Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

The WordPress blog editor has a button called "Save Draft", which is, I suppose, appropriate to this post, as The Casual Pint is no more.

The Free Times noted the opening on 22 July 20 2016 of

the fastest growing franchise in the craft beer industry

and also noted the closing on 2 November 2019.

The only remaining SC location for the chain is 217 Saluda Springs Road in Lexington, which looks to be on the block behind the Mellow Mushroom.

Here is a State story on the Dupree Building of which The Casual Pint was a tenant. It's a nice looking place. I should have checked the entrance to see what's upstairs.

(Hat tip to commenter Heath)

I'm not going to attempt the metal umlaut in the post title, but Yogen Früz is a froyo franchaise operation which is still in operation, though this closure leaves the nearest store in Florida or possibly Virginia. I guess it's not too surprising that if an ice cream or froyo shop is going to close, the start of colder weather is a trigger [this was wrong: see note below].

This location is on the same "block" with the former corner Starbucks (and in fact you can somewhat see it in those pictures), and across from the centeral traffic island/venue at Sandhill.

King's Pizza was the follow-on operation in this spot to Charlie's Wings & Seafood. They opened sometime in the spring of 2019, and apparently closed in September. At one time, a number of other locations for King's were mooted, but they may have tried to build out too fast, and I don't believe any, with the possible exception of a co-branding with Planet Pizza came to pass.

UPDATE 4 February 2021 -- I'm not sure what is going in, but some sort of upfit is being done on the building:

UPDATE 23 August 2021 -- Now open as Starbucks:

UPDATE 13 September 2021 -- A more attractive of the new Starbucks:

Leash The Kraken!

I thought I had done a closing for The Kraken the first time it closed, a few years ago, but I cannot now find it, so either I'm just wrong, or it got lost in the database crash a while back.

Anyway, I'm afraid I know very little about the place other than it had a cool name and was in a neightboorhood I don't normally associate with restaurants.

Here is a take from The Free Times and one from The State.

(Hat tip to commenter Sidney)

While I was getting the Save A Lot pictures, I noticed that the pizza joint in the same strip has now been (partially?) reflagged as a King's Pizza.

Their (officially claimed) Yelp page gives the name as King's Planet Pizza and has a link to the main King's web site, which curiously does not list the place as a location (though it does still list Marshall Street, which I think has fallen through). Does anyone know if the Columbia Mall location has come to pass?

I was not really aware of Conquest Brewing until commenter Jimmy Freeman linked their Facebook farewell in Have Your Say.

The Free Times has a bit more information such as that the place was "Columbia’s first post-production brewery since prohibition" and that Saturday was their final day.

(Hat tip to commenter Jimmy Freeman)

In the comments of the closing for The Captain's Kitchen on Decker, commenter Paul Armstrong offers the following information about The Captain's Kitchen:

The first Captain’s Kitchen opened in 1964 at 2628 Decker Boulevard advertising as “Columbia’s First Exclusive Seafood Restaurant”. It was owned and operated by Charles V Godwin and J D Hammond. In 1969, Hammond and Godwin formed a national franchise chain and the first franchise was built in Kentucky. In September of 1970, the second Captain’s Kitchen in the Columbia area opened at 2030 Charleston Highway in Cayce. There were also corporate owned Captain’s Kitchen restaurants in Augusta, Charleston, and Greenville. The Cayce location closed in 1975 and, in 1976, Skipjack opened in the same building, which is still standing, but now empty, at 2030 Charleston Highway. The original Captain’s Kitchen closed in 1984 and, in June of 1985, Zorba’s opened their second area restaurant in the old Captain’s Kitchen building on Decker Blvd.

I had forgotten it was a chain, and had another midlands location. Zillow confirms this building was a restaurant, and LoopNet suggests it was sold for taxes in 2012. If so, it does not appear anyone has done anything with it since.

It seems a rather odd location for a restaurant as there is not much in the area to this day.

UPDATE 8 August 2019: Add map icon.

When I did a closing for the Beltline J. Peters a few weeks ago, I linked to this Greenville News story which led me to believe that the J. Peters locations on the coast would continue unchanged.

This turns out not to be the case as the Litchfield Beach location closed, apparently a between one and two weeks ago. I can see why this location might have been on the block as it is not visible from US-17, and there is a Pawleys Island location directly fronting on US-17 just a few miles south (in the old La Playa storefront).

If this storefront looks familiar, it may be because I did a closing on it in 2014, which it was Carolina Wings & Rib House.

I did not know Hummus Mediterranean Bistro existed until commenter Sidney mentioned that it was gone.

About all I know is that it was the follow-on operation in this spot to Uncle Maddio's Pizza and was run by the Al Amir folks. (Who rpeviously had a restaurant just up the street in University Corner at 629 Main Street.

This place got pretty good reviews, the last of which seem to be around March of 2019, so that's what I'm using for a closing date.

(Hat tip to commenter Sidney)

I'm not really a Domino's fan, but it's acceptable pizza, and when you're in college, that's probably the best you can hope for. This particular location is on the sharply sloped section of Devine that leads down from Main to Assembly, requiring that the lot be terraced. You can see a shot of it in operation, with the Domino's signage at the LoopNet listing.

They moved from this building to the old Sandy's location, after completely redoing the looks of that property. I'm a little curious about all this as Sandy's had apparently sold their store to something called The USC Development Foundation, which did not lead me to expect another retail food operation there.

(Hat tip to commenter Sidney)

UPDATE 25 January 2022 -- Now The Smokeshop Guys: