Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I've known about three Luigi's italian restaurants. The one in Fayetteville NC was great and one of my lunch and pizza hangouts -- it also made the national news due to a horrible tragedy early in the Clinton era. I tried the one in Broad Street in Augusta a few times while I was working there and was never impressed. This one, in Triangle City, was completely off my radar, and I learned about it only when I started looking through old phone books (this ad is from 1970). I'm not sure why that was as I've always loved spaghetti, and got into other Italian food, starting with pizza and lasagna in the 70s. If I had to guess, I'd say it was because it was all the way across town from our area and off my parents' radar during the years before I was driving and that after I started driving, I was, in those years, very satisfied with Pizza Hut pizza, and usually too broke to eat out anyway.

Commenter Dennis wrote:

Is Luigi's before your time?

Was a wonderful Italian place, great pizza, in an old white house
right in the middle of Triangle City.

It's now West Columbia Pawn & Loan, 1215 Augusta Rd, West Columbia.
Building has hardly changed at all on the outside.

No idea what year it closed. It was a hot spot for Carolina students
in the 70s.

The place was easy to find, though a bit hard to get to what with medians and all the odd cross streets in Triangle City. Interestingly, as I was taking these shots, a lady in a car with a sleeping kid in a car-seat pulled into the lot and basically panhandled me. She had some sob story about how she had locked herself out of the house, didn't have any money and wouldn't be able to get back in until 8pm and she was running out of gas and needed to keep the AC running for the kid. I have no idea if it was true, but the sleeping kid did it for me and I gave her some cash. This is the second time I've been "out-of-gas" panhandled taking these pictures. I don't know if I just naturally look like an easy mark, or if something about a guy out snapping pictures in the heat suggests a certain lack of common sense.

UPDATE 23 September 2009: Updated the closing date to "mid-1980s" based on commenter fw's story.

John Paul's Armadillo Oil Company was one of those places that never registered with me. First, there was the name, which didn't give me a good idea of what to expect. "Hmm, southwest? But then why drag the Pope into it?" Second, it opened while I was living out of town and third, it was in the Vista so parking was an issue.

I'm not sure if John Paul's started in Greenville and expanded to Columbia or vice-versa, but there's apparently still one up there.

As you can see from the facade work currently being done on the building, it was at one time the Royal Crown Cola Bottling Co, and if there's anything more Southern than RC Cola, it could only be RC with a Moon Pie. I would have to guess from the style that the RC incarnation may go back as far as the 30s or 40s. I'm saying that the John Paul incarnation closed in 2006 based on this restaurant review, but in that case it seems odd that there are still chairs inside three years later.

(Hat tip to commenter Tom)
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I don't run this blog to make money, which is good, because it doesn't.

On the other hand, if it did make some money, that certainly wouldn't be unwelcome. I would gladly do a seven figure deal for the movie rights (I would insist on Speilberg directing..), and who knows, more realistically, I might try to shop around a Columbia Closings book someday.

I went so far as to sign up for Google Adsense, and may actually turn it on at some point, but that requires some work with the theme and HTML, and looking at Internet chatter it appears that a blog targeted at a 40+ demographic in one medium-sized city is not going draw the traffic to make it worth-while. Now, don't take that wrong, it's already worth-while for me, and I'm happy to have each and every one of you Columbia Closings readers and commenters!

What I can do fairly easily is open a Cafe Press store. Cafe Press is a web shop that will put your designs on products of your choosing -- the standard set of merchandise: Tee shirts, cofee mugs, postcards, prints, wall clocks and the like. Now, I don't really have designs per-se, I just have pictures, but some of them I like pretty well, so I've set up an initial shop with some Columbia landmark products, as well as a bit of coastal scenery from Pawleys Island. If anyone actually buys anything, I'll be adding some more, if not, well, as W.C Fields said:

If at first you don't succeed...try, try, again. Then quit. There's no use being a danm fool about it.

I believe Cafe Press to be a reputable operation, so I expect that deficiencies, if there are any, will be due to my pictures not being as exemplary as I had thought, but in that case, they have a 30 day return policy.

Anyway, take a look here, that's always free!

