Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I think Walker's Service Center remains in business while they try to sell the building (which to my memory has been on the market for years), but obviously they were not the first tenant here in what was a service station of some sort.

The architecture is distinctive enough that I ought to be able to name it easily, but in the event it's slipping my mind, and I will update the post title when either someone identifies it, or I remember to look it up at the library. These full service gas stations use to be just about the only ones you saw, and with cars so much more fragile in those years, that made sense. Now they are a dying breed, and with the closure of Forest Lake Exxon I can only think of a few left in town.

UPDATE 23 February 2012: Updated post title from "Gas Station" to "Abbot's Texaco" based on the comments.

UPDATE 13 June 2017 -- Now Pete's Mobile Auto & Truck Repairs:

Interestingly, I cannot find this barber shop, on Percival Road between Decker Boulevard and Forest Drive, in any of my phonebooks. It does show up in google, but it's neither in the BellSouth white pages nor the BellSouth yellow pages. Commenter Sidney says it was there for 8 years until it ran into financial difficulties in January.

At any rate, judging by the current tenant, you can still get a severe haircut there!

(Hat tip to commenter Sidney)

UPDATE 11 June 2020: Add map icon.

B & B Sports Lounge or simply B & B's if you go by the roof sign, is on Percival Road just east of the triangular intersection of Percival with Old Percival, and looks to have been out of business for a good while. At any rate, it's not listed in the 1998 phonebook.

Curiously, the only google hits I get for 2417 Percival Road are for a place called Mary J's which is also not in the current or 1998 phonebook..

UPDATE 4 May 2019 -- This lot appears to be in the process of being cleared. The building which sat behind B & B (and which I did not include in the original picture) is now gone:

The LoopNet listing for the property (which partially shows the razed building) says the lot is off the market, so presumably someone bought it and will be doing something new there.

This building, at the intersection of Percival Road and Old Percival Road, which loopnet says was built in 1960, has been a variety of things over the years. I used to be aware of it peripherally in the 1970s when I started to drive, and would go out to Bell Camp via Percival Road, and later when I would take Screaming Eagle Road to the beach. The only two tenants I can locate via google are Davis Open Air Market, which I kind of remember, and Percival Quick Stop which I do not.

I'm not really sure when the last business closed here, but I think it's been vacant for several years. The next incarnation, a Latin sports bar, looks nearly ready to open.

UPDATE 28 March 2019: Add tags and map icon.

These are the kind of businesses I notice off and on over the years, and if I think about them at all, wonder how they are making a living, until one day I notice that they are not anymore. These adjoining lots are on Percival Road, just east of Decker Boulevard.

The story, at least for the Upholstery shop seems to be a sad one, of the parents passing away, and the children not being able to carry on the business. I'm not clear on what the story of the little drive-in was as it was not detailed in the County Zoning hearing minutes which are online here. Apparently nobody even knew the name of the place.

The hearing seems to have focused on keeping the property commercial. The businesses had been operating on residential property as grandfathered operations, and when the business licenses lapsed, the ability to locate a business there did also. In this case it seems to me pretty much a no-brainer, and apparently it was approved. Both properties are now for sale, and time will tell what locates there.

Also, an interesting tid-bit came up in google when I was searching for the street addresses and "Duanne Warr", who was associated with the action somehow. As it turns out, in the minutes, he spoke for the proposed buyer of the property apparently as a realtor, but it appears he was once a Columbia heavy metal rocker cutting

One of the most insane records ever made!

UPDATE 7 June 2014 -- Commenter Sidney points out that the drive-in building has been razed, and so it has:

UPDATE 10 October 2016 -- The old drive-in lot is now about to be Tacos Nayarit Mexican Grill:

UPDATE 13 June 2009: The above picture is apparently the wrong spot for the adult book store, with the right spot being the corner lot (one to the left). I'll leave the first picture since people have commented on it (and its former incarnations), and add the correct one below.

I've tried a couple of times to get a decent picture of this place, but it seems that every time I go by, it's the afternoon, and the sun is against me. Anyway, this little building is on Percival Road between Decker Boulevard and Dupont Drive and has been a number of things over the years. Currently it is an El Cheapo gas station / convienience store. You can also tell from the painted-over letters on the gas island canopy that it was fairly recently a Texaco. What I recall from the 1970s and 80s is that it was an adult book store for a good many years, and the reason I recall this is one very indignant lady during the Great Ice Storm of 1979.

That storm was the biggest local event of 1979. We certainly had snow from time to time growing up, but had never seen anything like the cover of ice that descended on Columbia that day. As I recall, I went outside afterwards, and saw a bucket in our back yard. I pried it out of the ice to find that it left a neat hole with clear turf underneath, surrounded by a two-inch coat of ice. Needless to say, trees and branches were down all over the city. Our house was without power for two weeks. Nowdays, I suppose they would declare a Federal Disaster Area for anything like that, but in those days, we just coped. We had a fireplace and candles, and when things got too bad, could take a hot shower at a relative's house. We also had a transistor radio, and I remember listening to WIS's extensive coverage of the situation. The lady in question phoned in to the call-in show and expressed great ire at the fact that this adult book store had its power back, and she did not have hers. The host tried to explain that the line crews were working through the area in triage mode, and usually tried to fix the lines that would bring the most houses back at once before moving on to breaks that would bring fewer houses online. She wasn't having any of it though, and I think the host finally had to "thank" her for her opinion and hang up. Perhaps she was onto something though -- we haven't had a storm like that since the adult bookstore closed!

UPDATE 13 June 2009 See in post above about new "correct" picture. Also added the street address, 1001, to the post title.

I changed my mind about getting on I-77 today, and turned onto Old Forest Drive at the Wal Mart meaning to hop over to Percival. As I did so, I noticed that Liquids Gentlemen's Club was closed.

I don't know what this building was originally (you can see where some windows have been bricked over), but when I was first aware of it, it was The Carriage House. I may be wrong, but I think this was the first (and for a good while only) strip club in Forest Acres, though the town boundries are kind of odd, so I'm not absolutely sure it is now, or was then in the city limits. The building abuts what was once a viable strip mall at the corner of Forest Drive & Percival Road and which had some sort of convience store, a barber shop and a few other stores which I have long forgotten. It also had a Putt-Putt course about which I posted earlier.

After The Carriage House folded, Liquids moved in (though there may have been a gap). Although the location isn't great, I suspect that it already being zoned for a strip club was a big factor. Either The State or The Free Times did a profile on the owner. I can't recall his name, but he was somehow connected with the Columbia Rap scene, either as a performer or a promoter. I don't know if that business took off and he dropped the club, if they were closed down for some violation or other, or if it just wasn't profitable. Whatever the case, Liquids has dried up.

UPDATE 2 June 2010: Added the full street address to the post title. Also did some googling and found out that the Liquids was granted a liquor license on 22 Feb 2006, but that it was revoked on 14 Feb 2007 for violations of the conditions under which is was issued -- I suspect that had a good deal to do with the club closing. Also, oddly, the first link states that the building was planned to be demolished in 2007 for a hospital, something I never heard of (and which obviously didn't happen).

UPDATE 13 Oct 2010 -- Apparently The Carriage House was a legit restaurant before it went topless. Here's an ad from the 1975-1976 Southern Bell directory:

UPDATE 11 Feb 2011 -- the place continues to deteriorate to the point that there is now a warning letter from the sherrif on the door:

UPDATE 4 April 2012 -- The building continues to degrade, but on some days it's prettier than on others:

UPDATE 1 March 2018 -- This building was razed long ago to build the back parking lot for the new Panera/Petco plaza, but here are some pictures from 16 July 2011: