Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I don't know much about Gilligan's, which was beside the old Sears building and behind the old Punch Line on an odd little isolated segment of Senate Street. It keeps coming up in comments as a place fondly remembered though. I know they had sort of a big "sandbox" in front of the rather decrepit-looking building with a volleyball net set up, and "incentivies" to get folks there. Commenter Dennis notes:

Gilligan’s, A.K.A. Ribby’s, was a brilliant idea by Tim Peterson, but he could not get people there. He asked me once why the great BBQ joints never seem to sell beer (he did) and I’m still trying to figure that out. You’d think that alone would draw a crowd. Not to mention girls in bikinis playing volleyball on the sand, which he arranged to have happen from time to time.

When I took these pictures, I noticed a guy working on the roof (and who was giving me the evil-eye, so I didn't take many shots or get any closer), and commenter John says

I notice the outside has been painted garnet and black and there is a building permit on theoutside that has been issued to the Orion Corporation for the purpose of fixing flood damage.

Is my old hangout about to reopen?

Perhaps we'll see soon.

UPDATE 24 July 2010 -- It's now open as The Cock Lounge:

It's hard to characterize The Joyful Alternative. One commenter called it a "Head Shop", but I don't think that's quite right. "New Age" doesn't exactly capture it either. I guess "Eclectic" comes pretty close.

The Joyful Alternative started in 1970 and was located in the lower left side of what is now the Five Points Starbucks building. My mother liked to go there and browse the handcrafts from around the world, and look through the various prints, candles and statuettes. I liked the various humorous postcards and placards though in general the store didn't interest me as much as it did her.

However, there was always a rather odd assortment of books there, and I remember very well the day I found the old Ace paperback editions of Jack Vance's "Planet of Adventure" books there (City of the Chasch, Servants of the Wankh,The Dirdir and The Pnume). I get the impression from the overall series title that Vance was asked by his editor Why don't you just write a straight SF adventure for a change instead of all that weird stuff with the footnotes? Of course he wouldn't be Vance if he actually did that, but the overall meta-plot of the spaceman trying to get home provided the discipline to keep him from getting bored after he had described all the weirdities of his invented world, and the books are among his very best. (He was later persuaded to changte the title of the second book to The Wannek after being informed the meaning of wank in Commonwealth countries, and not wanting it to sound like a book about 15 year old boys :-)

Anyway, I don't know how that happened, but it was the only time I saw SF books there, and in those pre-Internet days, I never would have known of those volumes at all, not having seen them elsewhere. The store continued into the 80s, 90s and 2000s, but sales gradually declined, and the place finally closed in 2003 with Starbucks moving in fairly shortly thereafter.

So I guess in the end there was no alternative..

I believe this is the Zesto that was on Decker Boulevard. I don't have a lot to say about it other than it didn't last long after moving. I'm not entirely sure why as there should be lots of traffic back-and-forth past it as people drive out to the new retail areas of Two Notch. Spring Valley Commons, the strip mall of which it is part is not in great shape, but I wouldn't expect that to influence Zesto's traffic too much (after all, think of Rush's at Decker Mall). I find it a bit amusing that the space, now a matress store, still has a drive-up window with intact order board:

I'd like one Queen, extra firm, two Kings and a twin please!

UPDATE 6 Jan 2010: Added McDonald's to the post title, also the full street address.

UPDATE 3 June 2010 -- Hola Mexico Mexican restaurant is now in the process of relocating here. They finally have the name on the building:

UPDATE 4 June 2024: Update tags, add map icon.

When I was at USC, this space, on the second floor of the Russell House next to the fast-food area housed the student gameroom. I believe it had pool tables, but this being the 80s, what interested me were the video games of which there were a multitude.

I particularly remember playing Galaxian which was sort of a Space Invaders clone except that the invaders were space-ships and could dive down on you. Galaxian was quickly ousted from my affections however by Gorf a game which itself included a Galaxian clone as one of its levels. You almost never see these games anymore, but my next love (which I played much more at Robos than at Russell House) was another Galaxian follow-up Galaga. I still see and play this game today. (Though not until my hands bleed, I must admit).

I don't know when it happened, but on my most recent visit to Russell House, I found that the old gameroom had been re-purposed into a student government office of some sort, and that a new gameroom named after the old student bar, The Golden Spur had been established in the failed basement mall area of Russell House.

To me it would make more sense to keep Student Government out of sight in the basement, and have folks having fun in the daylight..

When I think of "real" pharmacies in Columbia, I have a little mental list. If you were born a bit earlier or lived in another part of town, your list is probably different, but on mine are Campbell's Drugstore on Forest Drive, Liggett's in Trenholm Plaza, Cedar Terrace Pharmacy on Garners Ferry, The Big 'T' on Taylor Street and Parkland Pharmacy.

Parkland Pharmacy was on the other side of town from us, so we didn't get there often, but the times we did made an impression on me. My memory is that it served as much as Cayce's General Store as it did a pharmacy, and the aisles were crammed with all sorts of general merchandise. Also, and this is what drew my attention as a kid, it was a "contract" Post Office, and the back wall was lined with personal Post Office boxes. My aunt in Fernandina had a P.O. Box rather than home delivery for all of my childhood, and I always associated them with exotic places. The idea that we had Post Office Boxes in Columbia, and at a drugstore! was very strange to me. I don't think the store had a lunch counter or soda fountain, though it was about the right vintage for that.

Eventually, the same factors that brought down all the other landmark pharmacies in town brought down Parkland. I recall going there a couple of times in the 80s and thinking that it was operating under diminished circumstances, and finally they took the plunge and let CVS buy them out (or at least I assume that's what transpired). I don't know what happened to all the people with PO boxes there. I presume they were let to keep the same box number at one of the Cayce POs. If not, it will have been a mess!

As I noted recently, it appears that the CVS in the old Parkland Pharmacy slot will be moving. I don't know what will take its place.

UPDATE 29 Oct 2010: The CVS moved some time ago, and to date the old Parkland Pharmacy slot in Parkland Plaza is vacant:

UPDATE 9 September 2011: Changed closing date from "1980s" to 1995 based on commenter Andrew's research.

As the Christmas season rolls round once more, I am put in the mind of Peaches Records & Tapes. Peaches was a record store chain whose "gimmick" was their easy-to-assemble kits of LP storage boxes. These were of wood and made to mimick retro peach shipment boxes complete with vintage appearing art. (Brian Wilson & Van Dyke Parks had an excellent album Orange Crate Art inspired by the same conceit).

Peaches had only one location in the Columbia area, a large space on the College Street side of the old Sears complex on Harden Street. The store had the not entirely positive distinction of having turnstiles, bag checks, and other theft prevention measures that were quite unusual at the time, but once you got in, it was quite nice. Although they did have a tape section (that's where the whole And Tapes thing came in), their main focus was vinyl, and they had quite an interesting selection. Possibly it was due to their Columbia location being close to USC, or simply that they had more floor space than The Record Bar or School Kids, but there seemed to be a higher possibility of finding something really interesting there than at those other shops.

They also had a large collection of "cut-outs" (new, but discontinued records) through which I loved to browse when I had the time and money (money was definitely in shorter supply than time..). I remember in particular finding an album by the German group Trio which had the killer songs "Da Da Da (I Don't Love You, You Don't Love Me)" and "Boom Boom" which as far as I could tell was available nowhere else in Columbia other than the studios of WUSC.

I mentioned up front that the Christmas season made me think of Peaches. That is almost entirely due to the fact that they were the only store in town which stocked Christmas 45s in depth. Then as now, Christmas albums started popping up everywhere, record store or no as the days turned to fall (though I think they usually waited at least until Halloween was over in those bygone days...). Christmas 45s were a bit more rare however. Of course you could find this year's Christmas songs at The Record Bar, but classic Christmas singles hardly ever. Starting in the late 1970s on cassette, I had been building a Christmas song program, adding and rearranging things a little every year as I found more of the music I wanted. Today we would call it a "mix tape". Anyway, I remember finding a number of tracks in their Christmas single collection that were impossible for me to find otherwise. The Temptations "The Night Before Christmas" for one, Elton John's "Step Into Christmas" / "Ho Ho Ho" for another and Bruce Springsteen's "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" for a third.

As far as I can gather, Peaches made a very bad business decision in the 1980s: They believed that the CD format would not catch on. As it turned out, this was very much not the case, and by the time they saw the writing on the wall, it was too late to retool and the chain went bankrupt. (Of course, even chains that bet on the CD have been killed by downloads, so Peaches would probably be gone now in any event).

After the chain folded, their (almost completely glass-walled) store stood empty on Harden Street for years. It stayed intact for longer than you might expect, then windows started being broken, and the thing became an eyesore. Finally when the old Sears strip was revamped for at least the second time, they knocked down the whole Peaches building, and put up the current Office Depot structure. I guess they shook the tree.

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I only went to the Ace Hardware in Parkland Plaza once that I can recall. I was looking for a present for one of my little cousins, and ended up buying a Radio Flyer wagon. The floor display looked like it would be fun, and in the end, I think it was, but when my cousin and her husband went to take it out of the box and put it together, it turned out to be missing an important piece. Luckily my cousin's husband has a shop and was able to jury-rig the widget needed to hold things together.

From the Ace Hardware stores I've been in, I would say their concept is to have smaller stores than Lowes or Home Depot, but to have more staff interaction with the customers, something like an old-fashioned hardware store on the Hiller model. Unfortunately, I find the way they do it annoying. I'll have a general idea of what I need, and be wanting to cruise the shelves to see if anything sparks the final inspiration on how to do what I want and The Helpful Hardware Guy (tm) will descend on me and start badgering about "what are you looking for?". I certainly want help available, but I will initiate the dialogue when I am at a loss.

I don't know why this location packed it in -- it's not especially near to a threatening mega-store that I can think of, and was convienient to both the Knox Abbot and State Street throughfares. Guess they just drew a duce.

Hats Off to commentor "Larry" for the heads-up on this place!

UPDATE 23 October 2009: Added street address to post title

UPDATE 8 September 2010 -- They (or some ACE -- I assume it's a different franchaise owner) are back:

The building has the look of a Mrs. Winner's which was, I think, a mainly chicken restaurant chain that got in trouble in the 80s. Constantine's was a Greek place, or at least that's the impression I always got driving by. I never ate there because I had Zorba's on Decker close by, and a sure thing "best bread in Columbia" at Grecian Gardens if I were on that side of town and in a Greek mood.

Looking at the odd hours posted here, I'm guessing that this place originally served dinner all week and gradually cut back. I also have a very vague notion that they may have moved for a time to a much smaller building on Meeting Street in a parking lot behind the West Columbia Eggroll Station.

This corner building, now the site of The Pour House was the long-time location of Frank's Hotdogs, yet another of the many Columbia restaurants I was going to "get around to" and never did before it was too late.

From what I could gather in years of walking and driving past, the place was open late-nights and had a diner-like setup with a serving counter and tables around the walls. It appeared that the owner took a certain pride in the "basic" nature of his setup, and for many years, a window slogan proclaimed "No Reservations Required". Curiously, given how uncommon non-Sandy's hotdog places are, Frank's was just down the street from Lum's Hotdogs. I don't know if their years of operation overlapped at all though.

Honestly, how could a restaurant with such a strong concept possibly fail?

I first became aware of this restaurant building on the US 17 Bypass just below the old Myrtle Beach Airforce Base back gate, when it was painted to resemble a Waffle House. It was not a Waffle House, mind you -- it had some non-actionable name like "Waffle Hut", but you have to pity a place that is a Waffle House wannabee. After that incarnation went south (probably about the time be base closed and the bowling alley behind the restaurant went under as well), it became, I believe The Bean Pot. To me that suggests a vegatarian restaurant, but I never looked any closer to see if that were true. The next owners were the ones who hit on the fool-proof plan of combining Mexican and Japanese and the rest is history. Re-fried, fried rice, yum!