Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Commenter (and blogger) April pointed out this closing of yet another Columbia restaurant I knew nothing about. From her review, it sounds like a nice place, if probably a bit tony for me.

I've heard the phrase "objects of virtu" before (probably in an SF story), and according to the always accurate Wikipedia:

The Italian humanist Giovanni Pontano described these objects as "statues, pictures, tapestries, divans, chairs of ivory, cloth interwoven with gems, many-coloured boxes and coffers in the Arabian style, crystal vases and other things of this kind . . . [whose] sight . . . is pleasing and brings prestige to the owner of the house." They all spoke to the wealth, taste and virtu of their owner.

-- John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination

Judging from the way the peeling front awning reveals a palimpsest Dianne's, I suspect this whole space was once part of Dianne's, but since I've never visited that place either, I can't say for sure.

(Hat tip to commenter April).

Hardcore Tennis was a tennis stringing and apparel store in the old Ben & Jerry's location on Devine Street. The building as a whole (2901 Devine Street) has had quite a few turnovers in recent years, including the aforementioned ice cream shop, Birds On A Wire, and Simply Savory.

Judging by their web site (which has lots of good pictures), Hardcore was the Columbia branch of a still existing Atlanta operation. This 20 December 2011 blog post mentions the closing of the Columbia store, but says local stringing will still be available into April.

Of course, I still think if you want fun game with racquets and a net, badminton is the way to go.

(Hat tip to commenter south mauldin)

I noticed the sale signs up on this Devine Street building a few weeks ago. Apparently Prudential Palmetto Realtors was not the only tenant (I'm getting a google hit for Internet Services Conterra and a lawyer's office as well), but as their name was on the building, I'd say they were the main one, and I'd guess this to be another casualty of the bottom dropping out of the real estate market.

The LoopNet listing suggests that the building has been on offer since at least late August 2011, and that it is a little bigger than it looks as it has a basement.

The sign on this former Bank of America branch dates the closing to 8 April 2011, but if I hadn't seen that, I could have almost sworn I used this ATM several months after that. At any rate, I certainly didn't notice that the place was gone until this week. (And it has been gone long enough that the grass is unkempt, and the building starting to deteriorate [though someone is still tending the flowers in the sidewalk patch]). The building is on an odd triangular shaped lot at the sharply angled corner where Millwood Avenue hits Devine Street, and as I recall, it could be a chore to get in and out of, depending on where you were coming from and trying to get to.

I'm not sure why the branch was closed, but from what I can tell of the news, Bank of America in general continues to be in a pickle due both to bad luck and bad practices during the run-up and aftermath of the housing boom. Anyway, it will be interesting to see what goes in here. It might be a nice place for a restaurant as this stretch of Devine doesn't really have any.

UPDATE 13 March 2014 -- It's to be a Dunkin' Donuts, the sign was going up today:

Half-Moon Outfitters has moved from its location by Momo's, Tabouli and Za's up to 2912 Devine Street, the former location of Columbia Photo Supply and Rogers Brothers Fabrics.

Along with renovating the the 2912 building, they've also built a very prominent 5KWH solar array mounted on a "tree" in the parking lot. (For some reason, the linked article gives the address as 2920 despite the very clear 2912 plaque on the building wall).

It appears they somehow resisted my suggestion to re-brand as Full-Moon Outfitters when they moved into a larger space..

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Commenter Dennis reported this demolition on Rosewood at South Prospect. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the original building, a sharply peaked older brick house, but there is still one in Google Streetview, which you will be able to see below if embedding works correctly and you have flash turned on (I ususally don't):

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Google also thinks that this is the web site for the Athena Technologies with an office in the razed building. It's certainly an Athena Technologies, a "geological consulting" firm that does "vibracore sediment sampling", and as the listed address is in South Carolina, I'm inclined to think it is the right one.

(Hat tip to commenter Dennis)

Well, this is already getting talked on on Have Your Say, so I may as well go ahead and post early today..

I realize this will get pushback from a lot of folks (sorry Jonathan!), but I never really found the food at Yo Burrito to be as good as the chain burrito stores. In particular I thought it didn't come close to my favorite, Moe's. The burritos always seemed on the dry side to me (particularly the rice), and while they had a lot of different types of salsa, they managed to do that without hitting on one I really liked (and they served it in ridiculously small cups). What I did like about the place was that the service was always friendly, and that they had a nice semi-patio area where you could sit and watch the passers by on Devine Street while sometimes a bird would hop in through the window -- I would do that for Sunday lunch from time to time. That may be possible again later -- note the "Thanks for 9 Years" door sign that says a new restaurant is coming this fall.

I'm pretty sure Yo Burrito started in Charleston, and that's where I first encountered them, at their original location near the College of Charleston Campus. There were famously evicted from there when the college took over the building, but were able to relocate in the same area. As far as I know they are still open in Charleston, but I have not checked..

Interestingly, I "learned" of this closing though my daily perusal of Google Analytics -- software that tells me what keywords people are searching for when they come to the site from search engines. Yesterday I got several hits on variations of "Yo Burrito closed", then commenter south mauldin confirmed it earlier today.

(Hat tip to commenter south mauldin).

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It looks like Elegante Wig Gallery, in the old Electrolux location on Devine Street has closed. I'm the wrong gender (and still have my hair so far..) so there's not much more I can say about it, other than it was not there too long as seemingly it started around 2008.

Here's another quick turn-around story (like Al-Amir). I had only just heard that Conrad's was closed, but when I got around to driving by, it was already open again as Henry's.

I wish them luck, but this building has been ill-starred lately. We've had Tiffany's Bakery, Granville's and now Conrad's in just the space of a few years. Maybe it's the apostrophe.

(Hat tip to someone in the comments -- I can't find the name right now..)

I'm not much of a clothes shopper, so I've never made it to Weathers of Columbia on Devine Street at Woodrow Street, but it looks as if you want to do so, you should do so soon.

Of course, I thought that in 2008 too, and in fact almost did a closing on them then..

This year's sign is a bit more definitively worded, though their web site doesn't have any mention of it.