Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Can anyone identify the original business in this building, across from the former Hi Line Imports and in front of the old Impulse Club? Currently it's Club Raw on the east side and This Is It! on the west side. This Is It! is 5024-C, suggesting the building may have been divided into three storefronts at one point.

I thought it was a restaurant of some sort, but I don't see 5024 listed in the 1970 or 1974 restaurant Yellow Pages (though of course the listings are alphabetical, not geographical, so I may have missed it skimming through).

I'll update the post title if I get an identification..

UPDATE 26 July 2010: OK, I've got two votes for The Ranch, so I've updated the post title to that. Thanks to commenters Dennis & Bud!

1101 Harden Street was the address for PT's Cabaret, The Punch Line and Greenstreets as well as a gaggle of other businesses over the years including tax preparers, nightclubs, eateries, and military recruiters.

The building sat on the corner of Harden and Senate Streets (a corner I believe many people would be surprised exists..) across from Time Warner Cable and next to Food Lion. The ongoing demolition is supposed to result in a Cook Out restaurant being built, and although it was a separate address, the old Bob Andrews Motors building was also knocked down as part of the project.

Lots of pictures from three different days follow..

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This was in The State last week. I had already seen the closing sign, but hadn't gotten around to getting any pictures. The story is kind of interesting as the owner says it's a dieing business, literally, as more and more of his customers pass on, and the new generation doesn't take up suits. I certainly never liked them and was lucky enough to get a job in an industry where they aren't mandatory. (So it was "Hold the mayo!" for me..)

According to the Mayo's web site, there's a store in Sumter as well. Since it didn't come up in the newspaper article, I would guess it's under different ownership.

UPDATE 27 August 2010 -- Well, it's gone:

The Shuttlecocks were a fleet of small school-bus type vehicles which circuited the USC campus from the late 1970s until sometime in the 1980s offering foot-weary students a theoretically faster, or at least drier alternative to hoofing it between classes.

Firstly, I have to admire the name. How often do you see such a perfect pun, and executed all the way through? You have to imagine that there was meeting after meeting where some facilities person would say Shuttlecock? That's too frivolous! How about Mass Student Transport Units? and yet the 'Shuttlecock' proponents held firm.

Secondly, I have to say that at least from my point of view, they were mostly useless. I guess I can see that if were parking at the Colosseum, or living in The Wade Hampton or Bates, then they might have been timesavers, but realistically, if you missed one, walking would still be your best option. In any case, living in The Towers, and with my fartherest out classes no farther than Gambrell Hall, I never took one in earnest. I did ride the circuit a few times as something to do, and I think I may have taken one as far as Capstone for a Five Points expedition. They were about what you would expect. The exteriors were not school-bus yellow, but otherwise they were standard cut-down school-buses. I think they would probably hold about 20 people, but I never saw one full.

I'm not sure when the Shuttlecock fleet was retired though I'm pretty sure they did not last into the 90s. I also don't know the reason for their discontinuation. Certainly gas and maintainence had to be expensive so I suspect it was cost. Or maybe the new President didn't like puns.

I've written before of my first experiences with a "Steak House" at Ponderosa in Trenholm Plaza, and how after that we became regulars at Quincy's on Two Notch.

After I moved out on my own, I mentally divided steak-houses into tiers. In the top tier were Quincy's and Ryan's. In the middle tier were Western Sizzlin and Golden Corral, while in the bottom tier were Western Steer and various one-offs. These weren't hard and fast, and over time Ryan's went way down in my estimation, while Golden Corral came up while Western Sizzlin stayed solidly middle tier the whole time.

The ad from the 1974 phonebook says there were Sizzlin locations in Charleston, Savannah and Brunswick. By the time I moved to Fayetteville in 1985, there was certainly one there, on Raeford Road within walking distance from my apartment, and I believe there was one nearby on I-95 as well (though it could have been a Steer), which the owner's wife took as a special decorating project producing the most jam-packed-with-decor steak house in existence.

The one in Faytetteville was gone the last time I checked (July 2009), as are both here in Columbia (the one on Knox Abbott was a number of restaurants including Crazy Buffet and Hot China Buffet and is now vacant again). I'm pretty sure the one in Charleston is gone, or at least I've never run into it. I have no idea about the one in Brunswick either, but the one in Savannah ("Pooler", actually) is still going strong. That has been our way-point on trips to Florida for many years, and we take a picture in front of one of their signs on each trip. They seem to keep staff forever, and one of the waitresses always used to recognize my us by remembering my father though she saw him no more than twice a year. Over the years, the buffett has gained in importance in comparison to the "steak" aspect, but it's still solidly middle-tier and comfortable.

