Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Wristwatch Doc is the follow-on operation to Jewelery Mart in the Bruegger's building on Forest Drive next to Cardinal Newman. When they were setting up, their sign went up in the old Jewelery Mart spot on the roadside marquee:

and the shop door:

but was shortly joined by a sign for Artisan Jewelers:

That, I figured, was the "official" name for the place, but in the event it appears I was wrong and Artisan and Wristwatch Doc were separate businesses sharing retail space. In the event, Wristwatch Doc has now gotten their own storefront on Fort Jackson Boulevard, and has added gold buying to their portfolio. I did stop in once at the Forest Drive location, and they changed my watch battery quickly and with no problem (especially compared to a memorable battery change in Augusta Mall when I thought I might be getting my watch back in pieces..)

UPDATE 13 July 2011: Changed "(moved)" in the post title to "(expanded)" to account for the Jackson space. Also, they have a new sign on Forest now:

V.I.C. Fashions was in the little Food Lion/Rite Aid strip shopping center in-between Decker Park Road and Brookfield Road. I don't know what V.I.C. stood for, but according to their still extant Myspace page:

We specialize in urban wear, New fashions, shoes, novelty items, anything thats hot, we have! From Request to Diesel, we have all the latest designs and fashion in stock.

I like the facade and walkway of this plaza. It has an old-time look sort of as I recall the original Forest Lake Shopping Center looking.

There was an interesting story in The State about this place a few days ago and how it has been there over 50 years. It seems the current owners do want to retire, but that the usual Main Street problems and changes in dress habits may have hastened that.

Commenter Megan asked about this place several months ago, and nobody had any response. I finally got a chance to go out there on a nice sunny day and take a look around. What I found is really odd.

This building sits more or less at the intersection of Two Notch Road and Fashion Drive (google maps claims the street is Fashion Lane) which is the stop-lighted Two Notch entrance to The Village at Sandhill. It's in a Sandhill outparcel called Sandhill Station with a Cici's Pizza and Christian bookstore.

However, while the Cici's building is obviously newly built, it was, for some reason, built flush up against this older building. In fact, depending on how you want to define "building" you could almost say it's one building with a new part and an old part.

There is no indication of what this older building was. It obviously dates back at least 20 years, and would probably at one time (before Fashion Drive) have been counted as being on Two Notch Road (albeit on an access road on the wrong side of the tracks). It has the look of a light manufacturing operation of some kind. If you look at the google satellite image here, you can see that it had a huge employee parking lot, some of which is in use by Sandhill Station now, and some of which is sort of going to seed.

I can't imagine why things worked out this way unless Sandhill planned to buy and knock down the building, but it fell through in the crash. The new part is well maintained, but the old part is heavily vandalized, tagged and overgrown. I suppose it is still within the realm of possibility that it could be rehabilitated with some intense TLC, but it seems unlikely, and the new businesses can't be happy about the image it gives them -- surely if it were under the control of Sandhill Station, it would be gone.

Even new, most of the building would have been pretty pedestrian, but the glassed in staircase entrance is actually quite attractive, especially with the bright aqua color scheme.

(Hat tip to commenter Megan)

UPDATE 12 May 2011: OK, given the address commenter Badger dug up, 10261 Two Notch Road, I can find a little more information, and have changed the post title from the generic "Building".

The first reference I find to that address is a press release from September of 2000 saying that a New York based Internet business called Virtual Growth was going to bring 300 jobs to that location. Of course that date was just about the burst date for the Internet Bubble, so I don't know if Virtual Growth ever arrived or not. (BTW, in computer terms, something is "virtual" when it appears to be there when it is in fact not..)

Next, it appears that Blue Cross & Blue Shield ran a Medicare operation out of that location.

I don't know when they left, but I surmise that their move left the building's owner, Parcone Development Corporation in a bind, because I find this note in the Columbia Star from May 2006 saying that Regions Bank was forclosing on Parcone, and that the property was to be sold at auction on 5 June 2006 at high noon. Judging from the current condition of the property, I suspect they did not find a buyer. This Property valuation for 2009/2010 is consistent with that, in that it still lists Parcone as the owner. However that doesn't square with the announced terms of the auction which stated that anyone except Parcone could participate..

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I have an uncle who's quite accomplished at woodworking, but I myself can't drive a nail straight, and had no idea there was a woodworking supply shop in Sunset Court.

As of Saturday, the closing sale was apparently still going, so screw up your resolve, think a bit, hammer out a plan, pick a route and hop a plane on over there before it's awl gone and you just have to think of what mitre been.

(Hat tip to commenter Larry).

UPDATE 8 September 2012 -- The place is now The Karate Dojo. (Also added the Sunset Court sign above)

New location:

Commenter Chiefa mentioned this closing last week, but I am happy to report that this specialized boutique has simply moved to 3308 Forest Drive, beside Richland Mall and in the same strip and just up from the former Wild Birds Unlimited location.

(Hat tip to commenter Chiefa)

UPDATE 2 March 2024: Fixed spelling of 'boutique'. Added map icon and updated tags.

This south corner space in a Decker strip mall has been a number of things over the years. Columbia Importis a name I get by reading the label-scar visible in the picture, and not one I remember directly. The Pulse comes from reading the marquee on this building in Google Streetview, and finally Passion is the current sign, and the only one I specifically recall.

It was a latin nightclub, and when I would come off of I-77 onto Decker on Friday or Saturday nights, there would always be quite a crowd outside, until one night I drove by, and that side of the road was filled with flashing blue lights. I'm not sure what happened, or if that was the actual end of the club, but I don't recall having seen it open afterwards. I would say that at this point it has been boarded up for at least a year, which strikes me as a bit odd as the rest of the plaza is kept in reasonable shape, and it can't be helping property values.

Today is Cinco de Mayo, so today's closing is Mexican.

As I recall it, Loco Bandito's lasted only a short time in Columbiana Station, the upscale strip mall behind Wal-Mart on Bower Parkway.

I found out about the place from a very positive Eaton Wright piece in The State published just after the grand opening. Judging from the archives, it was probably from the Weekend section on 10 December 2004. Apparently Loco Bandito's was started by the owner of the local Carolina Wings & Rib House chain, and the attraction (aside from the main dishes) was supposed to be a large array of fresh salsas and endless chips on a free bar.

For me, chips & salsa are the main draws in a Mexican restaurant. I like the main dishes, of course, but really the chips and salsa is what brings me in (and I won't go back to a place that doesn't have them). In my mind, the best salsa in Columbia is at El Chico (once you add the hot peppers anyway) though I always get pushback whenever I say that here. Be that as it may, I was looking forward to trying what Loco Bandito's had to offer.

In the event, I'm afraid I found the place very substandard. As I recall, the chips were especially disappointing, being the greasy, flexible, chewy, unbreakable kinds you get sometimes when the frying process goes awry. Honestly, you should check each batch, and not put out a batch like that. The promised wide array of salsas was underwhelming as well. I don't recall exactly what I thought about them at this remove, but certainly they did not live up to expectations. There was something weird about the setup that I can't recall either. It was something like they didn't give you decent bowls for the salsa though that might not have been quite it. And to top it off, the service was rather ditzy and inattentive.

Anyway, I resolved to never go back and never did. Now perhaps I caught them on a bad night, but I can't find any reference to the place being in business after Feb 2005, so I'm thinking my experience was not unique.

I don't recall a Za's being here at all, but the Eaton Wright piece namechecks it as the former tenant.

UPDATE 7 May 2011: Added CW's Taproom and Naughty Macs to the post title based on the comments.

UPDATE 29 November 2012 -- As mentioned in the comments, HuHot Mongolian Grill is going into this spot:

This upscale massage chain had several storefronts in Columbia which, as reported by commenter Jimmy, all went belly-up by early April. This one is at the corner of Clemson Road & Sparkleberry lane, on the upper level of the same building which also housed Za's, Cafe Corner Coffee and Vino 100.

I would guess these places are a casualty of the fact that massage (unless for an actual medical condition) is something of a luxury good, and is a hard to justify expense in a down economy. On the other hand, there certainly are local massage studios that still seem to be doing well.

(Hat tip to commenter Jimmy)

UPDATE 23 May 2011 -- Added night picture of lighted sign, which is still (so far) up and working.