Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Milano Pizza was one of the follow-on operations to the old Piggly Wiggly in the building at 3724 Covenant (which is basically at the corner of Covenant & Bethel Church). After The Pig moved out, the building was subdivided with a Dollar General taking the biggest slot on the left of the building.

The right side of the building, like Gaul, is divided into three parts. Tobacco World tried and failed to open in the middle suite, and Milano opened in the front one. (The rear suite has never shown any signs of life).

Since I like pizza, and it's fairly close, I had put Milano on my mental list to visit, but somehow it never seemed to come together. I do however, drive past the building almost daily, and it seemed to me that the hours were becoming rather erratic lately. I was never quite sure if it was actually closed, or not, but the most recent time I stopped by, I took a look inside and saw that the fish tank was gone, so I'm pretty sure the place is closed though no sign or note has been posted.

UPDATE 3 September 2013 -- Well, it's official:

(Hat tip to my sister)

Today we're back in Quail Valley Plaza for a hair styling storefront.

Just looking at the logo, it seems that more drama than styling is going on:

I'm not sure what the story is with this lot and house at 4505 Broad River Road, which has certainly been other things than a car lot. You'll notice that that, oddly, it has the same street address as the recently closed Waffle House, but this this real estate listing explains:

This parcel surrounds the corner occupied by Waffle House.

While this listing says:

Plans were in the works for a 15,000 sq ft retail space.

with the past tense leading me to believe those plans are no longer in the works.

This tax information says the house on the lot was built in 1884. I would have called it old, but not *that* old. The place almost has a funeral home look to it. It's certainly not in the best of shape, but it would still be a shame to tear it down.

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I don't know much about this place, but I believe they moved here (more or less across from Tony's Pizza) from Meeting Street.

Here's another "rainy day, don't get out of the car" posting -- it's been that kind of month!

I don't really know anything about this little storefront on Decker. From the sign and spelling, I'm guessing it was an urban fashion store. Also obviously (again from the sign) they had a telephone, but I'm unable to find them in any recent phonebook, to make a good guess as to when they closed.

I've always had a soft spot for Fred's. That's probably because they came to Fernandina when I was in my teens or twenties and were a nice store withing easy walking distance of my Aunt's house to get pretty much any item we might need while visiting. I also liked that they left the big spanish-moss covered oak in their parking lot (inherited from the previous store) alone:

Some years after they moved into the Fernandina area, they started a big push into South Carolina, and on the whole, I think it has not been a success. I feel that perhaps they have too much overlap with Dollar General which got here first, and would have done better to put more Fred's in areas where people already knew the brand than pushing new stores into areas where there was no brand recognition. Of course, the economic crunch can't have helped any either..

I had not expected this Fred's to close as quickly as it did, especially given the protracted proceedings at the Saint Andrews Road Kmart. When I took the interior picture above on 19 May, the store was still almost fully stocked, and the discounts weren't really that good yet, but just a couple weeks later it was gone.

This location of Eat More Tees was right across from the fairgrounds at the corner of Rosewood & Assembly. According to their door sign, they have decamped for Atlas Road.