I can't find the web page right now, but at one time when I was googling around for Columbia Drive-Ins, I found a site claiming that one had been out on the Sumter Highway. A few weeks ago, I went looking for it, driving down the Sumter Highway from I-77 to US-601.

As we used to drive that way to the beach all the time, I was not surprised to find no definitely identifiable drive-in (since that's the kind of thing that sticks in a kids memory), but I saw several spots that I felt could have housed a drive-in at one time. This one struck me as the most likely. It's on the right side of the road if you are headed towards Sumter, and I believe it is closer to US-601 than I-77.

The reason it looked most likely to me was that I could almost see the remaining building on the lot as some sort of ticket booth, with the burned down building behind it as a concession stand, and the vacant swath as the parking area, with the screen being back by the woods.

Am I completely off base here? Is anyone familiar with this lot?

(If it turns out it was a drive-in, I'll adjust the post title later).

The last time I posted about a car lot, it was one which had gone under on Two Notch Road, as have several others I've posted about here. This one has actually moved to Two Notch, albeit to a tonier area out near The Village at Sandhill.

In fact, Broad River Road itself seems a bit like the distressed stretch of Two Notch Road. It's hard to think of a part of it that's doing really well. With the almost total demise of Intersection Center and the decline of Dutch Square the whole corridor is hurting. The part with the new Food LIon down towards Greystone seems to be doing OK, and maybe way out in Irmo there are some thriving areas, but it seems like a major road with such good Interstate access (I-20 direct, I-26 from Bush River & St. Andrews Road, I-126 from Greystone) should be doing better.

UPDATE 4 March 2010 -- It's now Pro Bowl Motors:

I am not old enough to remeber the 5 Points Theatre actually operating as a theater though I have been vaguely aware of the building all my life. According to this site, the place opened in 1939 but by the 1960s had become too small to match the evolving theater market. You should definitely check out that link, as it has a killer picture of the place from back in the day, as well as part of the surrounding neighborhood.

Although the "theater-ness" of the place has been somewhat restored now, it currently operates as a bar called Red Hot Tomatoes. I don't know much about it except that googling the street address turns up that some sort of celebrity was in a fight there once.

This little hole-in-the-wall deli near Wal Mart on Forest Drive got a number of really good reviews. Apparently it was mainly a Polish deli with some Latin influence and really good Cuban sandwiches. I kept meaning to go by sometime for lunch, but never did actually make it.

UPDATE 1 Oct 2010 -- Ela's (and the Sprint store next door) are now part of a 24-hour fitness center:

UPDATE 6 December 2017: Modified the street address to suite-last format and added tags.

This hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant sat at the apex of River Road & Sunset Drive, just across the street from the old A&P and Edna's Drive-In, sharing a lot with Buck's Sport Shop. I recall the building as being rather small, and parking quite limited (though I never stopped for a first-hand appraisal).

At some point in the 1990s (or possibly the 1980s) the place burned down, and nothing else has ever been built on the lot. There is currently a Great China restaurant in West Columbia on the Charleston Highway -- I don't know if it is related to this one or not.

I find it rather odd that someone cared enough to white over the sign, but not enough to take the sign down.

Quicktime VIdeo:

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As far as I can tell, the old Carver Theater at 1519 Harden Street is currently vacant. This building was once one of the only two black theaters in Columbia during the years of Jim Crow. In the Waverly neighboorhood, and adjacent to the historically black Benedict and Allen colleges, the theater also had live talent shows as well as motion pictures.

I believe I can recall this place still being in business as a theater while I was growing up. This site says it closed in 1971 but this one suggests that it was open as late as 1974. My copy of The State movie listings for 15 April 1973 does not have an entry for The Carver, which supports the earlier date though I suppose they may not have advertised there.

There are a number of write-ups on The Carver Theater online as it is in the National Register of Historic Places. Here is one, here is another, and here is a third.

After the theater closed, the Agape Church moved in starting in 1998 and stayed for several years. The entry in the National Registry states that the current owners

I certainly wish them success!

UPDATE 2 September 2022: Interesting! The State says that Allen University will be re-opening the Carver as a first run theater, and venue.

Also adding map icon and updating tags.