Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Today's bonus post comes from commenter Dennis, as do the photos:

After driving past a million times and promising myself to take some pictures before USC bulldozes it, I finally stopped and got some photos of the old Woman's Club building at 1703 Blossom St., next to their tennis center.

As you can see it is slowly moldering away. It has achieved a wonderful haunted house feel, and I'm sure it has a thousand stories and a few ghosts. I don't think it's used for anything currently. For years it was a little rundown but still rented a lot for fraternity and sorority parties. I've been to several wedding receptions and parties there.

It's basically one big room with a kitchen on the end, and some tiny side rooms. I peeked in one years ago and there was a wonderful, poster-sized b&w photo in an old frame showing the club in its heyday, with dozens of stylish ladies wearing their best hats and pearls at long banquet tables, taken in the 1940s I'd guess. I tried hard to track down who to ask about getting my hands on it but never could figure out who to talk to.

The Woman's Club of Columbia is still around and very active. They now meet here:

http://www.gfwc-sc.org/headquarters.htm

Columbia City Council records show that they were given permission and "encouragement" to put up a plaque explaining the history of the old Blossom St. place. It hasn't happened yet. The building has been nominated to go on the federal List of National Historic Places, but I don't think that has happened yet either. It's currently owned by USC and valued at $700,00 but I'm sure the acre and a half lot is worth a lot more than that. And the huge oak trees are priceless.

UPDATE 8 November 2009: Added '1940' to post title.

I have to admit I wasn't really aware of Frawley's Audio until it was gone. In fact, I only noticed that when I saw the going-out-of-buisness signs at Fontenay Fine Rugs & Antiques next door, walked over to take a look and saw the empty storefront.

The sign on the door says they were there for over 35 years, which is a good run for an independent store in these big-box times.

I think I vaguely remember the Varsity Restaurant being open, but never ate there. It was apparently a fixture in Columbia for decades. The old building is in sad disrepair, and seems to have been remodelled several times, judging by this postcard shot at flikr.

The 1970 Yellow Pages ad pitches the pizza, so I guess they were trying to stay current in a changing world -- that certainly wouldn't have been on the menu in 1935. There is currently a Varsity D Jasz restaurnt nearby the old Varsity (at 1212 Sunset Drive, almost at the corner of North Main and Sunset), but I have no idea if its related to the old one at all. It appears to be a small lunch-counter type operation.

UPDATE 6 Feb 2013 -- It looks as though somebody started renovations on the old Varsity building, but didn't get too far before the city stopped them:

UPDATE 13 July 2014 -- final days (pix from 10 November 2013):

UPDATE 15 July 2014 Buh-bye! (pix from 5 April 2014):

They can't hear you now..

This storefront, on Dutch Square Boulevard across from the mall, started out life as a Circuit City, or at least that was the first I noticed it. It may have been marqueed as Dixie Hi-Fi in the 1970s, before the chain adopted the Circuit City name, but I can't say for sure. This store is more or less equivalent to the first Circuit City location on Two Notch, now a bedroom store, and like that store eventually moved twice, first to Bush River Road and then to Harbison Boulevard.

I lost track of the building after Circuit City departed, but I'm pretty sure there were tenants after it and before Alltel Wireless. I'm not sure when Alltel moved in, but when Verizon bought Alltel in a deal sealed 9 Januray 2009, the writing was on the wall for this store, and as you can see from the window placard, all Alltel customers are being directed to Verizon on Columbiana Drive.

We'll see how it all settles out. In the meantime, I'm keeping my rotary dial phones and landline..

UPDATE 6 November 2009: Added "Bellsouth Mobility" to the post title based on the comments.

The last time I was in Doc's Gumbo Grille would have been 11 May 2007. In fact, that was only the second time I had been there, the first being for another Qs show. I can't say I was as enthusiastic about the food as some folks. It may have just been that I was ordering the "we have to have this or some guy in a group will always veto us" menu items instead of the gumbo, but I thought the food was average. That said, I wasn't there for the food, and the place was a pretty good venue. In particular, the acoustics were much improved over the last place I had seen the Qs, the New Brookland Tavern, and the staff was friendly. It's definitely a shame to see another local music venue close. (Not that I see shows these days, or really regularly any days..)

Eva has the story of the closing in The Free Times, and it appears the biggest blow to the place was the SCE&G lunch crowd's recent departure from downtown. I hope that doesn't have any other knock-on effects in the Vista.

As usual with anything on the west side of a street, these pictures are not great as I never get out early enough to have the sun behind me. Unfortunately, I also missed the neon sign being lit. The last time I saw it on, I was driving somewhere and couldn't stop to take the picture.

UPDATE 3 November 2009: Added "Kinch's" to the post title based on the comments.

UPDATE 4 November 2009: Added "Shealy's Sandwiches" based on Badger's comment and looking in the 1970 Yellow Pages

UPDATE 9 April 2010: For whatever reason, someone turned on the sign the night of the 6th, so I got some pictures of it lit up and have added them at the front of the pictures.

UPDATE 14 April 2010 -- Here's the new Doc's location at 3830 Rosewood Drive:

UPDATE 15 May 2011 -- The follow-on operation on Assembly, is now open (and has been since at least mid 2010):

Also, the Doc's on Rosewood went under after the move.

I first wrote about this building when it was a former Quincy's. Now it is a former Maurice's. It seems the current recession has made a hash of the barbecue business, as this is the second Maurice's to close recently.

To me, the location seems a little awkward to get into and out of. I can't remember if that were the case when it was a Quincy's or if it is an artifact of all the road work that's been done on the I-26 / US-378 interchange over the last couple of years. However, the selling realtor is apparently quite upbeat about the plot as the the current asking price is $1,350,000.

UPDATE 8 November 2009: Forgot to hat tip commenter B.C.

UPDATE 22 September 2020 -- This place has been razed. Also, updating post tags and adding a map icon.

Happy Halloween!

I guess there won't be any "Naughty Nurses" getting their costumes here this year though -- The "fantasy" has fled.

I don't know what this building was built for, but clearly it predates Fantasy Lingerie. I don't know how long Fantasy was there, though I think it was at least five or so years. The general area seems to be rather blighted with Maurice's next door recently closing, and lots of other empty storefronts nearby.

At one time, before it became a Big K-Mart, the left side of the K-Mart on Jackson Boulevard was a separate storefront. Looking at these pictures, there appears to be no trace of the division left, and I can't recall any indication inside the store either, but it was definitely the case.

There were at least two stores in that location. The first one I recall was Big Star grocery. Big Star was the discount arm of Colonial, and the Big Star remained open long after the Forest Drive Colonial, where we did most of our grocery shopping, closed. That meant that for certain Colonial items, like Farm-Charm cheese, we would drive out to Big Star rather than going to the closer Trenholm Plaza stores. Actually, I suppose it was mostly my doing as I was (and still am to some extent) a very picky eater, and sometimes my mother would get what I wanted just to make things easier on herself (I'm sure it wasn't above me to complain that a grilled cheese sandwich was made with the wrong kind of cheese..).

Wikipedia says that Big Star left the South Carolina market in 1988, selling its stores to Harris Teeter. I think this store closed earlier than that, and I don't think it was ever a Harris Teeter, but I could be wrong.

At any rate, some time after Big Star left, the storefront became an Old America store. I never went in one of these stores, but they were some sort of craft store and seemed to have a policy of co-locating with K-Mart, or at least the North Augusta K-Mart also had an Old America (though in that case the K-Mart left before Old America folded). In Columbia, K-Mart is still there, and Old America folded, probably in 1999.

I'm getting the 4410 street address from an old online listing for Old America, apparently that address no longer exists with the K-Mart expansion, and the whole storefront is now 4400. I don't think there was another store after Old America and before K-Mart took the whole space.

Shoney's is a place we often went while I was growing up. They were affiliated with "Big Boy" then, and always had "Big Boy" comic books as free premiums for the kids, and they had what was at that time my favorite desert, the Hot Fudge Sunday Cake.

Disaffiliating from Big Boy was supposed to help them grow, but somewhere along the line they went wrong. Perhaps it was when they overextended themselves trying to establish a hotel brand, but whatever it was, they started closing stores. Right now, the only fully operating one I can think of in Columbia is the one on Garners Ferry. (I believe that the one on Bush River Road, while still open, no longer does dinner).

I can only recall eating at this Shoney's once, more or less by accident. Our troop was coming back from a camping trip somewhere, and I believe we had some sort of van and several dads driving regular cars. Something (the van I suppose) broke down, and a good part of the troop was stranded at Shoney's (I forget whether we actually made it to the parking lot or had to walk a bit) while other transport was arranged. None of us boys had any money, so the adults brought us a meal while we waited. It never occurred to me until years later that that must have been an unexpected and unwelcome financial imposition on them. Perhaps my parents settled up later, at any rate, in the way adults had back then, nobody let on anything to the kids, and we all had a *great* time.

I guess that would have been around 1974, so the restaurant still had years to go at that point. I'm not in fact sure when it went under, but I think it was sometime in the early 1990s. At any rate, it has been a Mexican operation for a number of years now.

UPDATE 10 September 2020: Update tags, add map icon.

There was nothing particularly noteworthy about the Hardee's which once sat at the corner of Blossom & Assembly Streets, but it's a memory of a somewhat less grandiose scheme of things in that area.

I do remember two things in particular about it:

1) It was the first place I've ever seen ruin a toll-house cookie. I stopped there once feeling a bit snackish and could not finish the thing. It was like they cooked it on the same griddle with the burgers or something. At the time at least, Hardee's could do sweet, something they proved with their cinnamon-raisin biscuit, but not, apparently, after 10:30 am..

2) While the restaurant was on the way down, and maybe after it closed, the side of the parking lot facing Assembly street was filled with used cars for sale.

It's not clear to me what they are building, or going to build, there, but it couldn't have worse cookies...

UPDATE 19 June 2021: Several things. First, this building has long since been razed, and now the property is Innovation Center. Second, I will be adding the correct street address to the post title, third, I will be updating the tags and, finally I will be adding a map icon.