: hot or sweet. The hot was excellent, and my favorite.

Then I would come in for lunch, and they would be out of the hot sausage, and I would have to get the sweet. Then after that, they would be out of both, and I finally concluded that while they weren't going to drop it from the menu, they weren't really going to have it any more either. Since I rarely eat pizza for lunch (it makes me want to sleep the rest of the afternoon..), I just stopped going there. (They also stopped putting out an un-sweet tea urn, leaving a half-empty pitcher with an implied and we're not making any more when that's gone!.

Their pizza, I do have to say, was excellent! Unfortunately, they closed so early (9pm during the week, 10pm Friday & Saturday) that I was rarely able to have any.

We'll have to see how the Village Idiot incarnation does menu and hour-wise. I've only eaten at VI in Five Points once, and was less than impressed since they had average pizza and no unsweet tea at all. I did not go in, but it doesn't appear that they've changed the physical plant much. The booths could really use some padding!

Hat Tip: Matt.

UPDATE 6 December 2023: Adding map icon and updating tags.

This little hole-in-the-wall deli near Wal Mart on Forest Drive got a number of really good reviews. Apparently it was mainly a Polish deli with some Latin influence and really good Cuban sandwiches. I kept meaning to go by sometime for lunch, but never did actually make it.

UPDATE 1 Oct 2010 -- Ela's (and the Sprint store next door) are now part of a 24-hour fitness center:

UPDATE 6 December 2017: Modified the street address to suite-last format and added tags.

This building on the corner of Forest Drive & Trenholm Road was a Gulf station during my childhood, and indeed well into my driving days. I believe it was officially identified by the owner's name (which I cannot now recall) but to us, it was just the Gulf station, or even the filling station, as it was the one where we most often filled our cars.

During most of this time, it was a full-service gas station which meant that when you pulled in, you would trip a compressed air bell by driving over the hose and a guy would walk out to take care of you. Not only would he fill your tank with Good Gulf, but would open the hood, check the oil, open the cells on the battery filling each with water if needed, check the anti-freeze and windshield wiper levels and at least eyeball your tires.

In addition to gas, this station also had a mechanic on duty and two lift bays where he could change fan-belts, hoses, thermostats, oil, headlights and the like. Over the years, we had many minor repairs done on our cars here (for more major work, we went to the dealer or Bob Andrews).

The area behind the station is very spacious, moreso than makes sense now, but during a lot of this time, Bell's Drive-In was back there in a building that is now completely gone.

The old air stations are still there (though inoperative), and always fascinated me as a kid. There was some sort of crank the attendant would work to bring up a specific PSI number on the (entirely mechanical) "display", then he would put the hose to the tire, and the machine would make a very memorable "ding" as each pound of air went in.

I'm a little fuzzy on all the details now, but the place changed character in a number of stages. First I think the mechanic went, with a drive-through carwash replacing one of the service bays then the Gulf brand went away after it was bought out by BP, then most of the Columbia BPs were changed to Union 76s. I believe that by the time it became a Union 76, it was already operating in convenience store mode with the gas totally self-service. Though the Union 76 signage is much more prominent, the store itself is a Circle-K. For some reason, they never did reclaim the space from the carwash / second service bay for interior space -- I suppose it's storage now. The building itself is still largely unchanged and if the light is right, and you stand at the right angle, you can still see the painted over Gulf logo on the outside wall above and to the left of the front door.

UPDATE 6 Oct 2010 -- Apparently they have dropped the Union 76 affiliation:

UPDATE 19 July 2011: The building is gone! See the Circle K closing for pix.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar--

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OK, anyone remember this one? The ad is from the Southern Bell Columbia phonebook for 1963. Given the lead time for a yellow-pages ad, I was probably one when this was prepared, and two when it ran. The address seems to match up with the current Sakura Japanese Restaurant in the remains of the old Forest Lake Shopping Center, behind Coplon's and at the other end of the corridor from the original Forest Lake TV location.

Sakura is the only restaurant that I can ever really recall being there, but I learned from some comments here that at one time the location was Moolah's, run by (or licensed by?) a famous female wrestler. Did Biddie Banquet come before or after Moolah's? My mother used to shop at Colonial Grocery (now Coplon's) all the time so they both must have been gone by the late 60s or I would have noticed them.

I have to say that apart from my whole "I don't like chicken" thing, the bottom line

Shrimp -- Fish -- Chili

sounds particularly unappetizing, and what's the deal with the quotes on "The" Original"?

I do think the chicken art is very nice!

UPDATE 10 Feb 2011 -- Here's the Biddie Banquet location, now occupied by Sakura:

When I was growing up, my grandmother had a La-Z-Boy, as did two aunts. We kids always loved to get into them, lever out the footrest and throw ourselves backwards, listening to the chair ratchet up. When my sister moved out, she got one for herself, and I finally took the opportunity to get one for myself a few years ago.

In the event, I find that I spend more time sitting in front of this computer than in my comfortable recliner, but still it's nice to finally have a good chair. I picked it out at this outlet on Forest Drive, just down from Trenholm Plaza heading towards Fort Jackson, and they delivered and assembled it with no drama. There were a number of contractors working in the building today, so I suppose it is going to have a new life as something though I didn't see any indication as to what. I'm also not sure what happened to La-Z-Boy itself. I'd guess another casualty of the housing crash -- you most often need new furniture for a new house, otherwise you can live with the pieces you have for a while longer.

UPDATE 20 April 2009:

As Mrs. SK notes below, Tuesday Morning is here.

It's interesting that they came back this close to Trenholm Plaza. That makes me guess they were shown the door there as part of the plaza upgrade rather than just not being viable there as I had initially thought.

UPDATE 18 May 2023: Updating tags and adding map icon.

The picture isn't very good because the sun was against me, but Jack's was a local shoe store on Sunnyside Drive (which is a side street off of Forest Drive, just past Richland Mall heading towards town). The site is now either Miyo's or Leapin' Lizards -- I can't recall exactly which space it was. Growing up, we shopped for shoes in a number of places, including Gerber's at Trenholm Plaza and the shoe departments at Sears and other department stores, but I think Jack's is where we most often ended up.

I remember in particular, that Jack's was the place I got my first pair of Sebago Docksides, a shoe so comfortable that I have worn them ever since and that would be over 30 years now. In fact, that was about the only place in town I could find them. Now I either have to get them in Charleston, or order them from amazon.com (which is OK since my feet stay the same size now).

I talked about the doughnut store on Saint Andrews Road a few days ago, and that made me think of Mister Donut on Forest Drive.

I've written earlier about how we used to get hot Krispy Kremes when we went to wait for my aunt at the train station, but after Krispy Kreme moved across the river, Mister Donut was the only doughnut store near us, and it was always a special treat to stop there.

I had a little trouble with the name of the place. Their sign used a flowing cursive script, and to me it looked like "Wister Donut", which when you are a kid doesn't seem like an impossibly stupid name for a store, so that's how I always thought of it, though I was always able to get it straight when talking about the place.

Mister Donut dougnuts were both larger and more substantial than Krispy Kremes. My favorite was the "honey dipped", which I would say was about twice the size of a Kripy Kreme "original glazed", and much denser (though it was still a true [non "cake"] doughnut). In those days, I wasn't allowed coffee except on special occasions, so I liked to get the hot chocolate (which I remember as very good) for dunking purposes.

I was upset when Mister Donut was replaced by Dunkin' Donuts, a chain which I felt (and feel) had inferior recipies (and which at this location, according to my sister and The Free Times, can not operate a competent drive-through window). I didn't know until I looked it up today that Dunkin's parent company bought out Mister Donut and mostly dropped the brand in the US (it survives overseas).

The Dunkin' operation was smaller than Mister Donut and the east side of the building stayed vacant for years but has recently been occupied by, I believe, a travel agency.

UPDATE 26 March 2012: Added full street address to the post title, and added some tags.