Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I liked Punjabi Dhaba, though I haven't been able to make it over there for several months. The restaurant is part of the old Howard Johnson motel across from Wal-Mart near the intersection of Bush River Road and I-26. I started going there after Delhi Palace moved from Broad River Road, and found I liked it better.

Here is The State story on the fire, though it is very brief. When I stopped by there on Sunday 9 February, the place still smelled stronly of smoke and burnt wood. While I certainly hope to see them re-open, it's hard to see sinking much money into this old building. There are two vacant restaurants further up the road, but of course those buildings aren't in great shape either.

UPDATE 16 April 2014 -- As commenter Andrew reports, looks like demolition is starting (pix from 13 April, it may be done by now):

UPDATE 9 May 2014 -- Well, the building is gone, and I have removed the "temporary" tag from the post title:

Well, if you've been reading Have Your Say, then you know commenter joelc scooped The State by a week on the news that Books-A-Million in Trenholm Plaza is closing.

I've spent many an hour in the Trenholm Plaza store. When I was younger, and the store was open until 11pm, I would often grab a late-night latte there as I browsed the shelves and magazine racks. In more recent years, I've found a good night's sleep more and more important, and the store has stopped opening so late anyway.

Of course in recent years, I've also done most of my reading on a Kindle and have had less and less need for an actual, physical, bookstore. I still look for comic strip collections, which work better printed, and technical books, but it often seems that given my technical needs, and humor tastes, I'm more likely to find those online as well. I'm definitely not alone in this, as evidenced by the closings of the Harbison Books-A-Million, the Harbison Barnes & Noble, The Happy Bookseller and the list goes on..

The State article suggests that rather than the chain keeping the space and re-working it as they did on Harbison, new clothing retailers will be moving in.

For all us Millionaire's Club members,

there's still Sandhill, and Lexington.

For now.

(Hat tip to commenter joelc)

UPDATE 4 March 2014 -- Here are some pix from back during the snow of the place with the Store Closing sign deployed:

8 March 2014:

14 March 2014:

16 March 2014:

29 March 2014:

UPDATE 31 March 2014: Added 14 March 2014 pix, 16 March 2014 & 29 March 2014 pix.

UPDATE 1 October 2014: Added 8 March 2014 pix.

T J's was in the Boozer Shopping Center right next to Columbia Center of Immigration and had a name non-specific enough that I'm not sure what they sold.

Judging from the sign on the door, they may be coming back as Thrifty Values.

OK, let's enlarge that one and turn it around..

I had never been back in this little office/industiral plaza off of North Main/Wilson at the I-20 interchange. It's a bit hard to figure out how to get down in there at first, but once you do, the place is fairly non-descript, though it does seem to have a pretty high vacancy rate. I can't find an actual street address, but the over all complex is 20/21 Business Center.

From what I can tell, Spirax Sarco is a steam technology company that moved to SC from Allentown after a union dispute back in 1998. Then in 2011, they bought a building in Blythewood and are now located there.

As I headed for my morning coffee fix at the beach last December, I found myself rudely surprised as my go-to location, Latte Litchfield was closed.

The building itself has been there forever, but I cannot recall the last tenant. When I first became aware of the place, it was a Christian coffee shop. As far as I could tell, the only practical effect of this from a customer point of view (unless you opted to attend the gatherings listed on the bulletin board) was really pleasant baristas.

I'm not sure if the place changed hands or what, but gradually that aspect was dropped, and the Internet Cafe aspect came forward. During that period, I would often stop by to get my network fix, or to print work documents I had to deal with. As DSL and cable penetrated the area, I did less of that, and I think the same applied to others and the orientation shifted once again. Though the computers and wireless were still there, the place sort of shifted to being a working art gallery with various pieces on display and an artist occasionaly working on new ones.

