Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I had driven past this Firefly location dozens of times over the past year or so, and never really cosidered the "& Games" part of the Firefly name. Since it was a bit off the beaten path, I had it mentally pegged as some sort of specialty toy store, perhaps educational toys, but never really considered that the "games" might be for "gamers".

In the event, it appears that they are, and the new location at 657 Saint Andrews Road continues to host gaming events.

(Hat tip to commenter James)

I noticed as a went to Moe's the other day that VK Nails in the little strip mall across Beltline from Richland Mall had closed. Aside from Moe's this group of stores has always been about fitness and grooming, so it will be interesting to see what moves in next.

I did a building closing for Prestige Hitech Autowerks when they moved from their old location on Two Notch near Fontaine into the old Dick Dyer Body Shop location at Two Notch and Windover. That was around August 2013, so they lasted a bit over a year in the new location.

In the meantime, as I noted here, the follow-on business at their old location has closed as well.

(Hat tip to commenter David Lee)

Here's another Cash-O-Matic, this one in a nice little brick building on Broad River Road next to the old George's Book Exchange.

Unlike a lot of small businesses on Broad, this building was not an old converted house, but I'm not able to guess what it in fact was (since clearly it predates Cash-O-Matic).

I have to say once again, that I really like the name which has a certain rat-pack snap to it.

UPDATE 21 June 2022: Updating tags and adding map icon.

O-23..

This former bingo hall is in the strip on Two notch which backs up againgst the original Best Buy and has stoplight access at the Columbia Mall perimeter road. Interestingly, Best Buy itself has no access to this stoplight. It always surprised me a little that they didn't negotiate some sort of cut through for that..

Apparently Bingo is, or at least was, pretty popular in Dentsville, as this place is only a few blocks from this former parlor on O'Neil Court.

Note the phone number -- It's not PENNsylvania Sixty-Five Oh Oh Oh, but it's close.

One more empty storefront in Columbia's volatile payday lending market, this little cash advance outlet was in the same (Family Dollar) plaza as this Coin Laundry -- I'm not sure why the street address here is 1807 instead of 1735, but that seems to be the case.

UPDATE 17 Sept 2014 -- Oops, I misplaced where I took this -- it is *not* in the Family Dollar plaza, but a little further up towards Two Notch.

I noticed this summer that the self-service car wash more or less across from the old Blockbuster is up for sale. I have not been by for a month or so, but at the time it appeared the place would stay in operation until sold.

I don't find much information about the place online, but back in 2003, the USC football team did a charity event there.

UPDATE 23 April 2019 -- Well, this place apparently did not sell for a long time, and stayed open for years after this post. Commenter Andrew reports it has now been torn down, which does not surprise me, as the last time I drove by it was cordoned off with tape barricades and something was apparently about to happen. I took some drive-by shots, which aren't great, but so it goes:

UPDATE 15 March 2022 -- The place has now been razed:

UPDATE 23 March 2023 -- Something is being built on the lot:

UPDATE 29 January 2024 -- Now Cars & Beyond:

(Also took the "for sale" note out of post title).

This laundromat was in the Family Dollar plaza on Decker. I've been to several of the coin laundries on Decker over the years when either the washer or dryer was on the blink. My favorite is the one in front of the old Target which has very active family management -- there was always someone sweeping, mopping or otherwise keeping the place tidy, and once the woman in charge was taken aback by my incompetence at shirt folding and showed me how to do it right (it didn't take, I'm afraid). This one I never made it to.

The marquee name of Coin Laundry seems to be more a description than an official name, so I'm not exactly sure when it closed, but I'm guessing within the last few years.

This little barbershop on Lake Murray Boulevard has closed up shop and has apparently gone from trying to lease all or part to being up for sale. A little sign in back notes that one of the barbers has moved on to a spot on Saint Andrews Drive.

Like Charlie's on Rosewood, this place had one of the now rare motorized spinning barber poles which I've always liked.

(Hat tip to commenter Tom)

This agency seems to be gradually moving to Camden.

They moved to this location from here, further up Two Notch around 2010, and have now moved out to just across from Big Lots near Spring Valley: