Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

"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:

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.