Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I'm not real sure what Southern Armature did. The place has bays like a garage, and an armature is part of a generator or alternator, but I can't imagine a business based on just fixing alternator parts. Perhaps they specialized in alternators as a whole, or electrical systems. Anyway, they are listed in this year's (Feb 2013) phonebook, so the sale and rezoning for City Gas is a pretty recent development.

When I first noticed the "sold" sign, the place was still intact. As of 18 August, they have ripped most of it apart, though so far they have kept the endpieces.

UPDATE 18 September 2013 -- Construction continues:

UPDATE 15 October 2013 -- work continues. The canopy looks done:

UPDATE 21 February 2014 -- City Gas is open:

There's been a fair bit of musical chairs going on at the old Dick Dyer Toyota lot on Two Notch. The latest is that this Prestige has moved from the old gas-station-looking building at the Northeast corner of Two Notch and Albritton to the old Dick Dyer Bodyshop building at the corner of Windover Street and Two Notch. Meanwhile, the body shop has moved into the old dealership building proper.

UPDATE 15 October 2013 -- It's now Spunky's Auto Sales:

Well, it took me quite a long time to get the interior shot here, largely because every time I would come in the door of the food court, a sample tray holder from the Asian restaurant would make a beeline on me. I really appreciate that kind of hustle, but it makes it difficult to inconspicuously take a picture when you are the sole focus of someone's attention! I finally recently got a bit of a zoom from the back end of the court. You can see the boarded up section where Chick-Fil-A used to be just to the right of China Max.

I was actually in the place to look at lawnmowers at Sears, and I note that they seem to be giving up on the mall. The mall stays open until 9PM, but Sears turns out the lights at 8PM, at least during the week. It certainly surprised me.

UPDATE 13 August 2013: Forgot the hat tip to commenter Trina.

UPDATE 28 January 2021: Adding full address, tags and map icon.

Here's a brick industrial building under the water-tower out on Two Notch near the Spring Valley area. This LoopNet listing has an aerial view.

For several years, Crawford listed this building and a location in Lugoff, but in the 2013/2014 directory only a fax number is given. It seems that a North Carolina location has the domain name, so perhaps that is the headquarters now.

UPDATE 25 July 2013: I've learned that the company has definitely moved to Lugof, and the North Carolina company is not connected with it.

UPDATE 14 April 2016 -- It's now a Harbor Freight:

I'm not too sure about this storefront across from the Big Lots plaza on Two Notch and just to the left of the old The Crate location. Google reveals a couple of places that I'm pretty sure are still there and not in that particular unit. It might have been 123Imout (love that name!), or it might not have.

UPDATE 20 May 2014: Commenter Nat identifies former tenants Brass Elephant, Blair's & The Lighthouse so I have added them to the post title.

This building on Two Notch Road near Alpine has a sad history, as it started as the practice of respected Children's dentist Doctor Harry Sunshine who was tragically killed in a hit and run accident in 2001 as described in this newspaper image.

Since then, it has apparently been a number of medical offices, most lately for Griffin Clinic Of Chiropractic who occupied the space until earlier this year.

I must say that while the building is not very impressive from the front, the back is quite interesting, and looks out over a fairly good view.

While Very's hangs on in this little strip mall on Two Notch near Columbia Mall, very little else does. I believe this suite to the left of Very's may have been a hydroponics store in the fairly recent past, but most recently it was an Internet Sweepstakes operation. I saw enough of them in Florida last year that I finally got curious and checked one out -- As far as gambling goes, it is even more boring than bingo. You pay some money, get a certain number of sweepstakes entries and just hit the button on the machine until all your stake is gone. Apparently here in SC, the memory of the Video Poker era is still strong enough that the powers that be put the quietus on the whole nascent Internet Sweepstakes industry pretty quickly, before most of these places really got into operation.

Of course there's still always Publisher's Clearing House. I think I'm pretty much a shoe-in this time -- I just got a letter informing me that I am guaranteed to be a winner if my entry is selected..

As I was driving Two Notch last night I noticed the roadside sign announcing the imminent closing of this fashion and hair braiding operation in the Arcadia Lakes Shopping Center. Looks like they are having a pretty good sale.

This Chinese buffet next to Big Lots on Two Notch had been a fixture for many years, and I expected that it would be for many more. I can't think of anything that changed in the area recently, but in the event, apparently not.

I've done a number of closings on various Quiznos around town as you can see if you check the Alphabetical Closings list. This one is just east of the Brickyard Shopping Center, and in fact has stoplight access to Two Notch from there if you go around the back way. I don't have a lot to say about Quiznos. As I observed in another post, I ate at one once and it was OK, though nothing that drove me to seek out another.

(Hat tip to commenter kholler)

UPDATE 18 March 2025: Update tags, add map icon