Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

This Quonset hut is on the corner of Blossom & Pulaski Streets, off to the side of the overpass that the main stretch of Blossom takes. I know I have seen it in business in the past, but I can't recall as what. I think someone on another post suggested that it was an auto battery store. If that be the case, I could find no evidence of it. Indeed there doesn't seem to be any signage at all from any former lives.

This building, now a Monterrey Mexican was once a Denny's. The chain has fallen on hard times in Columbia, losing stores on Two Notch, Wilson Boulevard and Airport Boulevard. They seem to be down to one store on Harbison at the current time. I believe the last time I ate in a Denny's was after a disasterous software demo somewhere in Texas when were were too beaten-down to even leave the hotel parking lot, and the time before that was at 3am after working 18 hours straight and the time before that was at 2am after spending all day preparing for another iffy demo, so even aside from the chain's checkered reputation, the place holds no draw for me. Give me IHOP or even Waffle House instead!

I suspect from the placement of this building that the Denny's may have been the "house restaurant" for the adjacent motel, but I don't know that for sure.

UPDATE 26 September 2009: Added 1976 Southern Bell Yellow Pages ad

I wrote about Chappy's and Cedric's here, and wondered how popular an English fish & chips theme was ever going to be in Columbia South Carolina. As it turns out, more popular than I expected. In addition to Cedric's & Chappy's, there was Aurthur Treacher and this chain, H. Salt.

The ad from the 1970 Southern Bell phonebook lists two Columbia locations for the chain. As far as I can tell, there is currently no 1212 August Street in West Columbia. If there were a building there, it would be in the parking lot of the former Triangle Safe & Lock at 1210 Augusta Road. (And yes the issue of "Augusta Road" vs "Agusta Street" is fraught at 12th Street!)

2529 Millwood Avenue however, still exists, and I can imagine the building on that lot being a fast food place at one time (though not a modern one as there is no space for a drive-through). I don't know when the Columbia stores closed, though I don't recall ever noticing them. I'm guessing the later 1970s. It appears the chain still exists though these days, it is confined to California where it started in 1965.

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Here's another bygone Columbia restaurant I knew nothing about. Commenter Melton asked about it in Have Your Say, and commeter Dennis supplied this information:

Mr. Amerigo “Rick” Busa died Saturday, August 11, 2007. Born in Philadelphia, PA, he was the son of the late Joseph and Susie Formosa Busa. He was a veteran of WW II and the Korean Conflict. Mr. Busa was a Shriner and member of the Richland Masonic Lodge and Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Columbia. He was the owner of the Zephyr Restaurant in Washington, D.C., the Belvedere Restaurant and Rick’s Mammy’s Shanty in Columbia. After his retirement, he provided consultant services for food and beverage corporations.

Dennis also supplied the site information where I was able to order the postcard which forms the top picture above. In fact, looking there and finding other links, I've been able to get a number of postcards which I'll feature from time-to-time.

I'm not sure when the postcard picture was taken as there are no cars visible, and no postmark on the card. The building already seems a bit weathered though. Melton says he recalls commercials for the place going back into the 1950s though. I can verify that it was still around in the 1970 phonebook, but since I don't really remember it I'm guessing it didn't make it through the 1970s. I'm almost sure that when we bought our 1980 Corolla Station Wagon (which I stil have..), that Dick Dyer Toyota was already at 3201 Two Notch as pictured above.

Tonight it's time for one of my "out of area" posts, which is the category into which I throw everything that's not Columbia or The Grand Strand. I was trying to get some pictures I took back in February into shape to upload, and came across these of Topsy Smith's Topsy's Downtown Gulf on Centre Street in Fernandina Beach.

This was where we always got our gas when we were visiting Fernandina, and where we got our car worked on when we needed it. (In those bygone days, driving US-301 all the way to Florida could take a lot out of a car). The station was around the corner from my Aunt's house and I'm sure I walked past it most every day I was there, either going to the Atlantic Avenue park, or just generally wandering around town (as kids could do in those times). this appreciation of Topsy Smith says that his was one of the only two stations in town at the time, and I can believe it, at least for the town proper -- I'm sure there was something way out on 8th street as well. It had the drive-over air hoses that would 'ding' as you pulled in (a sound you don't hear anymore) and which would alert the service staff to come out, pump your gas, wash your windows, check the radiator and battery levels and inspect your tires.

