Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Corked at Sandhill is out of business. Their web site is still up and announces the closing, though it doesn't list the actual final day. I have no idea of Corked's circumstances, but it seems to me that, in general, Sandhill would be a poor place for a beer and wine shop in that it's not near home, or on the way home, or easy to get into and out of if it is on your way home. I would think 9 times out of 10, it would just be easier to stop by a grocery store -- Sandhill is a shopping destination, not somewhere to zip into and out of.

(Hat tip to commenter Cheryl)

According to the still extant web site, Art Shack Gallery Cafe started out as a gallery-only in 2005 and added a cafe in 2007. I'm afraid I was pretty much completely unaware that it existed (until I went to take the second picture above in conjunction with the closing for The Daily Grind) and so never ate there.

According to commenter Mike D it was closed as of 19 October 2010, giving it a five year run. Not bad in today's restaurant climate.

(Hat tip to commenter Mike D)

UPDATE 29 Jan 2019: Added two more pictures, map link.

I first wrote about this space at Sparkleberry Crossing in the closing for Al-Amir (which has since returned to the north east with a Sandhill location). I believe Al-Amir was the first tenant in the space, and the interior design somewhat reflected their Mediterranean/Middle Eastern heritage, which you can still see in the shape of the internal windows here. If you look at the Al-Amir link, you'll also see a tile fountain in the center of the foyer. I think that Mirage kept that for at least part of it's tenure, but as you can see here, it is now gone.

Mirage was one of those odd places that never seem to be open when you go by, but never seem to be out of business either. In fact, at least twice I saw the place looking deserted with no cars in its part of the lot and went so far as to park and get out the closing-cam only to walk up to the doors and see that although it was not open, it wasn't out of business either. Maybe it was the name. After all, a "mirage" is something that appears to be there, but is really not..

UPDATE 10 April 2013 -- It's to be Henry's:

These nine pictures are attempts at HDR. I took a tripod, and set the closing-cam to do 3 exposure brackets (1 "under exposed", 1 "over exposed" and 1 "correctly exposed"). I still have had trouble getting anything reasonable looking out of Qtpfsgui though other folks certainly have. There are just too many knobs and levers for me, at least for now. I did find another free program called Picturenaut, which actually produces nice results with the default settings. The downside is it only runs on Windows.

All the night pictures were taken on 15 October and the day pictures on 24 October. As usual, the fair remains an evergreen experience and if you missed it this year, you should try to catch it in 2011.

Lots and lots of other pictures after the jump. Be warned!

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Well, another "traditional" hardware store bites the dust. According to this story in The State, the same owners had to close one in Blythewood around the same time. The reasons look to be the usual ones: The economy in general, and the rise of the big box stores

This store in particular I think would have been hard hit by the later as both Lowes and Home Depot are in very close proximity.

(Hat tip to commenter Jason for the heads-up and commenter Javier for the closing date)

Golden City is listed in this year's (Feb-2010/Feb-2011) phonebook, so it can't have been closed for too long. I find it a little interesting however, that Loopnet describes the place as "recently renovated" while work is clearly currently ongoing.

I'm not sure how long Golden City was there. Without going to the library, I can confirm that it existed in 1998, but not in 1976. Again according to Loopnet, the building was built in 1970, so there must have been other operations there over the years. And, speaking of the building -- it's rather an interesting one. The back part is fairly standard looking, but the trapezoid in front is quite unusual.

I wonder how accurate the English name is. If each Chinese glyph equates to a word (or idea) then there are four words getting squoze down into the two word "Golden City". Can anyone translate?

Gaz-Bah was on Wilson Boulevard (what North Main becomes as it gets near to I-20 and heads to Blythewood) right next to the long defunct Denny's restaurant, and was open until fairly recently. I'm not sure when it closed, but the branding is still up, and the gas pumps have yet to be taken out. I find it a little odd that they felt it necessary to board the store completely up, given that the aforementioned Denny's has survived in good shape for years with no apparent vandalism.

As I was taking these pictures, one of those erratic Fall flocks of birds was in the area, moving from the high, I-20 visible sign to the roof of the store to the roof of the pump carport and back again. You never realize how many there are until they all take wing at the same time in Hitchcockian fashion.

I'm not sure why an exit gas station off a high traffic Interstate would go under, but I will note that the exit from I-20 to Wilson is a bit odd in that you come out on the other side of the street than you expect, and would then have to make a left to get to Gaz-Bah, while there is a travel plaza directly in front of you that requires no turn.

This Food Lion at the corner of Clemson and Hard Scrabble Roads ("The Crossings") has been closed at least since 14 Jan 2010 when commenter Jason noted it, so I'm guessing it probably moved late in 2009. According to commenter Elizabeth, it moved to a location on Hard Scrabble Road. I didn't go looking for that since driving out there today confirmed to me (once again!) how painful it is to move around in the Clemson and Hard Scrabble areas.

Surprisingly given all the store closings they have done in Columbia, the Blockbuster video rental store is still open in this hard to get to location. I don't wish them any ill, but I went ahead and took some pictures of the store that I suspect I'll need at some point.

UPDATE 8 March 2019 -- This whole plaza is being redone:

Well, this is not a good week for restaurants. This is the third restaurant closing in a row I've done, and all of them very recent instead of 20 years ago...

I first wrote about this building almost exactly two years ago when D's Wings Northeast closed.

7 Grill was the next tenant there, and opened about six months ago. Their web site is still up, and I have to say the menu looks pretty good. Unfortunately I never got there partly because it is a good ways to drive and partly from just forgetting that it was there.

Sparkleberry Crossing seems to be having a bit of trouble really getting established and a number of operations have come and gone there. It's not a bad location -- there's fairly easy access from I-20, the connector with Two Notch isn't bad, and there's driveby traffic heading to Sandhill, but somehow businesses keep going under there.

(Hat tip to commenter O'Reilly)

UPDATE 11 December 2012: Interestingly it appears that the Beltline D's will be moving to this spot.