Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Well, given the events of last Friday, I suppose it's time to do a closing on South Carolina's biggest white elephant. That's the date that Hard Rock Park "chose" to move from Chapter 11 reorganization to Chapter 7 liquidation. Why?

The park, which said it was worth $400 million when it opened in April, was unable to attract any bidders willing to pay at least $35 million for the park at a Dec. 15 auction, according to court documents.

I find that amazing, even with all the other financial beef-wittery that has come to light lately. The Sun News's stories on the park are filled with comments from the locals to the effect that they could have told the owners what was going to happen, although it also appears that many people did tell them. One of the articles (which I don't have a link to right now) detailed the park's origins: Apparently the pitchmen were thrown for a loop when they were told that the Hard Rock empire was approachable for branding the rock-and-roll park they were pitching. The problem was that they weren't pitching a rock-and-roll park, but a "standard" amusement park, and weren't planning to pitch to Hard Rock, but they brainstormed some rock-related ride names on a lunch napkin and sold the concept. That's the kind of story that becomes a legend if a venture succeeds, and a cautionary tale if it doesn't...

In the event it seemed that the owners were better at promoting to corporations than to tourists, and aside from the unforseeable blunder of trying to launch a venture in the annus horribilis of 2008, they priced tickets too high ($50 + $10 parking), didn't advertise, and didn't promote with local hotels.

I had two chances to visit the park. The first was on the Fourth of July 2008, when I was taking pictures of Waccamaw Pottery. As I was standing in the parking lot, I could see the Led Zeppelin roller-coaster running in the distance, but it was about lunch time, and after that, I ended of taking a helicopter ride over the beach instead. I also had a week to myself at the beach in August, and thought about taking in the park then, but it was hot, I didn't feel like getting on 501 in tourist season, and I figured it would be better in October, but that was not to be as the doors closed in September.

Oh well, it's only rock and roll!

UPDATE: Here's a link from commenter "Beach Guy" that has the origin details I mentioned.

Read the rest of this entry »

The French Quarter Deli was the replacement restaurant at the original location of The Keg O'Nails Deli. I'm still not entirely sure I understand the sequence of events that led to the Keg moving and The French Quarter being established, but it was a big brou-ha-ha and made the paper several times back in the day. You can read some comments at the Keg O'Nails closiing made by people who know more about it than I do.

At any rate, while I did finally get around to eating at the Keg after it moved, I never did get to try The French Quarter before it closed. I'm not sure why it closed either. It is in an odd little section of Rosewood, rather removed from where you would expect a restaurant. I know I would hesitate to fire up a cook stove next to Jim Casey's!

These two green spaces, one beside the Russell House on the east side of the Thomas Cooper Library reflection pool, and the other on the west side of the pool were once USC parking lots. It was almost impossible to find a spot in either lot, but if you could, it was your best shot for actually being able to park "near" to the library.

The parking situation at USC has always been fluid, and it is not unusual for a lot to vanish, but it is unusual for said lot not to be replaced with a building. There used to be a parking lots behind and in front of the Welsh building, for example, but they have all now been built over.

I believe the lot by the Russell House vanished first, perhaps at the time Green Street was closed. I think the west lot lasted a good bit past that. At any rate, if you have checkout privileges at the library, you're going to be be toting those books a couple blocks in most cases!

Electrolux makes a good vacuum. Or at least they did make a good one -- I can't speak to their current models since the 35 year old one I inherited from my mother still works fine.

In fact, the only problem the basic unit ever had that I can recall is that at some point in the late 60s, I think, one of the wheels broke off. I don't recall the circumstances, but I would be surprised if I or my sister weren't involved somehow. My mother was very reluctant to try and have it fixed because she didn't want to be without her vacuum while it was shipped back to Sweden or whatever, and because she figured it would be expensive as well as time-consuming. We must have dragged that vacuum around limping on its three wheels for seven or eight years. Sometime in the 70s, I finally convinced her to take it to the shop. As I recall, once we got it there, the guy set it on the counter, went "hmm", pulled a wheel out of a bin, snapped it on and said that will be $5. We were in and out in ten minutes. I guess there's some sort of life-lesson there.

The Electrolux store was on Devine Street in the space now occupied by a wig shop. They closed sometime in the 70s and the current store is out on Broad River Road at St. Andrews. I don't know if it is the same operation or completely separate, but the one time I went in, it seemed to have a really different attitude -- I just wanted to buy some bags, and I felt like the salesman wasn't going to let me out of there without buying a new unit!

UPDATE 24 March 2011: Added full street address to post title.

For some reason, as we saw here, and here and here, Columbia isn't real friendly for creameries whose name isn't Baskin Robbins. I don't know why this is, but I would say that this Ben & Jerry's location on Devine Stret lasted fewer than five years.

I find there's a certain Zen purity to ice creams like Bryer's Coffee (ingredients: Cream, Coffee, Sugar) and that going much more "upscale" than that yields diminishing returns. I certainly like Ben & Jerry's ice cream -- it just doesn't seem to have the magic qualities for me that some ascribe to it. It was nice having an ice cream store in the area for its own sake though. I'm probably missing something, but with the passing of this store, I can't think of any in the Devine corridor or Five Points. I know there's a Sandy's near the college, and a Coldstone or Marble Slab in the Vista, but that's really another market area.

UPDATE 20 January 2012 -- Looks like Ben & Jerry's was the middle store (2901-B) in this three storefront building, not the end store (2901-C). Here's a better picture of their actual location (which became Hardcore Tennis:

(Also added the full street addres to the post title).

I don't know much about Tickled Pink except that it is apparently a "children's botique" on Devine Street. On my way to lunch at The Mediterranean Tea Room recently, I noticed the "Closing" signs in the window. I'm not sure exactly when they plan to lock the doors, but with Christmas over, I wouldn't expect it to be long.

The Sub Cabin was an interesting little restaurant off of Sunset Boulevard in West Columbia. The place was actually on a side street about a block off the main road and was built as a log cabin. If my memory is correct, it must have been built in at least two phases, because the front half of the building faced a wall that looked exterior and had windows as if it had originally been a porch.

The atmosphere was very casual, and the menu was fairly basic with sandwiches and burgers predominating (I suspect there was chicken as well, but that never registers with me). There were a few unusual touches however. First, each table had a Heinz Malt Vinegar bottle amongst the condiments so you could vinegar-ize your fries like at the State Fair, and second, the hamburger patties were unusual. Almost invariably hamburger patties are round or square, but at The Sub Cabin they were rectangular so they would fit in sub buns. I can't think of anywhere else in Columbia that does that.

At some point in the 90s, the church which was gradually taking over the failed plaza which abuted The Sub Cabin underwent a major growth spurt and bought The Sub Cabin's lot, eventually tearing the building down. As far as I know, the owner never relocated anywhere else -- perhaps it was time to retire. Given that the place was on the opposite side of town I didn't get there that often, but it was a quirky little joint and I miss it from time-to-time.

Ok, it was one year ago today -- That I made the first post on this blog, the mission statement.

Looking at it again, I recall that I planned to make more "current" closing posts, and fewer "nostalgia" ones, but I'm happy the way that worked out. I'm happy as well about those of you who have chosen to read and make comments on this blog.

The process that brought Columbia Closings about was rather indirect. I had a GoDaddy hosting account already that I was using for something different, and I was very aware of blogs but didn't really have any interest in writing about the day-to-day details about my life: There could hardly be a more boring subject, or one I am less willing to talk about. Still I hadn't done any writing beyond computer programs for quite a while, and I wanted to write about something. I also had a couple of Columbia nostalgia pieces in an old notebook that I had written years ago with the vague idea of trying to get them into The State or The Free Times someday, but that seemed unlikely to happen, and would, I was sure lead to a lot of re-writing and trimming to length even if it did. Then came the closings of The Parthenon and some other favorites of mine, making me realize that the city I knew was always changing. Finally, I was sitting at the beach during winter break with nothing to do when all the pieces came together in my mind and the domain name Columbia Closings came to me. It was available, and Barnes & Noble in Myrtle Beach had a Blogging For Dummies book that gave me enough information on WordPress to get started.

In the year since then, I have learned more that I wanted to know about "comment spam", had several panic attacks about running out of material and have taken loads of photos that were so bad I couldn't imagine what I was thinking. I have also learned from some comments much more than I ever knew about certain places in town, and indeed about places in town I had never heard of at all.

And if I have failed to leverage the experience into total world domination or Daffy Duck levels of financial renumeration -- well, that will certainly come in year two!

Merry Christmas everyone!

I hope today finds you with those you love.

Posting will probably be light for a few days.

The Forest Acres area used to have several Pizza Huts. There was one on Forest Drive more or less across the street from where Golden Corral is now. There was one on Garners Ferry about where Ruby Tuesday is now, and then there was this one on Beltline in between D's Wings and the Japanese steakhouse.

I was noticing that Casa Linda looks a bit like an old-style Pizza Hut (though with some additions) and that this building is one of the newer style Pizza Huts, so it's possible that they moved here from the Casa Linda building. However, I have no recollection of any such thing, so that's just speculation.

At any rate, this Pizza Hut was part of my ongoing disenchantment with the chain, becase the service was consistently... not good. In fact this store had an innovation I had not seen before, and have not seen since: A Neon Help Wanted sign.

Honestly, do you want your customers to notice that your help turns over so often that you have a built-in, lighted, Help Wanted sign? Much better to just continue to tape a paper one in the window every week. That will go below most people's radar.

After this place went under as a Pizza Hut it became a Rising High. This was sort of interesting because it was one of the most protracted re-purposings I can recall. My memory is that the Coming Soon Rising High! sign went up at least a full year before they got around to opening, with the actual work seeming to happen on a very off-and-on basis. I suspect that opening this store while also trying to cope with the road-work on Harden Street was what drove Rising High under. At any rate, this store didn't last long.

I think there may have been another operation between Rising High and the current tenant, Shane's, but if so I can't now recall what it was.

UPATE 26 June 2023: Updating tags and adding map icon.