Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I thought I had already posted this one. I distinctly remember taking a bunch of pictures of the vacant building, but apparently I never go around to uploading them and making a post.

Anyway, this Chinese restaurant moved from its rather delapidated building up the street to 5432 Farrow Road. In the meantime, between when I took the original, missing, pictures, and when I took this one in January 2011, Pari Mini Mart & Deli has moved in. This makes (at least) two non-Chinese places with Chinese decor in town. (At least three if Grandma's hasn't changed their sign yet).

UPDATE 10 January 2012 -- A better picture of the new location:

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I did a closing for the Two Notch Road Floor It Now back in early 2009. Now the other local location, in or near Irmo, is closing as well. This one is on Broad River Road just past exit 101B on I-26 and not far from Friarsgate Plaza and the former Tez's / Monterrey.

I suspect that the housing market and the economy in general played a big part in both of these closings. If you're buying a house, you may want to redo the flooring or carpet, or if you're flush, you may decide one morning that that old carpet just has to go. If nobody is buying houses, or decides that old rug can stay down a few more years, then flooring stores are going to take a hit.

Or it could be the shag.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

UPDATE 16 July 2013: This is now Main Street Home whose owners provide this picture of the new store in the comments:

http://static.squarespace.com/static/51131961e4b064b9ab645b18/t/51d0dfdce4b08819bd7f5b9a/1372643294026/storefront_rightangle.jpg?format=750w

UPDATE 8 May 2017 -- And finally took a shot of my own:

UPDATE 22 September 2021: Adding map icon.

"No Beatin' Good Eatin'" -- that's certainly a slogan I can get behind, though in the event we never ate at the Copa. This part of town, I must admit, was something of a mystery to me growing up, and to some extent still is.

I didn't really expect this building to still be there, but as it turns out there are a lot of old buildings on Edisto Avenue and in the general vicinity. At least I'm pretty sure it's the Copa building. The ad is from the 1970 Southern Bell phonebook, and this building easily dates from that era, or before.

I'm sure the building has been a number of things since the Copa, but google doesn't really turn up anything except this loopnet listing which suggests it was last a warehouse (and claims a 1980 build date). For a warehouse, it's quite small..

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Here's another payday loan company that's moved or maybe closed. This one is next to the new Wristwatch Doc location and next to the Applebee's at the corner of Devine and Fort Jackson. The door sign is ambiguous as to what happened, but given that the Chextop location looks to have been there a number of years, I'm guessing that Check World went out of business and sold their accounts next door.

The building itself puts me in the mind of a number of similar buildings around town. One of them, I think, is the Typewriter Exchange on Two Notch, and another is the nearby Dollar General on Beltline though in that case the building is a good bit larger.

UPDATE 11 August 2014 -- The Check World building has been completely gutted:

Commenter Heath notes this closing as follows:

Another Friarsgate Plaza closing from the summer or early fall of 2010 – Monterrey Mexican Restaurant. They were located there since at least the early 2000’s – after buying out Tez’s Mexican Cantina that was located there from sometime prior to 1990 or 1991 when I first knew of it. This Monterrey’s was owned by the same group that owns the location on Knox Abbott Drive in W. Columbia, and had slightly different recipes than the other group that owns the Vista, Columbiana (Afton Ct.), and Killian Road locations. The El Monterrey location you see on Broad River near I-20 (and possibly still open on Parklane?) is yet another splinter off of the other Columbia locations.

I think I vaguely recall seeing another Tez's somewhere in the area, and of course there are a number of Monterrey locations as Heath mentions, but I had no idea this one existed. I have to admit that I only just got it through my head fairly recently that Broad River Road goes all the way to I-26 and beyond as growing up I always associated it purely with the Dutch Square/Intersection Center/Boozer Shopping Center area.

(Hat tip, obviously, to commenter Heath)

UPDATE 30 September 2021 -- Now Tavern On Broad:

Also adding map icon and updating tags.

Radio Shack has been at Dutch Square since the mall opened, though not always in this location. I'm a bit hazy on the old layout, but think the original site was a bit further up the hill towards Tapp's. At any rate, as reported by commenter Andrew some time ago, they have now relocated this store from Dutch Square to the new Wal-Mart plaza, Bush River Village.

I believe this pull-out leaves The Rogue hair stylist as the only store which has been in the mall from the beginning.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

Here's yet another phone store gone or moved -- the places seem to come and go overnight.

I wonder if at some point we reached saturation with everyone who's going to get a cellphone having one and business now is in upgrade and maintenance mode..

UPDATE 13 March 2017 -- This place is to become a Persona Pizza: