Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

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.

A casualty of the digital revolution, I guess. I would notice Champagne Color from time to time over the years, and would always imagine it as the sort of place where instead of just running your film through the machine and printing whatever came out, they would check each print and dodge and burn-in each exposure as necessary, and if that wasn't true, it should have been.

I myself held on to 35mm for most of my pictures for years after it became clear that digital was not only winning, but had already won. When I started this site, I knew I had to go digital at least in part because I would be at Ritz or the drug-store every day -- it would just take too long, and cost too much.

Closing-Cam 1.0 didn't displace my old Fujica because the resolution was still too low, but Closing-Cam 2.0 (a Panasonic Lumix DMC LX3) pretty much has. My guess would be that this happened to Champagne's customers over the course of several years, and that without the resources of a national chain, they couldn't make the transition to full digital.

At any rate, whether that's a good guess or not, the building has been empty for a long time now. The location is not very easy to get into or good for parking (especially if you are coming from the Dutch Square direction) and I think you would need a "destination" store there to make it viable.

Here's a storefront on Harden Street next to Groucho's that I can't really ever recall seeing before. I suppose that's mainly due to the subject matter -- my eyes tend to glide right over decor stores. My kitchen has a 50 year old sink and counters with a 30 year old stove, and they seem to work just fine..

I'm guessing from the name of this place that it was once on Devine Street, but I don't recall it from there either.

I already wrote about the S & K closing at the Two Notch Road store, so I don't have a lot to say about the Bush River Road closing. I'm still happy with the belt I got at the other store and didn't need to go inside this location, which is good as it was late Sunday and closed anyway.

I will say that if I were going too keep one Columbia store and close the other, I would keep Two Notch and close this one based solely on parking and ease of access. This little strip (which also contains a closed Sounds Familar location) is at the corner of Bush River Road and Colonial Life Boulevard. There is no parking on the Bush River side, and it's not great on the Colonial Life side. Of course, they are closing both stores so the point is moot.

UPDATE 4 June 2012 -- It's now Fashion's Unlimited:

Here's another empty car lot on Two Notch Road (this one is near Beltline). It would be interesting to count them all up some time. If you include Beltline and Decker, I'm sure you could get around a dozen. On the other hand, new ones pop up, and old ones come back, so it's not all doom and gloom.

UPDATE 30 Sep 2010 -- Well, they've knocked down the building now:

UPDATE 25 Feb 2011 -- Well, the new building on this spot is going up pretty quickly. It seems to have car service bays:

UPDATE 11 September 2011 -- It's a car-wash, and it's open:

I believe I only ate at Golden China once, probably in the 1970s, but it was a favorite of my mother's and I know she and my father went there a number of times over the years.

I don't recall much about the restaurant itself -- I believe it impressed me as a perfectly OK Chinese place, but Chinese food is not really something I care for, so I can't say much. I do remember its long running radio commercial which featured a man and a woman trying to decide where to eat, and went something like this:

Man: I could really use some good Chinese food!

Woman: Golden China!

Man: Suuuure. I'll hop on a plane right now...

Woman: Not "go-to-China" Silly, "Gol-den China" in the Boozer Shopping Center!

Man: Oh yeah!

As you can see from the pictures, the building is now an Indian restaurant (with Chinese decor..) which opened last week (25 June 2009). On the one hand, I'm happy because I like Indian food on the other hand I'm sorry to see a longtime Columbia landmark go, even if I didn't want to eat there.

When I was taking pictures for the (final) closing of Stevie B's Pizza at the Forest Drive Wal Mart strip mall, I noticed that its next door neighbor, Check 'N Go had checked and went to 7358 Two Notch. That makes three recent vacancies in this strip, which can't be good (though I expect having Wal-Mart as the anchor makes it more resiliant than a non ahchored strip).