Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Burro Loco is a restaurant that has always interested me, because it seemed like it should be good, but never was. I have long had this place on an informal timeline where I would stop by about every five years to see if it was there yet, and it was due probably this year, but now it looks as though I will not get the opportunity.

The closing message on the restaurant site is pretty bland and noncommital (though it is nice that the staff were relocated). The Sun News essentially printed the same press release with no further information.

I find several things a bit curious however. First, there is no signage at the restaurant itself. Not your typical Closed for Renovations much less a more informative See us this fall! or whatever. Second, there is no indication at all that any work whatsoever has taken place here, despite four months having passed, and third, the door marquee indicates they were open until 10pm 7 days, not the 11pm weekend closing I would expect for a bar based hot-spot. I'm moved to suspect that the chain acted to stop the bleeding, but doesn't yet really have an idea what to do with the place. We'll see, and I hope I'm wrong as I would like to see this place finally get good.

UPDATE 7 December 2018: The Sun News reports the building is for sale.

Joe Loves was the follow-on in this location to The Ship's Pub, which was the follow-on to Sam's Corner for which the building was built.

I noticed Joe Loves around New Years of 2018, and according to The Hilton Head Island Packet, it had opened here on 5 December 2017. What I did not know was that it had actually relocated from Ridgeland, which, if you look at the map, is quite a good distance away.

Given that the real estate sign mentions that the fixtures are all in place, I expect to see another restaurant here before too long.

UPDATE 9 June 2026: Add map icon.

Ship's Pub was the follow on to Sam's Corner in this Pawleys Island/Litchfield location. I never ate there but I would notice the building driving by, and it seems to me it closed last fall, and that I saw a truck carting stuff off in November.

Now it is open again, this time as Joe Loves Lobster Rolls, which is rather interesting as lobster is not normally associated with the South Carolina coast.

UPDATE 23 February 2018: Added top picture from 17 January 2016 of the place open.

UPDATE 9 June 2026: Add map icon.

Speaking of Myrtle Beach megastructures, one of the most iconic was knocked down last fall: The Hard Rock Cafe pyramid at Broadway At The Beach.

There are tons of articles about this online. Here's one about time time capsule, here's one about the final days, and here's one about the demolition. I've seen it claimed in more than one of them that nothing was wrong with the pyramid, but you have to wonder: to abandon such a well known landmark just seems odd if there were no pressing issue.

In the event, I only ate there once, probably a year or so after it opened, and to be frank, I remember very little about it -- just that I thought it was overpriced for a pretty standard burger given that sitting close to Joan Jett's pants or whatever didn't do much for me. Sort of like Planet Hollywood in that respect I guess.

The new location a few doors down opened on 7 October 2016, but I have not seen it yet.

What with all the chatter lately about Sears and Kmart I thought I would *finally* get up these shots of the former Kmart at Inlet Square in Murrells Inlet. Part of the delay was I thought I had some other shots with the closing signage up somewhere, but if I did, I can't find them.

Anyway, this store opened, in the 80s as I recall, with great fanfare as it was the first Kmart anywhere to be attached to a mall, all the others up until that point being freestanding. That meant it was a bit of a square peg in a round hole in some ways: for instance, you could not take your shopping carts from Kmart into the rest of the mall (other than directly to and from the entrances).

The experiment apparently worked (for a while) as a similar attached store later opened at Briarcliff Mall (now Myrtle Beach Mall) though it too is now gone.

Here is a contemporary WBTW story on the store closing. It's particularly interesting as it gives the viewpoint of another merchant in the mall, who is saying essentially "Well, it's hurting me, but at least we still have Penny's, Belk and the theaters", the first and last of which have both now also closed..

I believe there is now a Planet Fitness in this space, I will try to get some shots next time I drive by (hopefully in the daytime).

UPDATE 7 October 2019: Add map icon, update tags & add full street address.

This year the annual Brookgreen Gardens Nights of 1000 Candles festival is set up a little differently in that you need to buy your tickets online in advance. This was done to prevent overcrowding and expedite the often rather tedious entrance process. It worked well, but I think they may have perhaps shot themselves a bit in the foot income-wise because it did seem to to reduce the crowd a good bit from previous years. At any rate, I chose 2 December this year, and the night was quite comfortable, not as cold as some years where I could barely feel the camera buttons through the frostbite, nor as warm as one or two years when I didn't need a jacket at all.

There's always a bit that's different or new every year, but this year the changes were fairly modest: I think the only one that really comes to mind is a new field of staked candles on the green space in front of Pegasus. The vintage christmas display did have some new roller coasters on the Lionel display, and they really zipped along!

The festival is running weekends through 18 December, so if you have some spare time, and are in, or can get to, the area, I highly recommend it.

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Well now, despite my taste in music, I'm probably the last person in the world to walk into a surf shop. So when I noticed that WallerBears in Myrtle Beach was closed (sometime after 18 June 2016 according to blog), it was not because I regretted missing the chance to freshen up my water wardrobe, but because I missed the sign, which impressed me enough several years ago that I took quite a few pictures of it:

This old building had been a number of things over the years, most of which I cannot at all recall, but I think at one time it was a "reproduction" furniture store, and at another time an arts & crafts store.

In fact, it was in that later incarnation that was the only time I went inside, and then only by mistake. I believe it was in the 90s, and the south strand did not yet have a lot of options for coffee. Certainly there was nothing like today's environment where every McDonalds has decent specialty coffee (and excellent regular coffee). I don't believe that Latte Litchfield had yet opened, (though the Chocolate & Coffee House in the Litchfield Exchange a mile or so north had). At any rate, to get back to the story, I was driving back to the Island and saw a sign on this building advertising Cappuccino, and thinking a late afternoon caffeine fix sounded pretty good, I turned in.

Well, as it happened, I had misread the situation, thinking that the whole building was one business, when in fact it was two. The arts and crafts store was in main front part, while the cafe operation was in the attachment to the rear, and was closed for the day, something of which I was unaware. In fact, the arts and crafts operation was closing too as it was, I think, 6pm, and as I stepped inside, the guy was turning off the lights.

He promptly turned them back on, showing rows of items I had no interest in buying (not that it was bad stuff, but I was just looking for coffee) and starting a speil about local craftsmen. In the end, I felt bad enough about causing him to re-open when he was obviously ready to leave for the day, especially when I had caused him to do so through my mistake, that I ended up buying a hand painted sheet-metal lizard magnet to make myself feel a little better about putting him to the trouble and hopefully to make him feel I had hadn't totally wasted his time. The lizard actually turned out to be a cheery little piece that is still on our refrigerator.

Both the craft store and the cafe closed fairly shortly thereafter, but as you can see from these pictures, both spaces were reoccupied, and lizards continued to be associated with the property.

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I wondered at this little place when I drove by in early 2012. Apparently it was part of replacing three different former operations on the same property

The Kickin’ Horse stayed empty for a number of years. I always hoped that something fun would pop up there… and now it has. Where the Tackleshop was, there is now The Lowcountry Mermaid (which carries new and used furniture, home accessories, etc.). The small restaurant has been taken over by the Funky Little Kitchen (great burgers!) and I just recently heard that the stages out behind the place have been taken over by Awendaw Sound

The location, on US-17 between Georgetown & Charleston is rather rural, and I wasn't sure that anything as quirky as the shop looked to be could make it there. It appears, unfortunately, that I was right as according to their Facebook page, they closed down sometime soon after 25 April 2012.

Murrels Inlet's hardluck mall Inlet Square took another blow in May with the closing of Frank Theaters.

This is actually the second set of theaters in this spot. I don't think I did a closing on it, but for many years this site was a Regal Cinema, and the setup kind of used to amuse me, since they often tore your ticket at the window and had no ticket taker inside. I'm sure many a teen just wandered in, and into a any showroom despite any lack of money or sufficent age for an "R" film.

After Regal closed, Frank Theaters leased the spot and did an extensive remodel for their cinema/restaurant/bowling/arcade conceptCine Bowl & Grille. I don't think the airport type restaurant and bar was really credible in the area, but the bowling alley portion seemed to do a good business as did the movies from what I could tell. There was no "attraction" screen like an "Imax" or "RPX", but it was all digital, and had pretty comfortable seats. I'm trying to recall the last movie I saw here, which would have been around Easter, but I'm drawing a blank.

At any rate, I was pretty surprised on my last trip around Memorial Day when I was googling movie times and nothing was coming up in Murrells Inlet: The Sun News has the story. On reflection, however, should have seen it coming. Several years before, I had seen this story about how the theater was way behind in lease payments to the mall. Since the place stayed open, I figured the two sides had worked something out. Apparently however, the theater was playing the same game as Borders Books, the "We're too important to you for you to kick us out" ploy. Given the sorry state of Inlet Square, you might almost expect that to work, but in the event, not.

In the past, when we stayed on Pawleys, we had the options of movies in Georgetown (The Hub), Litchfield (Tara), and Surfside (Deerfield Cinema), all south of Myrtle Beach. Now, the closest place is Market Commons.