The linked article says that Smith retired in 1997, though I suspect it may be off a little as this link says that an operation called Richard's BP took out an SBA loan in 1996.

After the follow-on BP station went under, the building didn't really settle on anything solid. I believe it was a bike-rental operation at one time, and then the last business in there, the remnants of which were still visible, was a beachwear/casual-wear store called apparently Island Breeze Shop. I don't believe that lasted any longer than one season, and the building is currently still empty.

I see that Topsy Smith is remembered yearly at the Shrimp Festival with The Topsy Smith Memorial Beard Contest

UPDATE 21 July 2010 -- Apparently it's going to be a Philly cheese-steak operation next:

UPDATE 3 January 2012 -- Well, the Philly Cheese-steak thing didn't last long at all, and it was in a state of tear-down last time I went through (Aug 2011). There were also scooters there, though I saw no sign of anyone actively offering them for rental:

UPDATE 4 March 2012 -- It's now a burger joint called Tasty's. Note how the logo looks like an oldtime Gulf sign:

These pictures are a bit older, but when I drove by Decker Auto Mart today, there was a "For Sale" sign on the central building proclaiming that the whole place was, I believe, 2 acres. The lot is just above Pep Boys and almost across the street from the old Taco Cid.

This is one of the many used car lots that have come and gone in the Dentsville area over the years. This one looks a bit more "homey" than most -- I like the central building, and the slogan on the sign is nicely undestated.

Appropos of very little, this lot is directly above Sandy Shore Road, which winds along a good bit above the shore of Cary Lake. The road was never paved and some sort of deal was worked out to leave it that way if the end connecting to Decker was closed off. I've always thought that a bit odd (though nice for the residents).

Here's another bygone restaurant, this one on Two Notch Road fairly near the intersection with Beltline. The place today is Forest Oaks Apartments apparently a city of Columbia property. I suspect the Forest in the name is a rememberance of the restaurant, though it's generic enough that I could well be wrong.

The Yellow Pages ad from the 1970 Southern Bell phonebook makes it sound fairly upscale, with lobster and "roast prime ribs of beef", which means I would have turned up my nose at any attempt by my parents to take us there (not that I had veto power, but they rarely wanted to waste money on food I wasn't going to like). In the event, I can't even recall seeing this place though we must have driven by many times before it was torn down.

I don't particularly concern myself with "timeliness" here. For one thing, I'm just one guy with a car and a camera -- there's no way I could keep up with everything closing, even if I somehow knew about it. For another thing, I may care more about some place that closed 20 years ago than some other storefront that went under yesterday.

With that said, after commenter Tom mentioned it in Have Your Say and after I saw the story in The State that today was the last day in business for Jim Moore Cadillac, I thought I might as well drive by and get some pictures.

According to The State the dealership is a casualty of GM's ongoing death-spiral restructuring. The story is a bit vague about whether the store was making a go of it otherwise, saying only that sales had been "improving".

I really don't have any mental tags for this dealership at all. We were never a Cadillac family, and the only commercials I recall were for what I presume was a related business, "Moore Hudson Olds", which all had a distinctively overmodulated announcer pretending to be live from their lot. Still it's always sad to see a landmark like this close, and Main street definitely doesn't need another vacant lot.

UPDATE 30 Nov 2010 -- Here's some more pictures taken on a brighter day:

UPDATE 19 May 2025 -- Time has not been kind to this property, and nothing else has ever moved in:

Also adding map icon and updating tags, and here is the LoopNet info.

I first wrote about this building doing a closing for Luigi's Italian Kitchen, and that's the post the third picture comes from. The first two, which I took today, are done against the light and from inside the car because I was running late.

Anyway, I don't know anything about West Columbia Pawn & Loan, but you've got to think that if even *pawn shops* are going under, the economy must still be pretty bad.

UPDATE 2 Sept 2010 -- It's now West Columbia Pawn & Jewelry:

UPDATE 20 Dec 2010 -- And they do it up for Christmas:

UPDATE 31 March 2014 -- Now it's It's A Pawn Shop: