Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

It's that time of year, folks.

Face it, your calendar is down to one page, and you're gonna need a new one Real Soon Now.

Well, have you come to the right place!

We've got 6 different designs for Pawleys Island standard and oversized wall calendars, and this year, I'm selling them at a $1.00 mark-up. That's right, to keep your prices low, one slim dollar is all I'll take home for each one you buy!

Did I mention that calendars make great Christmas gifts?

Buy Early, Buy Often!

As if all the street work in the area weren't enough, the USC Wendy's on Assembly Street next to the CVS is being partially torn down for renovation.

In these pix from 3 December, you can see that they have totally opened the building to the air, though the walls are still standing. Apparently they have a rush order on the worlk as the crew was still on the job despite it being night, and raining.

Commenter Andrew spotted the work, and commenter Terry found this explanatory story from WIS.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

Update 28 March 2014 -- Here is The State story on the re-opening of this store (and the closing of the Beltline store).

UPDATE 30 April 2014 -- Here's the remodelled restaurant open again for business:

Since we were talking about radio today, I thought I'd note the passing of Son Of Steve.

When TV went digital a few years back, it was almost like having cable-lite: Each channel was now split into two or three subchannels, and along with the all-weather-all-the-time air filler, we also got fairly nice content like Me TV.

I finally got a digital radio for my car after the first replacement radio gave out and found that the same thing was true for it. Of course, in Columbia, that is not saying a great deal as the only digital channels I can think of here are WUSC and 967 Steve FM. While WUSC does run a secondary channel, it always seems to be some sort of world music that I don't care for when I hit it.

Steve, on the other hand, ran a secondary channel dubbed Son Of Steve which was, in theory, a 90s jukebox. I always got the feeling that it was someone's pet project and didn't get a lot of attention from management. For one thing, there were never any commercials, so, while that was nice, it can't have been a money-maker. For another thing nobody ever went through and equalized the levels on the promos and inserts -- they were always much louder than the music, to the extent that you had to hit the volume knob sometimes. And finally, it really wasn't a 90s channel. In fact, it seemed to skew 80s more often than not. Still, I like the 80s, and it was always a sure bet to find an actual song while commercial hopping amongst all the other local stations.

The way my car radio works is when you hit the primary channel for a digital station, the next time you hit the seek button, it hops to the secondary channels in order. So, I was used to punching the Steve button, and then hitting seek to hop to Son Of Steve. I was somewhat surprised last month when doing that tuned in a sermon. It turns out that if there is no secondary channel on Steve, the next hop is 97.1 which seems to be a religious station.

Interestingly, I can't find anything on the web to prove that Son Of Steve ever existed. If it was ever anywhere on the WLTY web site or any promo material, it's gone now, and it seems nobody else ever mentioned it online.

UPDATE 21 April 2014: Gone again.

Post updated here.

That's it for the week folks!

Get out there with those who matter to you and don't spare the stuffing..

I was surprised when I went looking in old phonebooks and found that 2011 was the last listing for Columbia Screen & Awning -- This is a place I remember being advertised on the radio when I was growing up, so I figured somehow that I would hear when it closed. The marquee on this little West Columbia storefront (next door to Maunz Electronics) says they had been in business since 1959, which is a pretty good run. Archive.org has some of their old site snapshots archived here.

I hate this time of year -- not only do I really dislike cold weather, but it gets dark so early that I really can only get daytime pictures on weekends. And even here, I missed my window for getting over there and ended up having to crank up the ISO or use flash.

(Hat tip to commenter James)

This Payless shoe store was at the corner of Devine & Rosewood, not far from the old Taco Bell and the Rosewood Blockbuster.

One sign says that the store is relocating, but while I hope the employees were able to move, I think this is really just a call-out to an already existing other store.

I believe I still have a pair of shoes from Payless, though I'm not sure it was this store, that have lasted quite a few years. Of course, I only wear them to weddings and funerals, so there has not been a lot of wear & tear.

(Hat tip to commenter john)

UPDATE 27 February 2019: Add tags and map icon.

This shop is now called Main Street Home and is in the old Floor It Now location at 7740 Broad River Road with the owners reporting that they moved because this building was being sold.

Given that the neighbooring Hudson's building on the left and the Staples building on the right have both been knocked down, it wouldn't surprise me if this building is gone by now as well.

Another day, another Blockbuster. I guess it's too late to change their pre-printed banners which continue to say This Location Only..

This particular storefront is on the tail-end of Rosewood, in a little strip which has now had the misfortune to have bet on two outlets for now defunct media formats.

UPDATE 26 November 2013 -- Here are some daylight pix:

UPDATE 14 January 2014:

Say Goodnight Gracie.

"Goodnight Gracie!"

UPDATE 15 May 2017 -- It appears this storefront now has a permanent occupant, Colonial Healthcare:

UPDATE 5 October 2020: Changing name in post title to "Blockbuster Video" from "Blockbuster". Updating tags. Adding map icon.

This little Sammi's on Bluff Road north of the Dollar General and acroos Simmons Street from Hay Hill Garden Market has been up for sale for a couple of months. For a while, they were still open even as they tried to get rid of the building, but sometime in the last few weeks, they have thrown in the towel.

UPDATE 13 July 2014 -- Here's some pix I dug up of the place in operation: