Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Apparently this building, on the South side of Knox Abbott Drive, just below the Crazy Buffett, has a history in financial services.

As is often the case in vacant buildings with custom signs, the existing sign is turned around in the display. I guess this is done to keep the elements out of the display box, at any rate I've seen these reversed signs many times since I started this blog. Anyway, this sign indicates that financial services company Amerifirst Direct once operated here. That would have been before 2008 when Citifancinal is listed in the phonebook for that slot.

Citifinancial either closed or moved during 2008 as it is gone from the 2009 phonebook (There is still a Citi office on Knox Abbott, but I don't know if it is the same operation or a separate one).

UPDATE 28 June 2016 -- Now a State Farm office:

This Dollar Discount store in Parkland Plaza has been "for sale" for a good while, in fact I almost did a post on it before, but they seemed to be in full operation while looking for a buyer, so never did. Driving by tonight, I saw from the banner that they are explicitly closing now. I've never been in this store, but apparently Dollar Discount is a franchaise concept with 140 stores over all and three other stores in South Carolina (Pageland, Effingham and Sumter). I've always liked this kind of store as it gives you a feeling of power to walk in with $5.00 in your pocket and walk out with actual stuff. It seems I can always find something or other that I need or want, and I'll bet the prices are even better right now. This particular store appears to also run a shipping operation called The Mail Room, possibly taking up the slack when the contract post office in Parkland Pharmacy closed.

Once when my cousin noticed an old sign for the company her father used to work for still up on an old barn out in the country, she went to see the owner to try and buy it for her father's birthday. I was with her, and the old gentleman owning the place was a talkative fellow with lots of interesting stories (he claimed that Jimmy Doolittle wanted his help in setting up the Army Air Corps during WWII, but the letter got lost coming from Washington DC to rural SC..). When we asked what the population of the little community was, he said something like "One hundred ninety, same as when I was born. We always figured it stayed the same since every time a baby was born, a man had to leave town". Something of the sort seems to be holding for Parkland Plaza since Ace Hardware is re-opening, just as this store is closing..

UPDATE 29 Oct 2010 -- well the store is definitely gone now:

though it is still listed on the Parkland Plaza marquee:

UPDATE 10 January 2012 -- As mentioned by commenter Andrew, this is now a Radio Shack:

UPDATE 4 March 2013 -- Finally got around to taking a picture of the new (well, not so new at this point!) location of The Mail Room in Granby Villiage on the Charleston Highway:

"Your Host From Coast-to-Coast"

I went looking for this building on Knox Abbott last year, and as far as I can tell, there is nothing at that address now. The postcard certainly makes what appears to be a rather nondescript building look impressive by adding a sharp car and elegant model, even if there is perhaps a touch too much of "the old South" in the pose chosen.

My experience with Holiday Inns over the years has been mixed. I currently seek out the Holiday Inn Express sites, which seem to be uniformly good. The "regular" HIs can be a mixed bag. The one I used to go to quite often in DC invariably had the freeze/bake thermostat system, and at least once seemed to have gotten the cold and hot water pipes running to my room backwards (though luckily, hot was at best "tepid" in that case).

The part of this building at 904 Knox Abbott Drive that is now a cleaners was the original location for Silver city comics, which is now up the street in an old Hardee's building. I used to drive over from USC every Thursday ("new comics day" back then) to see what was out that week. I would park along the west side of the building, and do vaguely recall 906 being the insurance agency though I don't recall Reyland Medical at all. I know that Silver City moved out after a fire, but I can't recall if it affected 906 as well.

Anyway, since I used to go there so often, I always notice the building as I'm driving by, and saw a massage operation setting up shop there late last year. It seemed to be one of those places having a hard time getting started, at least I never saw any cars there, or indeed any sign that it was open. Finally going to Krispy Kreme one evening, I noticed a sign pasted to the door, and figured it had gone under, but when I stopped to take a picture, the sign said something about a "grand opening" instead. I think that was in mid-February. Then when I went by last weekend, I saw the (generously timelined) "Artsy Fartsy" sign you see here.

UPDATE 29 Oct 2010 -- Well, Artsy Fartsy is to be a coffee bar as well as an art gallery:

Here's another old-style Taco Bell that has moved to a new location (739 Knox Abbott Drive in this case) with drive-through capabilities and the new-style chain architecture. There is still an old-style one on Decker Boulevard (though I believe it already has a drive-through) but the ones on Devine Street and Broad River Road are gone and/or moved.

This is really too many pictures, but I like these buildings, and I like clouds. The last picture is of their new location, which is several blocks towards the river.

UPDATE 24 Sep 2010 -- As noted by commenter Jamie, the building has been re-painted, and there has been some work to convert it to a Wata Wing, but that seems to have stalled:

I first wrote about this former steakhouse when Crazy Buffett folded, but it now appears that the second Chinese buffet operation in the building is history as well. I'm not sure why -- it seems like a decent location with good visibility and plenty of traffic passing by and I can't think of any other Chinese buffets in the area. There's the second Eggroll Station on Sunset, but that's not a buffet.

