Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Le Clos was a little French restaurant in a 1906 cottage just across the street from the Hampton Inn in Fernandina Beach's historic waterfront district. I'm not a big French cuisine fan (at least for main dishes), but the pasta looked very good, so I stopped by one night and can verify it was excellent, along with (as you would expect) great bread, and a fantastic creme brulee.

I was surprised then on my most recent visit to see the place with the sign down and stripped internally. At first the story seemed rather clear-cut as described here: The owner decided to close the place, although she was able to place the staff at other local spots. A thread on TripAdvisor suggests a more confusing story, as does the cafe's web site which suggests it may re-open this fall.

Whatever comes next, it appears the building will need some work.

I was in Summerville recently, and noticed this old-school ice cream and fast food drive-through & walk-up on the main drag. It's the kind of place you don't see too much anymore, and apparently was well regarded locally (though more recent reviews mention some slippage). As far as I can tell, they closed sometime in 2022 after February. If you look at the Yelp reviews, you can see that they used to have a nice patio out back.

I'm not exactly sure what the Lodi branding was about.

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Well, it's the summer doldrums, so posting has been light, and will continue so for a while, but here's a bit from out of town.

When I lived in Aiken, I worked in Augusta, so I ended up eating supper over there more often than not, but I certainly did eat at the Aiken Brewing Company a number of times over the years. They had a decent burger, and while I'm no beer connoisseur, I thought the porter or stout was pretty good. I guess I last ate there sometime in the fall of 2022, when it was still pleasant to sit outside on the sidewalk. When I went back recently, I found that the place was closed, and this story indicates that the owner was retiring. More recently, this story says a new restaurant will be locating there at the end of summer, but I did not see any indication of ongoing work, which seems a bit odd.

Looking at the Alphabetical Closings, I see I did not do a post for the 2022 Heroes Convention, though I'm sure I went, as I did last month.

The older I get, the harder it is to get up to Charlotte at a reasonable time, so by the time I got to the convention center, I really only had time to walk the convention floor without attending any panels or events. In fact, I didn't really have time to do the whole floor as well as I wanted to. I tried to make a plan to sweep back and forth and hit every booth, but as I got to the final stages, they called time on the day's session.

My impression is that it was not as crowded as it has been in some past years (not counting the Holiday Inn on Woodlawn years!), and there were somewhat fewer elaborate cosplay attendees.

I'm pretty disconnected from the current era of comics, but I always make it a point to pick up something from the writers & artists who put themselves out there. I got a YA indie novel for my niece, which she won't read, I'm sure, and the below swag which hopefully I will.

Well, this is probably going to be my last Tuesday Morning closing for a while, unless I end up somewhere I don't usually go. This one was in the Food Lion plaza near Carrabba's of US-17 Business in Murrells Inlet. Like the others featuring here recently, it was caught up in the chain's bankruptcy, and was selling everything down to the fixtures at the end. I don't know for sure, but I expect all of the Tuesday Morning locations in the state are now closed.

Ultimate California Pizza is one of the Grand Strand based Divine Dining Group's many concepts, and it's a good one. Their pizza is excellent, and they brew the iced-tea strong. I usually go to the one in Surfside Beach, but in the past I used to hit the ones in Murrells Inlet, or at Market Common fairly frequently. Unfortunely, those later two may feature here at some point as they are now gone.

I never made it to this one, in the Kroger-anchored Galleria plaza in North Myrtle Beach, though I kind of wish I had now, as it appears to have been their Chuck E. Cheese concept, except with more to offer adults. There are some quite nice pictures of the place on website, which is still up. I quite like this one. You can see the place in the daytime with the branding still up on the real estate listing. I find it quite amazing the the whole building is pegged at $11,250. Perhaps it's a typo.

As far as I can tell, it was COVID-19 that did them in. The last post on their blog is from March of 2020, and their last Facebook posts are from April of 2020, where at some point they mention combing operations with the Barefoot Landing location. The real estate listing apparently went up in mid July of 2020.

UPDATE 25 June 2023: There seems to be a consensus that this is a former Showbiz Pizza location as well, so I'm adding that to the post title. I barely ever got up here during the period mentioned, so I don't believe I ever saw it then.

For many years Pawleys Island Plaza was kind of down-at-the-heels strip mall. There was an off brand grocery store that failed after a year or so (Farmer John's?), a small local office supply store, a barber shop, coin laundry and dry cleaner. For a few years the Post Office did operate there in between leaving their original photomat sized building and building the current location across from the Hammock Shops, but on the whole not a lot was going on there.

Things have changed a good bit in recent years as the whole area has gone upscale, and the plaza got a Publix, Dunkin, Smoothie King, Petco, and of course, Tuesday Morning. I went in there a number of times over the years, looking for lampshades and the like, and it was fine, like outlets of the chain everywhere. And like all of those, it is now closing (and may be closed by this time).

We'll have to see what's next. I see the plaza operators have gyms in some of their other properties -- that might work.

Speaking of Krystal, Franco's was the Krystal follow-on in this Murrells Inlet storefront, and if you look closely you can still the Krystal signage label-scar.

I never tried this place out as I have plenty of go-to pizza joints on the Grand Strand, and I've always found pizza described as "New York" to be underwhelming. I can't find any media reference to the place closing, but looking on the dates of Google reviews suggest it closed early this year.

UPDATE 9 July 2023: To become Mulberry Street NY Pizzeria

I never got to go to Wild Water & Wheels in Surfside Beach next to the Flea Market. I would have been in my early 30s when it opened, which is a bit old to do a water park without kids in tow. I always figured maybe I would go with a family group sometime, but it never materialized. The official announcement that the place was closed came last November, but it was apparently pretty commonly assumed before that, as the land had been sold in April. According to the owner, it was a completely financial decision: He would have loved to keep it going, but it wasn't making any money with shorter summers and more competition, and he had to retire the operating debt by selling.

Currently, it appears the 17 acre site will go to housing, but that has not been completely finalized yet.

Here is The Post & Courier on the closing, here is The Sun News, WMBF and WBTW.

Here is a promo video, with plenty of shots of the park in operation:

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I guess you could say PMJ has a gimmick, but it's a pretty good one, and expertly executed. They brought their retro stylings of modern tunes to Myrtle Beach Easter Weekend, and it was a fun way to start off the holiday.

The only thing I don't like about the House Of Blues as a venue, is the lack of seats, so I sprung a bit extra to get a table stool this time around. Still not exactly comfortable, but better than being on my feet for two hours. There were times when the house sound was a bit mushy, but the band was sharp, the singers delivered the goods, and the tap-dancer was unbelievably energetic -- I recommend you catch them next time around.

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