Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I've featured this building on Bush River Road across from the new(ish) Wal-Mart, before, but erroneously in a post I still have to sit down and clean up and correct eventually. Hopefully this post will be more correct.

This building was a Food Lion grocery until the 1990s. I'm not sure when it closed, but it is not listed in the February 1997 phonebook, so I'm guessing the mid-1990s. According to commenter Saturday's Child, it was built as a Thrifty Mart around 1969 and then became a Food Town, staying with that chain when they switched their name to Food Lion.

After Food Lion left, it was a UPS call center and an operation called Spherion, possibly not in that order.

For the last several years it has been vacant, but as commenter William points out, the building is now being rehabilitated to become an AutoZone.

(Hat tip to commenter William)

I don't have an address for this old country store, but it is on Bluff Road, I believe somewhere near the National Park. The (Coke provided) sign has obviously been painted over a couple of times. This sort of faux roof-line seems to have been common for stores at one time.

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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: