Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I am pretty sure that It's A Wrap Cafe in Topspin Plaza never opened. According to ColaDaily, they were trying to move here from Atlanta in 2020 -- probably about the worst time since the Great Depression to open a restaurant. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but in the end they are back in Atlanta, with this comment on their Facebook:

It’s a lot of you that seem to think we’re posting from South Carolina! We are IN ATLANTA!!! Link in bio! SOUTH Carolina missed out because they…. 😩 we will just say it wasn’t in GODS plan! 😉

So apparently they took the long way round, but it seems to be working out for them, so good. In the meantime, this storefront is available.

The Karate Dojo moved into this space in the fall of 2012, occupying the old Wood Zone space at Sunset Court.

As of now, they have moved about half a block toward Columbia to 2225 Sunset in a building I somehow managed not to get a picture of.

UPDATE 17 June 2022 -- Here is their new building:

I noticed this vacant storefront in McCauley Square on Sunset Boulevard last weekend.

It appears that the realty office has moved to Old Rapids Road, and given that the creation date for the PDF flyer is 28 December 2021, I am guessing that the move took place sometime before that.

The LoopNet listing has quite a nice aerial view of the place, with the signage still up.

Way back in the dark ages when I first started this blog (working by candlelight on a steam-powered computer), I wondered why I wasn't getting any hits or comments. I figured I would eventually get traffic from Google but it wasn't happening, and I felt like I was posting into a black hole. I finally decided I could either give it up, or take a shot at doing a little advertising.

After poking around on their website for a while, I figured that I could afford a month or so online advertising with The Free Times, and looking at their requirements, I came up with this ad:

Although I was really dragging (it later turned out I had pneumonia..) I burned it to CDROM, made an appointment and took it down to this office (which was pretty nice). Things went very smoothly (which was good because I could barely sit up straight), and the ad rep was helpful, looked at the files and got right on it. The next day, as I recall, the ad went up, and almost immediately I started getting comments (I suspect some were from Free Times staff the guy had told about my odd little project).

(It also later developed that I wasn't getting any Google traffic because the default WordPress setting is "do not allow this blog to be searched". Who knew..)

Anyway, that was the only time I went in this office. I know that before this location, they were at Sunset Boulevard near the Chicken Plant, and that after the Post & Courier bought them, they moved to a building on the corner of Gervais & Harden where they are now.

UPDATE 28 March 2022 -- Here is their current office at 2101 Gervais Street:

Rick's was a fishing and ABC store right across Bluff Road from the Columbia Industrial Park. I never went in, but I would see it often driving to and from work a few years ago. This is right next door to the old Cricket Club/Diamonds and the old Grasshopper Club/Vet's Hall. I'm not sure when they closed, but it's been long enough to board the place up and take down the road sign, so I'm going to guess 2020.

Tiger-Rock was in the suite between H&R Block and The UPS Store in the Publix plaza in Irmo: Kennerly Crossing. It appears they were part of a national chain which is still around, but the last events I can find on the local Facebook page are from November of 2021.

Well, it's back to Polo Plaza again for this nail spa next to the former Spectrum. It's a bit unusual that they left some of the neon behind, but as nearly as I can tell looking at the two Facebook pages associated with this place, TLC probably moved in 2016, to 9300 Two Notch, which appears to be the strip mall across from the Big Lots shopping center.

I've never been to this Waffle House at I-20 & South Lake Drive, but I assume it was, you know, a Waffle House, reliable for what it does. It appears that this one is getting the same gut & refit treatment that the one by Texas Roadhouse on Two Notch is getting.