Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Carzzz is yet another vacant used car lot on Two Notch Road. The name makes me think of those rip-off movies you find in the cheap bin at Wal-Mart or at The Dollar Store where you're supposed to think you're getting a Disney movie, and instead it's some Eastern-European knockoff. Lightning McQueen it's not..

This building, on the northwest corner of Two Notch Road and Beltline Boulevard, was once, in the not too distant past, a Payless Shoe Source, despite striking me as a very odd location for such. In fact, the location is awkward for most uses as it is fairly hard to get into and out of.

The Carzzz web site is still online (and copyright 2010). It's interesting that the picture they use there does not have the old UK style telephone booth on the corner of the store sidewalk. I wonder what the story of that is? I have a dim memory that the nearby Chappy's Authentic English Fish & Chips may have had such a thing, but even if it that were true, I'm not sure how it would end up there.

UPDATE 23 December 2011 -- Work is ongoing here, but no indication of what is coming next:

I have some pictures of the sad fate of the British phonebooth I need to upload too.

UPDATE 10 January 2012 -- As mentioned, here are some pix of the demise of the phonebooth, from 1 October 2011:

UPDATE 25 January 2012 -- As reported by commenter Andrew, this is to be a dental clinic. In fact, as I was in the area yesterday, they were preparing to replace the banner type sign for Family Dental with a permanent sign -- something that was accomplished the next time I drove by (though I did not get a picture of it). With the opening of this clinic, the corner of Two Notch and Beltline will have two dental operations, as the old Eckerd on the opposite side of the street is now Small Smiles dental clinic.

UPDATE 28 January 2012 -- All the signage is up:

UPDATE 27 February 2019: Add tags and map icon.

The picture isn't very good because the sun was against me, but Jack's was a local shoe store on Sunnyside Drive (which is a side street off of Forest Drive, just past Richland Mall heading towards town). The site is now either Miyo's or Leapin' Lizards -- I can't recall exactly which space it was. Growing up, we shopped for shoes in a number of places, including Gerber's at Trenholm Plaza and the shoe departments at Sears and other department stores, but I think Jack's is where we most often ended up.

I remember in particular, that Jack's was the place I got my first pair of Sebago Docksides, a shoe so comfortable that I have worn them ever since and that would be over 30 years now. In fact, that was about the only place in town I could find them. Now I either have to get them in Charleston, or order them from amazon.com (which is OK since my feet stay the same size now).

I don't get into the outparcels around the Forest Drive Wal-Mart very often, but I was over there at Radio Shack the other day (needed an audio cable and wasn't willing to forage into Wal-Mart and get it cheaper). While I was there, I noticed that the Shoe Carnival store was gone. It's a fairly big place -- that was a lot of shoes! When I was a kid, I thought shopping for shoes was a step up from shopping for "clothes". Partly this was, I think, because of the neat foot measuring devices which always struck me as kind of futuristic (and that was just the manual ones. The one at Sears on Harden which was fully automatic was a special treat!). It was also partly due to the premiums given out with kids shoes. I remember compasses, decoder whistles and comics coming with Keds, PF Flyers and Buster Browns. I don't think any of that happens any more. It's like cartoons before a movie -- nice but it doesn't help the theater's bottom line. Though apparently nothing helped this place's bottom line.

UPDATE 25 March 2010: Added full street address to post title.

There's a classic cartoon panel from the 70s. The setting is a doctors office. A female patient is sitting on the table and the (male, which rather dates the cartoon) doctor tells her:

I'm sorry Ms Johnson, but we're all out of birth control pills, please wear these Birkenstocks instead.

Whether the shoes got better looking, or men just don't look down that far, the brand is still around.

It's not around Trenholm Plaza anymore though. I don't know if the ongoing renovations cut traffic, or if they had decided to decamp before that, but I noticed when I went to Starbucks the other day that the Birkenstock store was gone.

I wonder what the deal with the palm tree in back was?