Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

There are a lot of "House Of Pizza" restaurants around, but I'm not sure if it's a chain of some sort, or just a common name choice. Usually though I see them with a (smaller) town name like "Pontiac House of Pizza", "Camden House of Pizza" etc and not an owner's name like this small storefront at the corner of Clemson and Hardscrabble Roads. This was always on my "to try" list, but as it was so far from where I normally am, I never got around to it in time.

I've blogged several places in this strip, The Crossings, including Food Lion and Blockbuster. They still have not managed to fill the anchor Food Lion space.

Commenter TahoeChic (who was not impressed) supplied the name for this business that I noticed while taking pictures of Lexington's defunct New Life Fitness. New Life was at the back of Charter Oak Court, while Carolina System Built Homes is at the front.

Driving by, I couldn't quite (and still can't quite to some extent) figure out what the place was. There is obviously a patch of building sites with a mostly constructed building, a set of foundations and then a site with what looks like part of a roof coming out of the ground. The former showroom building seems to be complete though, and from the real estate sign, you can get the whole shebang for less than the price of an upscale house.

UPDATE 5 December 2014 -- Here is the craft beer operation mentioned by TahoeChic in the comments:

I need to go back and get come better pictures, but the Manigault-Hurley Funeral Home closed down in mid March. This funeral home had been a fixture in Columbia since 1923, and provided respite for grieving families in Columbia's Black community starting in the Jim Crow era when other places would have turned them away. 91 years is a pretty good run by any standard! The State says the home's historic record books will be donated to USC's South Caroliniana Library.

(Hat tip to commenter Sidney)

UPDATE 4 April 2014: Added hat-tip to commenter Sidney.

Commenter James points out that this recreational equipment and fixture store on US-1 near I-26 has closed. I have to admit that it was never on my radar screen as I can't imagine buying anything along those lines. I guess this was not a sentiment unique to me..

(Hat tip to commenter James)

This little strip mall is on the south side of Shakespeare Road near Columbia Mall. This LoopNet listing says it was built in 1996, though it appears a bit more decrepit than that to me. (The listing also gratifies me by calling Columbia Mall ... "Columbia Mall").

Along with the daycare, this place also had a hair salon and an Air Force recruting office. As of now, the whole place is bank owned, so I guess we have another casualty of the downturn here.

Well, a Columbia tradition since 1920 is gone. In fact I can only remember going into Moe Levy's once or twice back in the 1970s on shopping trips with cousins. At the time, I liked shopping for clothes even less than I do now so the place was not a magnet for me, but I was always aware of it as we drove past. I also remember in my earlier days conflating the constant signage for Levi's jeans there with the store name itself and wondering if Moe Levy invented blue jeans.

As I recall, the store had a closing scare a few years ago at which point I took some of these pictures. I forget exactly what happened, but obviously they did not close then. As for now, The State reports that most of the block has been bought by local developer Ben Arnold who hopes to bring a national retailer or restaurant to the Moe Levy's location.

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Art gallery, coffee house and dessert venue, Nonnah's has moved almost directly across the street from it's original Gervais Street location at 930, to 923 Gervais. Somehow I never became a regular at this place. I guess in part that's because I want it to be Kaminsky's and it's not. Every time I've stopped there, it has seemed very cake-oriented to me, and I want pie, cheesecake, tiramisu, mousse and creme brule..

Here is the new location:

Anyone know what this restaurant in Greenview Plaza on North Main at Wilkes Road was? The plaza marquee isn't any help, and I'm not getting any definitive google hits on the address + suite numbers. (There is another restaurant/club in the plaza, which doesn't help).

UPDATE 1 April 2014 -- Based on commenter badger's ID (and picture, see the comments..) I have changing the post title from "Restaurant" to "Bert's Grill & Diner".

Here's a vacant storefront in Magnolia Pointe at the corner of Clemson & Hardscrabble Roads. To me the most notable thing is that they were open for breakfast, which is unusual for a seafood restaurant.

I'm unable to find a phonebook listing for this place, but don't recall noticing it on my last drive-through, so I'm guessing it closed within the last few years.

This little storefront is right beside the Dentsville Best Buy and right across the Two Notch entry to the Columbia Mall perimeter road. In fact, this strip mall shares stoplight access to Two Notch with the perimeter, and it always seemed to me that when they built Best Buy they should have figured out some way to connect their parking lot with this one.

I think Tru Cutz was the last tenant here, as you can still see the word "Barber" superimposed on the window. On the other hand, I can't find a phonebook listing for them, and I can for Anointed who seem to have moved to Decker around 2011.