Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Here's another vacancy at The Shoppes of O'Neil Court. According to Loopnet there are currently six open spots there. This one has been vacant going on half a year now, and the Pro Golf of Columbia slot has been vacant at least a year and a half..

According to the Roundabouts web site, they were established in 2003 as Capital City Consignments and this site was their second storefront, the original one being another slot in the same plaza. This January they moved into the old Stein Mart location at 70 Polo Road. To me it seems like sort of a wash from a visibility point of view. O'Neil Court is off the beaten path, but while the Polo / Two Notch location gets a lot more drive-bys, it's up on a hill that makes it invisible from the road, and there's really nothing else in that plaza to pull traffic in...

UPDATE 7 September 2012 -- There is now (and has been for a while) another consignment store Divine Consign in the old Roundabouts location:

Here's an interesting little coda to Friday's posting about the Boozer Book Dispensary. That story noted The State article about both the Boozer and Two Notch stores being folded into one new location.

Well, I went by the old Tillman's Plaza location on Two Noch Sunday evening, and there's an interesting sign on the door. It seems someone connected to that branch feels that the area is still viable for a used book store, and will be re-opening the vacated Book Dispensary space with the same concept and a new name.

I wish them good luck!

UPDATE 28 June 2011 -- The follow-on operation Books Revisited has been open for a good while now:

There are a couple of variations of the name of this car lot on Two Notch Road. McDaniels Acura Value Cars seems to be the most common, but sometimes it's just McDaniels Value Cars, and as you can see on these pictures, the building itself says McDaniels Acura Wholesale.

At any rate, this is on Two Notch Road, just opposite of Arcadia Lakes Drive, and across the street from the old Po Folks Restaurant / Moore For Less car lot. Apparently this intersection is not a good location for a used car store. In fact, Two Notch Road as a whole seems to run through used car lots at a pretty rapid clip -- I've probably done closings for a half dozen or more.

I probably should read The State more often than I do..

First -- Richland Mall is back:

Second -- Kroger at Sparkleberry Square is in trouble:

As to the first, I, for one, have always refused to call the place either "Richland Fashion Mall" or "Midtown at Forest Acres", so I'm glad to see the "classic" name back. Kahn certainly has an uphill slog ahead there though. Given that even the new Village at Sandhill has had a lot of churn and ongoing vacancies, an older, already perceived as failing (because, it is failing) mall is going to have even more trouble luring tenants. I guess the obvious thing to try, as I think Sky City has suggested, would be to try to lure Macy's from Columbia Mall to the vacant Parisian or Bonwit Teller slot. Of course that would put paid to Columbia Mall so I'd rather something else happen..

As to the second, I think that after this, this, this, this, and this, I can say that Sparkleberry Square is "troubled". Kroger cutting its hours certainly does nothing to reverse that perception. For a restaurant, it's fatal sign #1. I don't think the Kroger will close, but I'll bet they're nostalgic for the rents at Decker Mall about now.

Columbia Northeast Drive is the official name of the easternmost little access road from Two Notch back into the Big Lots / Dunkin' Donuts plaza on Two Notch Road just west of Spring Valley. Both the main plaza and this little side strip-mall have been down at the heels for years though they have generally avoided vacancies. Aside from having the only Peurto Rican restaurant in Columbia (that I know of anyway), the strip also has the only Indian Restaurant in the Northeast.

La Pizza Cucina was, I think in the storefront now occupied by San Juan (which itself used to be at the bottom of the strip parallel to Two Notch at one time). A, personal web calendar (apparently not updated since 2004) describes La Pizza Cucina thus:

La Pizza Cucina

Serving gourmet pizza pies and over 100 beers and wines to choose from, this quaint little pizza parlor offers you the infectious hospitality of a "Cheers" styled pub. Come eat here once, and you're a friend for life. "There's edible and there's Incredible" - La Pizza Cucina.

I suspect the restaurant supplied the text to the performers as I think it is pretty close to how they used to advertise. I'm saying the place closed in 2007 because it is not in the 2008 phonebook but it was still in a newspaper restaurant listing (which are notoriously slow to fix closures) in February of 2008.

I had only two problems with La Pizza Cucina:

1) I expected "gourmet" pizza to be, you know, good, and instead found it pretty mediocre.

2) The staff, at least on shift the one time I went, was rude. In particular, there was a table of teenage boys -- being teenage boys. They weren't thugs, they weren't trying to create a disturbance, they were just having a good time. One of them rocked his chair onto the back legs, and the manager came down on him like a ton of bricks. I thought it was totally inappropriate. No, it's not good for the chairs, but your restaurant chair is not going to be handed down to your grandkids. If something absolutely had to be said, it could have been said politely.

Anyway, I never went back.

Here's another of Two Notch Road's many car lots. This one (which apparently also occupied the adjacent 6600 Two Notch Road address) seems to have moved. According to their sign, to 6729-A Two Notch., which google gives that as the address of the Very's plaza.

The buildings here are nothing special, but I really like the free-standing canopy in the parking lot, both for the canted roof and for the fact that it has only one support. And of course, what would any car lot be without the strands of flag triangles?

Although I do not recall this store, I am reasonably sure from the architecture that it was at one time an A & P. The building doesn't have the classic steeple, but otherwise the look is quite similar to other old A&P buildings. If I am right, then this store would have been in the boonies when built, but the building of Spring Valley High in the 1970s proves that the population in the area was already growing.

Although Gold's Gym is a top-tier brand (or presents itself as one at any rate), it does often seem to follow the Lizard's Thicket "hermit crab" strategy of moving into existing buildings, something it did here, at the old Columbia Athletic Club, on Harbison and most recently at the old Sofa Express location at Sandhill. When Sandhill opens, they will have two locations quite close together. It would not surprise me to see this one close, though there is no indication of anything like that on their site.

UPDATE 7 April 2010: Originally (as you can tell from the text), I thought this was an A&P. I was wrong, it was a Piggly Wiggly, and I have changed the post title to reflect that.

When I posted on Hola Mexico a few days ago, commenter Ken noted that before being a restaurant, the place had been a minature golf establishment.

I don't remember that at all, but sure enough, behind the restaurant you can still see the concrete remnants of the greens. Judging from the playset over to the right which seems better maintained than the rest, I'm guessing that perhaps the course property is now used by the Christian school which shares the strip with the old Hola and the Jamacian restaurant. If so, it's kind of a shame the old greens are gone. It would be really cool to be able to say "My school's playground is a Putt-Putt course!" (And it would be extra super cool if it was one of the ones with the windmills and dinosaurs..)

(Hat tip to commenter Ken).

Well, here's another closing in the same general vicinity of Two Notch. Hola Mexico was somewhat off the road, in a little plaza behind Rush's. I was aware of the place, but had never gotten around to going in there. Reader Nancy writes:

This was a family run business and the food was always excellent.

Too bad.

If you look at the pictures, you can tell that the facade had a South-West theme with cacti that has just been removed. There was work ongoing when I drove by, so perhaps something is in the works.

UPDATE 29 March 2010: Changed post title to add "(Moving?)" based on the comments. Added several more pictures.

UPDATE 16 April 2010: Added picture of the neon sign.

UPDATE 3 June 2010 -- The move into the old McDonald's/ Zesto / Awesome Mattress building is progressing, and the name is finally on the building:

UPDATE 8 May 2011 -- The new location is open, and has been for a while:

UPDATE 21 February 2025: Adding map icon and updating tags.

I was having lunch at Carrabba's on Sparkleberry last Sunday, and as I was leaving, noticed an almost empty signboard for the surrounding retail area. One item on the almost vacant space was Pizza Buffet, which struck me as a bit curious since it was so generic.

As it turns out, there is a road behind Sparkleberry Square (parallel to Two Notch) that I had never noticed before called Graces Way. There seems to be very little on it, but that's where Pappa's Pizza To Go was. I had never heard of it, but googling around finds enough other hits that I conclude it is a chain.

I don't generally do pizza buffets anymore since I want my pizza how I like it without having to wait for something that's even partially how I like it, so I have no idea how the pizza was there, but it seems to me they could hardly have chosen a worse location. There is no visibility from Two Notch or Sparkleberry, and the Sparkleberry signage is so small and generic as to be almost useless. Further, while the hope may have been that Graces Way would become a fairly busy road, there is almost nothing on it, and while I was driving down it, and parked taking these pictures, no other cars went by. Granted it was a Sunday, but Carrabba's was doing a very good business.

It appears they are doing interior work so perhaps something else will go in there though the location still seems chancy.

UPDATE 29 March 2010: Added picture of the Sparkleberry sign.