Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

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Here's an older house set up as a restaurant on Lexington's South Lake Drive. I try to keep tabs on local pizza, but this one is not really local to me, and I'm afraid I had never heard of it before they closed up shop. The place kind of sits on a little hill, and I think it would have been nice to eat on the deck and look over the comings and goings on the road.

According to their sign, they are moving, but to where is not clear. Commenter Brian notes that the main chef has moved to All Star Pizza Company at 2001 Augusta Road.

(Hat tip to commenter Brian)

UPDATE 20 May 2018: The State says this will open as the second location of Cafe Strudel on 21 May 2018.

To the best of my knowledge, I had never been to this part of town in the fifty plus years that I've had the opportunity. It's always interesting to see someplace new. However, this plaza, Platt Springs Center, at the corner of Platt Springs & Emmanuel Church Roads does not seem to be doing especially well.

As reported by commenter Andrew way back when, this Fred's closed in June of 2013, so that makes a full year without anything taking its place. here is a marketing PDF with a good picture of the place with Fred's in operation.

Just looking at the building, I feel sure this was a grocery store before it was a Fred's, but I'm not sure what its flagging would have been or when it closed.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

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Commenter James reports this Sparkleberry Lane church closing and notes that you don't often see such. That's fairly true, I think, but if you add in relocations, it's not *that* uncommon. Think, for instance, this. Anyway, this is a fairly large property, which the real estate sign indicates is now under contract. I wonder if we're looking at a new church tenant, or a bunch of new houses?

(Hat tip to commenter James)

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The Raceway on the other river road (Bush River) closed and came back, and now this nearby Broad River Road Raceway has turned off the lights as well. I noticed that the prices on the huge marquee sign didn't look right, so I wasn't too surprised to see the place dark when I got up to it. I actually did stop here a few weeks ago (the only time in the whole period it was open, I think) and found it very hard to get in and out of, since there is no light. Both this and the Bush River location have the somewhat unusual "external bathroom" layout. I think anything built nowdays wants all that traffic to go past the merchandise..

UPDATE 22 December 2014 -- This place is open again (and has been for a while):

UPDATE 23 September 2016 -- Closed again:

UPDATE 27 March 2022 -- Now demolished:

Also adding map icon.

Commenter Dennis scooped The State in reporting that Cafe Caturra in Trenholm Plaza would be closing to reopen as a Tazza Kitchen, and in fact the place has now closed, and is in the process of being revamped with the marquee letters being taken down today. I first knew this spot as Ed Robinson cleaners, and most recently it was the location of the UPS Store before it moved across the plaza.

I don't know exactly what it was, but I never warmed to Cafe Caturra. It seemed like the kind of thing I would like, and was conveniently located, but on the few occasions I went there, I didn't find anything that really hit the spot. The menu for Tazza Kitchen has some promising items (the guacamole sounds good!), but it also seems to have a number of similarities to Rosso by the Post Office.

(Hat tip to commenter Dennis)

UPDATE 11 July 2014: Tazza Kitchen is now open as partially seen in these rather bad pictures:

Here's an old country store I ran across recently just south of where Bluff Road (SC-48) ends at US-601.

The sign claims it was founded in 1856, which would make it a fairly rare atebellum business still in operation until fairly recently. I think this particular building is much newer than that however -- to me it has kind of a 1920s look. The nearest landark I can find an actuall address for is St. Luke AME Church at 4990 McCords Ferry Road (US-601) which is probably about half a mile south of here.

I don't know when the place closed, but it is now surrounded by a fence so clearly there has been no customer access for a while.

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Today's post is an update.

(Hat tip to commenter mamarose)