Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

At the same time I noticed that Bobby's House Of Pizza had closed, I saw that their neighboors, veterinary clinic Pet Friends was gone as well.

It appears they have moved to 610 E. Killian Road, in-between Farrow and Longtown.

UPDATE 1 May 2014: Add daytime photo

Actually, I am not 100% sure that the street address here is 122. 120 would also make sense. I'm also not 100% sure this was an ARCO station, but page 5 of this City annexation request makes me pretty sure that it was.

This Wikipedia article suggests that Southern ARCO stations were first rebranded as Atlantic Petroleum and then in 1988 as Sunoco, so this station may have been one of those before closing (though again, the PDF is indiciative).

UPDATE 2 May 2014 -- As pointed out by commenter badger, Google Streetview shows this place in operation as the SCE&G Flora Street Fleet Maintenance station, so I have added that to the post title.

This old school car wash on Harbison actually does have a clear view as it is half way up the hill that descends to Bower Parkway.

I'll admit that I never really noticed it until commenter Homer (and others) mentioned that it was gone. It seems a bit out of place on the current Harbison, where you would expect land to now be too expensive for such uses. Given the owner's retirement message on the sign, I suspect it had been there quite a while.

Personally, I've never seen the attraction of car wash scents. Whenever I forget to say no scent, I end up with watering eyes until I can clear it out again...

(Hat tip to commenter Homer)

UPDATE 14 September 2015 -- As noted by commenter Homer, this place has now been mostly razed:

UPDATE 14 March 2016 -- As noted in the comments, now open as Del Taco:

Well, I see I've already done a somewhat confused post on Wristwatch Doc when they opened a workspace on Fort Jackson Boulevard, but I'm going to make this a new post anyway.

As of yesterday, they have moved from the storefront on Forest Drive in the Brueggers building and out to 534 Knox Abbott Drive in Cayce. This, of course, is the former Signs 2 Go location.

I wish them well, but it was very convenient for me to have my watch batteries changed and get new bands at the Forest Drive location.

UPDATE 28 April 2014 -- The Forest Drive storefront and message:

I would never go back to one, but there is something magical about a typewriter: the rhythm of the keys, the ding of the bell, the tactile sensation of the platten ratchet advancing while you slap the carriage back over.. Even the smell of one is distinctive, a unique combination of metal, stale air, oil and ink. And for something ubiquitous so recently there are few other things (the phonograph is one..) that illustrate the generational divide so clearly. Set a high school student in front of a typewriter today, and you might as well have supplied a blank cuneiform tablet and chisels.

The Typewriter Exchange had been on Two Notch for as long as I can remember, probably going back into the '60s. I often wondered in recent years how they continued on, but a look through their window suggested they had moved into computer repair as typewriters became paperweights. Although the building had been up for sale since at least 2010, the business continued until recently, but last time I drove by, I noticed the place is now a church.

UPDATE 29 April 2014 -- Here is the place today as Fruit Of The Spirit Love Ministry:

According to Chipco's home page as archived on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine

Chipco specializes in building a wide variety of desktop computers for just about any application.

Columbia has had more tech companies than you might expect, back at least to the days when NCR was building innovative systems in West Columbia. Still, I was unaware of this distributor, nestled with a cheerleading academy in a business park off of Farrow Road. I'm not sure exactly when they closed, but given that it was just in Have Your Say and that we recently turned a month over, I suspect it was the end of March.

(Hat tip to commenter Joe)

I believe this is the final New Life Fitness World closing, after this, this, and this.

As the Two Notch and Irmo locations favored each other, so this location, off of Hardscrabble near Clemson, favors the Lexington site, right down to the tattered flag atop semi-circular entryway. LoopNet has a nice aerial view of the property, which as of yet is still fully equipped as a gym.

Attractive as the building is, you have to wonder how the next tenant will feel about being on New Life Fitness Drive..

I think they have not quite moved yet, but New Rate Title Loans on Broad River Road near SLED is selling their building and getting ready to go.

This newish former mortgage building sits on the old Chopping Block location. LoopNet says it has been vacant since 2011, which is longer than I would have guessed, but ties in pretty well with the housing crash.

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: