Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

The Woody moved from the Vista to this Main Street corner in 2020, and continued in operation after the passing of founder Woody Windham last year. Unfortunately with the new SC liquor liability laws, the family is unable to keep the doors open past October.

They say they hope to open in a new location as a real restaurant, but there are no firm plans for that yet.

In the meantime, the upstairs neighbor, Hendrix, will be taking over the space to open a pizza restaurant.

You can read about the closing in ColaDaily, The Post & Courier, The State, and on WLTX.

It seems to me that South Carolina's nightlife scene has been greatly altered almost surreptitiously & through the back door.

The Killian Road area I Heart Mac & Cheese closed in November 2023, and I had visited it a few times, and thought it was OK if pricey & slow. This location, at the corner of Platt Springs & Emanuel Church roads, I had not visited. However my sister & niece did go a few times and liked it pretty well.

Judging by Google reviews, and a report from my sister, the hours had become rather erratic recently, which is a subcase of Sign #1.

The State noted the closing here, and the opening here. WLTX also noted the opening.

The media and street address posit this spot as West Columlbia, but this far out, I would have thought Springdale, South Congaree or just Lexington County.

Il Bucato replaced Ed Robinson Laundry & Dry Cleaning in late 2020 after the worst of the pandemic, but when running a take-out restaurant still made sense. Looking at the Google reviews, it appears to have had a pretty good run up until the past few months, when a lot of reviews mentioned staffing issues. There was also one gentleman called out by name as exemplary, and then a few reviews later there is one (purportedly) from him, saying that he was moving on.

I can't find anything official online about the closing, but here is an article from ColaDaily about the opening.

(Hat tip to commenter Nobody)

I almost did not get to the annual Greek Festival this year, and in fact I zipped in after dark Saturday night just long enough to pick up some baklava and bread (which I had with both garlic & honeybell marmalade [at different times!]). Unfortunately I got there too late for the galaktoboureko and sesame wafers. It was about 8pm, but there was still a pretty good crowd. Hope you were able to get by, hope I plan better next year (which I say each year...)

Commenter Badger points out this old quonset hut on Garners Ferry Road just east of the Old Garners Ferry Road fork. Regular google search doesn't bring up a lot of information about it, but we can get some old StreetView pictures to tie down two incarnations:

September 2007: A window tinting operation; I can't quite make out the name:

June 2008: I can't quite make out the name here either, but some sort of plant and/or produce stand:

August 2011: Still the same place I think, but with a better sign saying something like Produce & Plants Food Mart. If you move around a little the first word might be Mulligan's:

The plants and produce operation was gone by November 2014, and the place seems to have been vacant since then.

Restaurant models come in waves, for instance crab-themed seafood places, and there has been a wave of coffee drive-throughs lately, to include 7Brew, Clutch, Hard Bean, The Human Bean & Canal Coffee. Scooter's was part of that wave and opened here on Garners Ferry Road in 2023, part of a number of local openings as reported by The State.

The closing note on the drive-through doesn't really give any details, but a non-official Reddit posting suggests that only stores owned by WalReedBev Co are affected, and that does match the names given by The State.

(Hat tip to commenter Trevin)

Sylvan's has been in this spot on Main Street approximately forever, or accurately since 1905. I was today years old when I learned that the official name is no longer Sylvan Brothers, and that the Sylvan family has not been involved since 1985. Still, it remains a family store, now owned by the Schiffman family.

The Sylvan clock, along with the now vanished Standard Savings & Loan clock has always been a key part of my memories of the area, and I am happy to learn that it will remain where it has stood since 1906.

The store will be moving into the former Wet Willies building on Gervais Street sometime this fall. A non-specific October date is mentioned a few places, but I have not seen an exact one. Likewise, I believe I heard something about a moving sale, but have not seen anything in print about that.

In the meantime, you can read about the move here & here.

I'm curious.

Is anyone aware of a working payphone in the Columbia area?

I noticed this vacant ATM setup at Columbiana Station when I went over to take pictures of B Mac's Buffet.

I had no memory of what it was, or when it ceased, but Google StreetView suggests it was a South Carolina Federal Credit Union location, and that it vanished sometime between September 2011 & August 2015.

The street address is not particularly accurate, it belongs to Dick's which the stand is more or less in front of.