After the Sizzlin closed, the place became another restaurant A Touch of Class, which I can't recall at all. Obviously at some point between then and now, the original Sizzlin building was torn down and the Family Auto Centers trailer-office etc was put on the lot, which sold used cars, with the inevitable (though always welcome) fuzzy streamers.

Postscript: Just noticed that in the yellow pages ad, while the main graphic does say Western Sizzlin if you look closely at the pictured building (click through to the higher res shot), the building's sign and the building itself clearly says Western Sizzler!

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Here's an interesting article in The State from yesterday, Views on District 2, then and now. Be sure to expand the picture of the Vista from 1983. I feel as though I should remember a lot more of that picture than I do. I can't plead youth -- I was 22 years old then.

This Sprint/Nextel store was next to the Kwik Kopy Business Center in the Publix plaza, and commenter Chris puts the closing date in 2008, while commenter Michael opines that it moved and then closed for good.

It seems to me that for such a large industry, with so few players, these shops move around and go under a lot more often that I would expect. Back in the day, you knew it was futile to go to the Southern Bell ("We're the phone company, we don't care, we don't have to!") office, but you knew where it was, and that it would be there forever..

Closed For Renovation

This is the dreaded Closed For Remodeling trope. It seems to me that the majority of businesses that sport such a sign, never re-open. There are a few exceptions, but in general it seems to me that getting into a situation where there's no money coming in, plus lots of expenses is bad news. The right way to remodel is to keep the store open the whole time, even if you have to put the cash registers in the parking lot for a few days. That's how the Forest Drive / I-77 Wal-Mart is doing it, and while it's been a big mess, they've had money coming in every day.

Anyway, as far as I can tell, this business started as a SpeeDee and then transitioned into an independant but similar business. This Irmo businesses web page dates back to March, so I'm assuming the place was open that late. The building was built in 1970 according to Loopnet, so it may well have been a couple of things before.

I think that apart from the remodeling trauma, Harbison may just be a bad location for a business like this. Traffic is so high, that I would never think of going there for something I could get elsewhere on a less busy road.

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This Dollar Discount store in Parkland Plaza has been "for sale" for a good while, in fact I almost did a post on it before, but they seemed to be in full operation while looking for a buyer, so never did. Driving by tonight, I saw from the banner that they are explicitly closing now. I've never been in this store, but apparently Dollar Discount is a franchaise concept with 140 stores over all and three other stores in South Carolina (Pageland, Effingham and Sumter). I've always liked this kind of store as it gives you a feeling of power to walk in with $5.00 in your pocket and walk out with actual stuff. It seems I can always find something or other that I need or want, and I'll bet the prices are even better right now. This particular store appears to also run a shipping operation called The Mail Room, possibly taking up the slack when the contract post office in Parkland Pharmacy closed.

Once when my cousin noticed an old sign for the company her father used to work for still up on an old barn out in the country, she went to see the owner to try and buy it for her father's birthday. I was with her, and the old gentleman owning the place was a talkative fellow with lots of interesting stories (he claimed that Jimmy Doolittle wanted his help in setting up the Army Air Corps during WWII, but the letter got lost coming from Washington DC to rural SC..). When we asked what the population of the little community was, he said something like "One hundred ninety, same as when I was born. We always figured it stayed the same since every time a baby was born, a man had to leave town". Something of the sort seems to be holding for Parkland Plaza since Ace Hardware is re-opening, just as this store is closing..

UPDATE 29 Oct 2010 -- well the store is definitely gone now:

though it is still listed on the Parkland Plaza marquee:

UPDATE 10 January 2012 -- As mentioned by commenter Andrew, this is now a Radio Shack:

UPDATE 4 March 2013 -- Finally got around to taking a picture of the new (well, not so new at this point!) location of The Mail Room in Granby Villiage on the Charleston Highway:

Well, back to Dutch Square for another closing...

Gamestop was in Dutch Square on the south side of the main corridor just down the hill from customer service, and the Eckerd's/Piccadilly side corridor.

I don't know a lot about modern video gaming (give me Galaga, Gorf, Joust,Pengo any day..), but this is the third such store that I am aware of closing in the past year (after Game Crazy on Garners Ferry, and Play N Trade on Forest Drive). On the other hand, the Gamestop on Harbison is still going, so it's more likely an artifact of the continuing downward spiral of Dutch Square than anything else.

(Hat tip to commenter Jason.)

UPDATE 14 February 2025: Updating tags and adding map icon.