Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

This little building, the parking area limited and hemmed in by the hill rising to Shakespeare Road behind it, has been many things over the years -- mostly in the Bar / Social Club category. What I first recall noicing it as, however, was a long run during the 1970s when it was an adult book store, one of several then along Two Notch (two of which, I believe, remain from that era).

The last time I noticed it in operation was as Moonlight Bar & Grill as shown in the first set of pictures from 24 January 2012.

UPDATE 10 February 2021 -- It appears that somebody plowed a car into this building recently:

Also adding map icon and added "Chateau" in front of "Adult Book Store" in the post title based on the comments.

Well, it's old news now, but Sears at Columbiana Centre is closing, and today was the first time I was able to get out that way to get some shots. I'm going ahead with a pretty-well-in-advance closing to give us a landing page to talk about it, and because it's pretty big news. Hopfully I will get inside shots for an update at some point. Certainly the pre-printed closeout signs in these exterior shots are pretty familiar to us all by now (blurry or not..).

It appears that Belk will be taking over some, though not all of this space.

Frankly, given how hollowed-out the Columbia Mall store is at this point, I expected it to go first.

UPDATE 11 February 2014 -- Here are some interior pix from 9 February:

UPDATE 29 Februayr 2020: Add tags, address, map icon.

I still have not verified that this building was once a 'Brown Sign With The Sewing Machine In The Corner' Factory Outlet", though I will try to remember to check at the library sometime soon. At any rate, Ole Town Antique Mall was definitely what I knew the place as, seemingly forever.

Through no particular intention of mine, (especially as I do like the State Street one), this has turned out to be the only antique mall in Columbia I've visited in the last several years. Over the years, I've bought a good few books and magazines here, including old Sandlapper magazines which have provided ad scans for a number of my posts. The last time I was here, back in early December as I recall, I picked up several WWII era Columbia newspapers, with an eye to using ads from them eventually.

The place had a rather interesting layout which essentially abuted two buildings together with two large sets of doors connecting them. The larger of the two buildings was the one on the North side, and it seemed to be the preferred location, with more furniture and more elaborate booth setups. The rear (South) building had only one main corridor and was more devoted to miscellany.

In recent years, miscellany had spilled out into the parking lot, which was festooned with tables of, well, junk which stayed out 24/7 but, which, as the signs helpfully reminded you, was not, in fact, free.

The whole lot has been posted for sale for many years, and I suppose the owners were content to wait for their asking price and run the business until they got it. When that finally did happen, things proceded apace, and the mall was gone before I actually heard that it had been sold.

According to this notice, the final auction of the remaining merchandise was held on 5 January 2014, and apparently everything is now cleaned out.

As of yet, there is no indication of what the new owners will do with the property.

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GB Shoe is currently closed for renovations, and unlike many places claiming such and then vanishing, there actually are renovations underway. In fact, if things go to schedule, they should be open again next week.

GB is in the old Dutch Square A&P building, and as part of the Dutch Square property, has a really odd address. We are to think of it as 421 Bush River Road, when the actual store has no access to Bush River, and does have access to Broad River!

By the way, does anyone know what GB stands for (or stood for)?

(Hat tip to commenter Justin)

UPDATE 20 February 2014 -- Open again, as promised, and as reported by commenter Andrew:

Woodberry Plaza is on US-1 West of I-26 and East of the Flea Market. I believe the last time it figured here was a mention for the old Winn-Dixie. Family Dollar was to the left of that store, and appears to have closed sometime in 2013 (or, at least it is still listed in the February 2013 phonebook).

There seems to have been a good bit of activity in this general type of store lately, with Dollar General making a big push, and Fred's largely giving up.

UPDATE: Commenter Andrew remarks that this store relocated, so I have added "moved" to the post title.

I noticed this empty building on Millwood the other day, and a little research shows it was Jack Oliver's Pools & Spas before they made their move to the old Good Wood building at 3303 Forest Drive (keeping the location's signature giant rocker).

The new location:

S & S moved from Rosewood to Main a few years ago, and set up shop in the Mast block. Unfortunately, if I recall a couple of articles about the place correctly, the volume of people willing to come to Main Street to purchase art supplies just wasn't there, and they closed the shop with the year.

Here's a wholsale fashion costume jewelry outlet on Decker in the process of closing out. It's just a few units up from the old Columbia Import / Passion location.

This building, overlooking I-77 predates that road, and was originally Galaxy World video arcade.

I did a closing for Harbison Edwin Watts a few weeks ago, leading me to think the chain itself is in trouble. A bit of googling finds that this is, in fact, the case:

Edwin Watts filed for bankruptcy protection in November and later sold its assets to Hilco Merchant Resources and an affiliate of Worldwide Golf Shops for $40.8 million. Worldwide Golf Shops also owns Van's Golf Shops, Roger Dunn Golf Shops, the Golf Mart and other golf retailers.

Under terms of the sale, the new owners said they planned to close 42 underperforming stores. The other 48 locations, including the Tampa Bay area's other stores in Brandon and Palm Harbor, will continue to operate under the Edwin Watts name.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

I noticed the other night that K & M Uniforms in the bulding with Forest Lake Travel and South Carolina FCU is having a closing sale. I believe that includes St. Anthony's as well.