For a long time, the cafe was connected through an interior archway to Eggs Up Grill and though they were run as separate businesses, you could drift out of breakfast at the one and into coffee and pastries at the other. When Eggs Up moved to the Litchfield Piggly Wiggly plaza, the archway was drywalled, and access to the new restaurant there was cut off. I suspect the Eggs Up move hurt business a good bit. Likewise (as is, I believe, gently hinted at in the closing notice), the plaza started bringing in other businesses that directly competed with Latte Litchfield. For instance, they served froyo as a sideline at one time, and the plaza brought in a separate froyo business right next door to them. Likewise for lunch items and a new restaurant two doors down.

I guess now I never will get the final punch on my free-cup card.

Here's a belated notice that Dano's Pizza has moved from the Publix strip mall at Rosewood Center and down the street a bit into the former Ole Timey Meat Market location at 3008 Rosewood. I still have not eaten there, but they already seemed to be doing a good business at the new location the one time I checked it out.

This little building, the parking area limited and hemmed in by the hill rising to Shakespeare Road behind it, has been many things over the years -- mostly in the Bar / Social Club category. What I first recall noicing it as, however, was a long run during the 1970s when it was an adult book store, one of several then along Two Notch (two of which, I believe, remain from that era).

The last time I noticed it in operation was as Moonlight Bar & Grill as shown in the first set of pictures from 24 January 2012.

UPDATE 10 February 2021 -- It appears that somebody plowed a car into this building recently:

Also adding map icon and added "Chateau" in front of "Adult Book Store" in the post title based on the comments.

Well, it's old news now, but Sears at Columbiana Centre is closing, and today was the first time I was able to get out that way to get some shots. I'm going ahead with a pretty-well-in-advance closing to give us a landing page to talk about it, and because it's pretty big news. Hopfully I will get inside shots for an update at some point. Certainly the pre-printed closeout signs in these exterior shots are pretty familiar to us all by now (blurry or not..).

It appears that Belk will be taking over some, though not all of this space.

Frankly, given how hollowed-out the Columbia Mall store is at this point, I expected it to go first.

UPDATE 11 February 2014 -- Here are some interior pix from 9 February:

UPDATE 29 Februayr 2020: Add tags, address, map icon.

I still have not verified that this building was once a 'Brown Sign With The Sewing Machine In The Corner' Factory Outlet", though I will try to remember to check at the library sometime soon. At any rate, Ole Town Antique Mall was definitely what I knew the place as, seemingly forever.

Through no particular intention of mine, (especially as I do like the State Street one), this has turned out to be the only antique mall in Columbia I've visited in the last several years. Over the years, I've bought a good few books and magazines here, including old Sandlapper magazines which have provided ad scans for a number of my posts. The last time I was here, back in early December as I recall, I picked up several WWII era Columbia newspapers, with an eye to using ads from them eventually.

The place had a rather interesting layout which essentially abuted two buildings together with two large sets of doors connecting them. The larger of the two buildings was the one on the North side, and it seemed to be the preferred location, with more furniture and more elaborate booth setups. The rear (South) building had only one main corridor and was more devoted to miscellany.

In recent years, miscellany had spilled out into the parking lot, which was festooned with tables of, well, junk which stayed out 24/7 but, which, as the signs helpfully reminded you, was not, in fact, free.

The whole lot has been posted for sale for many years, and I suppose the owners were content to wait for their asking price and run the business until they got it. When that finally did happen, things proceded apace, and the mall was gone before I actually heard that it had been sold.

According to this notice, the final auction of the remaining merchandise was held on 5 January 2014, and apparently everything is now cleaned out.

As of yet, there is no indication of what the new owners will do with the property.

Read the rest of this entry »

GB Shoe is currently closed for renovations, and unlike many places claiming such and then vanishing, there actually are renovations underway. In fact, if things go to schedule, they should be open again next week.

GB is in the old Dutch Square A&P building, and as part of the Dutch Square property, has a really odd address. We are to think of it as 421 Bush River Road, when the actual store has no access to Bush River, and does have access to Broad River!

By the way, does anyone know what GB stands for (or stood for)?

(Hat tip to commenter Justin)

UPDATE 20 February 2014 -- Open again, as promised, and as reported by commenter Andrew: