Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

The State:

Richland County plans to buy a strip mall on Decker Boulevard and relocate yet-to-be-determined offices there as a way to address a cramped courthouse and administrative offices.

This, of course, is the former home of Kroger Sav-On, Land of Oz, Little China Buffet, Richway/Gold Circle/Target, Flipside and many other things over the years.

I've noticed this car care operation on the corner of Gervais and Barnwell Streets a number of times over the years, though I never stopped in. In particular I believe I used to drive by on my way to the dentist, and other times I would just wonder at the way businesses sometimes cluster, as Master was catty-cornered to an almost identical Firestone operation and just a few blocks from a Goodyear.

I really like the Jasper Transmissions plaque -- It has that late 50s, early 60s design esthetic that is really nicer than what you generally see now.

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This building, on Two Notch Road, next to the former Hi Line Imports, and more or less across the street from the former Ranch Restaurant, had a definite Huddle House look to it, but I couldn't ever remember actually having seen a Huddle House there. Some research in old city directories at the library showed that 4967 Two Notch Road did not exist as a street address prior to this building being built, and that it was in fact built as a Huddle House.

The ad is from the February 1990 Bellsouth phonebook, and the restaurant did not last long beyond that, being gone by the February 1992 directory. As far as I can tell, there were never two Huddle House restaurants open in Columbia at the same time, and shortly after this one closed, the one at 3801 Rosewood Drive began listing in the phonebook. That could mean either that this one relocated, that the chain was only issuing one franchaise for Columbia at a time, or it could simply be a coincidence.

Today the building is Auto Image, where summer lasts all year.

UPDATE 17 August 2023 -- Update tags, add map icon.

Well, assuming that no real news breaks this evening, there's supposed to be a piece on the WLTX late news for 1 March 2011 dramatically demonstrating why I don't have any pictures of myself on the site.

If that brings you here for the first time, feel free to sit a spell and take a look around.

Here's a list of Alphabetical Closings where you can look up your favorite places from days of yore, and here are some of the site's most popular posts and pages:

Tricentennial Songs

Forest Lake Park

The Hi Hatt Club

The Towers dorms

Waccamaw Pottery

Hurricane Hugo

The Wade Hampton Hotel

J.B. White's

Signs Your Favorite Restaurant Is About to Close

Ted's Rules For Restaurants

The Myrtle Beach Pavilion

Chippendolls

Gibbes Planetarium

Old Richland Mall

Red Wing Rollerway

Feel free to leave comments!

UPDATE 2 March 2011: Commenter Chief Dan George has found the piece on the WLTX web site. It is here.

This Year:

For a FREE copy of your residential listings..

Last Year::

At this remove, I can really only recall two scenes from Steve Martin's debut movie, The Jerk, but those two were very funny.

The second is when Martin's character is breaking up with his girlfriend and declares as he leaves the house that he doesn't need "anything".. "except" the large assortment of odd items (starting with a chair) he picks up on his way to the door.

The first is when Martin has left his childhood home and is out in the world by himself for the first time. He greets the arrival of the year's phonebook in a hysterically over-the-top scene: "The new phonebooks are here! The new phonebooks are here" (flips to his listing) "I am somebody!".

Well, no more, it would seem. I got my new Columbia phonebook last week, and totally failed to notice a real oddity until my sister pointed it out: There are no whitepage listings for Columbia!

It's been coming for a while. As far back as the late 1990s, I noticed that people in my office would do the most complicated (pre-Google) searches for phone numbers rather than pick up the directory sitting right on their desk, and as the number of unlisted cellphones keeps growing and the number of residential landlines keeps dropping, we have finally hit the tipping point. Now perhaps one of the "fake" phonebooks that other directory companies drop on your porch from time to time ("The Talking Phonebook", "The LOMAR Directory" etc) will make a white-page print-run, but it seems the white pages are dead.

While I wasn't expecting it, the death of the white pages does make sense. When I think about it though, I'm surprised that Yellow Pages are doing as well as they seem to be. Obviously businesses are going to keep public listings, but I wonder what the bang-for-the-buck ratio of the cost for a Yellow Pages ad is today versus investing in your web-site and search engine optimization? I admit that there are still times when it's easier to look up a locksmith or plumber or whatever in the phonebook than come up with an online search that doesn't have Columbia Maryland results or Columbia County Georgia or some other mass of inappropriate responses, but google continues to get better at using where you are located in its results, and I suspect we aren't far from a tipping point there too.

One thing that does not make sense to me at all is the fact that the new phonebook does have some white page listings: For Eastover, Chapin & Little Mountain -- go figure..

In the meantime, if you need to talk to me, I'm in the book. Oh wait -- well I never liked talking on the phone anyway.

Xtreme Customs was at the corner of Broad River Road and Briargate Circle, just across from the old location of Delhi Palace.

I'm not sure if this place closed or moved. There is a business of the same name listed in the phonebook as being in Lexington, but there are no "we've moved" signs on this location directing traffic there, so it may be another owner. I see their last promotion was 'HUG SAL'. Without seeing her, it's hard to know if $8.99 was reasonable or not..

Here's another Columbia Mall closing. This is the first time I've been in the mall since Tumbleweeds and it actually felt a little livelier this time though I still see about the same number of shuttered shops. I guess this one, apparently a custom gift and embroidery shop, will be one more.

(Hat tip to commenter Dustin)

The humble tee-shirt is an American institution, and while I have never bought one myself (though, come to think of it, I do sell them), I have heard the name Eat More Tees off and on for years locally. It's one of those names that sticks in your mind because it sort of makes sense and sort of doesn't make sense.

At any rate if you want to eat more now, you'll have to go to Rosewood, as this West Columbia location (right across from the vintage WECO sign) has moved.

I never go to the Harbison Starbucks since it is in the same parking lot as Barnes & Noble, which also has Starbucks coffee, and lots and lots of books. That being the case, I was only vaguely aware of the business next to it, which google suggests was an Alltel Wireless phone store. For some reason, despite the enormous popularity of cell-phones, these places seem to come and go quite often.

I did notice the last time I was at B&N however that the next tenant in the building is to be a Chipotle Mexican restaurant. I first encountered Chipotle in the DC area. To me it is definitely a notch below Moe's (though above Qdoba), and I am not at all fond of the hard-metal-edged industrial look of the places. The contractor permit sign states that they are adding a patio to the place. It's a shame that they couldn't do that on the back side of the building. Looking out on the parking lot would be no scene of epic grandeur, but I think it would have to beat looking out on Harbison Boulevard..

UPDATE 24 Feb 2011: Added Coconuts Music to the post title based on the comments, and fixed the spelling of Chipotle.