Notice how the left side of the building still proclaims it to be a "restaurante", a bit of signage remaining from the Mexican incarnation of the place..

UPDATE 16 May 2013 -- As mentioned by commenter Andrew, this place is being knocked down:

I'm pretty sure this building, on the North side of Knox Abbott Drive just past Silver City was once a Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits. I think various folks have tagged it as such in the comments, and it has that odd "Why not cover our store with a facade of fake rocks?" 1970s look of the other two older Popeyes locations in Columbia that I know of: This one on Farrow Road and this much restauranted building on Decker Boulevard (which has actually just had the rock facade ripped off in the last month or so).

Currently the building hosts the Vacuum Center vacuum cleaner store, but I'm unsure if this was the immediate follow on to Popeyes or if there were one or more other tenants intervening. I have the vague feeling that Vacuum Center may once have been in Parkland Plaza and that I may have bought a reconditioned Electrolux from them, but that may have been another store entirely. Popeyes in the meantime is still around in some form and has Columbia Stores on Augusta Road and Garners Ferry Road. (And, yes, they spell it without an apostrophe, which really grates on me..)

UPDATE 26 January 2022: Updating tags and adding map icon.

The Shrimper was a lontime seafood restaurant on Knox Abbott near The Charleston Highway. If you've read many of these closings, you'll know I'm no fan of seafood, so I never actually ate at The Shrimper though I was certainly aware of it.

Apparently not aware enough though, as I didn't really notice its passing until quite recently. I don't have a date, but it was recently enough that many online sources still list it at this address.

The new operation is Brunches which appears to bill itself mostly as a breakfast place. I like breakfast in principle, but not enough to wake up early and it it, so I've never eaten there either. (If I'm going to do breakfast, it's usually pancakes and grits at 2am..)

UPDATE 9 June 2010: Added the 1974 Southern Bell Yellow Pages ad.

UPDATE 9 June 2010: Added "Lum's Restaurant" to post title based on comment and 1970 Yellow Pages.

UPDATE 18 September 2020: Here is a Shrimper cup that somehow came to be in my sister's cupboard:

Also updating tags and adding map icon.

I wrote about this storefront before as Parkland Pharmacy. CVS was the successor to Parkland and made what was a rather interesting and quirky pharmacy into yet another chain drugstore.

I'm not a big fan of CVS in general -- for some reason they never seem quite as nice as Rite-Aid or my preferred store, Walgreen's. They do have a nice "no scent at all" liquid laundry detergent though, and this store was fine for what it was.

They have left Parkland Plaza for the new corner lot across the street opened up by the demolition of the Cinderella HoJo. When I took these pictures, there was no indication of what, if anything, would come to occupy this spot. Parkland Plaza is already hurting; they certainly don't need a longterm vacancy here.

UPDATE 24 June 2009: The move is complete, and the CVS is now open at the old HoJo site:

UPDATE 29 Oct 2010 -- To date nothing has moved into the CVS spot at Parkland Plaza:

UPDATE 4 July 2022: Update tags, add map icon.

When I think of "real" pharmacies in Columbia, I have a little mental list. If you were born a bit earlier or lived in another part of town, your list is probably different, but on mine are Campbell's Drugstore on Forest Drive, Liggett's in Trenholm Plaza, Cedar Terrace Pharmacy on Garners Ferry, The Big 'T' on Taylor Street and Parkland Pharmacy.

Parkland Pharmacy was on the other side of town from us, so we didn't get there often, but the times we did made an impression on me. My memory is that it served as much as Cayce's General Store as it did a pharmacy, and the aisles were crammed with all sorts of general merchandise. Also, and this is what drew my attention as a kid, it was a "contract" Post Office, and the back wall was lined with personal Post Office boxes. My aunt in Fernandina had a P.O. Box rather than home delivery for all of my childhood, and I always associated them with exotic places. The idea that we had Post Office Boxes in Columbia, and at a drugstore! was very strange to me. I don't think the store had a lunch counter or soda fountain, though it was about the right vintage for that.

Eventually, the same factors that brought down all the other landmark pharmacies in town brought down Parkland. I recall going there a couple of times in the 80s and thinking that it was operating under diminished circumstances, and finally they took the plunge and let CVS buy them out (or at least I assume that's what transpired). I don't know what happened to all the people with PO boxes there. I presume they were let to keep the same box number at one of the Cayce POs. If not, it will have been a mess!

As I noted recently, it appears that the CVS in the old Parkland Pharmacy slot will be moving. I don't know what will take its place.

UPDATE 29 Oct 2010: The CVS moved some time ago, and to date the old Parkland Pharmacy slot in Parkland Plaza is vacant:

UPDATE 9 September 2011: Changed closing date from "1980s" to 1995 based on commenter Andrew's research.