Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Well, this much re-purposed building on Firelane Road, behind Lowe's, the old Spring Valley Theater, and old Byte Shop locations is vacant again. That's probably a good thing in the last few months, as I think Firelane Road has been pretty well shut down for bridge work, or at least there was a detour sign up at Two Notch to that effect for a while. Somehow I never made it to any of these businesses. Granted the bars or daycare would have been a stretch, but an Italian restaurant should have been right up my alley. I guess I was living out of town for its whole lifespan, because I don't recall it at all.

It's a little hard to put all these businesses in chronological order. I have links for two ABC permit rulings that establish that Dazzler's, Inc. was granted a permit on 13 Oct 1994 and L. A. Nights was granted a permit on 17 Aug 1998.

The ruling for L. A. Nights establishes Fatties, Bogie's and Callaros as having preceded Dazzler's, but doesn't give a timeline. It does suggest that all the previous occupants caused parking problems for the local community. Commenter Allie in Have Your Say suggests a 1988/1989 timeframe for Callaros, so I have put it first.

I'm not sure where the Arong Cafe fits into the timeline. I know I always somehow had the impression that this building started as a Korean nightclub, but that would have been a long time ago, and apparently Arong was recent enough to be in some online sources.

The timeline for One to One Daycare and Aunty's Daycare is a bit unclear as well. Apparently both business ran afoul of some regulations you have to follow if you have a private well, One to One in 2004 and Aunty's in 2007.

That would imply that Aunty's was the last business there, except that the surviving signage is for One to One...

At any rate, the last operation was certainly a daycare as the playground equipment is all still in place.

(Hat tip to commenter Allie).

Fernandina Road seems to have been pretty volatile lately with a number of closings and moves. This particular storefront is between the Piney Grove and Harbison exits, and is pretty visible from I-26 though I had never driven down that stretch of Fernandina before. It appears that The Sportsgym has moved to 5000 Fernandina Road, behind Home Depot. This building still houses a thrift store for a very worthy sounding charity.

UPDATE 29 September 2011: Finally add Ebert Sportswear Manufacturing to the post title. (Although my Feb 1997 phonebook gives that as 5000 Fernandina Road).

Here's another storefront in the strip with Clydes / This That 'n'The Other and Miss Sun Fun Headquarters. The last tenant was apparently Liberty Tax Service, a tax preparation chain which still has a number of Columbia offices.

Before that, it's a bit murky in that I can say something that wasn't in this storefront, but not anything that was.

In 1998 (or perhaps late 1997) a party store was trying to locate here, but the liquor license application was contested. According to this SC Administrative Law Court Decision, the applicants apparently gave up on that idea before their appeal and rented the property to someone else. That "someone else" could plausibly have been Liberty, though no name is given.

Liberty had to have been gone by 2006, when tattooing became legal because Cap City Ink applied for a zoning exemption to establish a tatoo parlor at 946, but later changed their minds (something usally harder to do when tatoos are concerned..)

I continue to have a bit of a fascination with Intersection Center. The whole property has been up for sale several years now, but (rather unsurprisingly) it has yet to sell. Fairly recently, the owner (I assume) went as far as to blank out the "Intersection Center" sign on the Broad River Road entrance to the complex, though it is still up on the Dutch Square side.

Despite the rapidly increasing decrepitude of all the buildings in the area, a few stores (or storefronts anyway, I think one may be some sort of church) do hold on. All Breed Dog Grooming Shop is not one of those. I do know it was open as recently as 1998, so I've simply listed the closing date as 2000s.

We used to get our dogs sheared evey summer, but we never had one groomed. It sounds like kind of a poodle thing to me (not that there's anything wrong with that..)

UPDATE 22 January 2020: Add map icon, update tags.

Before the Burger King was built, this lot, on Trenholm Road near Dent Middle School was once a go-kart track. It was a pretty loud and noisy business for a rather staid street, and you have to wonder how Arcadia Lakes and the other businesses in the area felt about it. On the other hand, I can't actually ever remember seeing any of the cars in motion. They were there for a number of years, and must have had customers, but I can only recall driving by and seeing the track and karts, not hearing anything or seeing any races in progress..

I wouldn't have minded going myself, but at the tme, I was perpetually broke, and while riding the karts would have been fun, picking up the latest Perry Rhodan space opera at Capitol Newsstand was a lot higher on my expense priority list.

After the go-kart track closed, the main building was used for another several years as a "Pet Vac" center. I always assumed that to be "pet vaccination", but I suppose it could have been for hoovering up dusty cats instead -- I never went in to see either way.

After the Burger King was built, it closed down for a long time due to a dispute between the local franchise owner and Burger King Corporate. In fact, all Columbia area BKs were shut down during that time, and some of them never came back.

Well, I haven't been able to find out anything at all about Power Drives other than its nameplate is on 128 State Street in West Columbia and that it is not there now. Everything google turns up for that address is for Bearing Supply, presumably a business that could supply you (or your factory) with bearings.

This strip of State Street is an interesting little area, once known, I believe as New Brookland (commemorated in The New Brookland Tavern just north of this storefront). Just south of here is the old mill antique mall, which actually was a (textile) mill at one time, and the other shops in the area are a mixture of the old and new, but all in interesting vintage buildings.

Tronco's General Arts Floors was in Arcadia Lakes in the office/retail plaza which is just behind (or in front of) the Arcadia Lakes lily pond which has been the subject of local controversy lately.

I'm pretty sure I've seen work by Tronco's and found it fine. I know I've seen their truck around for years. Their new location is 5127 Two Notch, which puts it pretty close to The Impulse Club, but I can't quite visualize it.

I have also wondered off and on over the years where the Arcadia Lakes town hall is. Turns out it is in this plaza.

UPDATE 2 November 2011 -- Here are some pictures of the back side of the store (with floor samples):

When a "massage salon" is open until 3AM, one suspects that the massages offered are very thorough. Certainly the late 70s (this ad is from the 1977 Southern Bell phonebook) seem to have been sort of a peak for such. Since then, this building on the south side or Rosewood just west of Pizza Man (and which was pretty clearly originally built as a home) has been a number of things. In particular I recall a record store, which a 1998 zoning board meeting characterizes as selling mostly religious CDs, and at present (though currently it is for sale at $325,000) it houses a recording studio which seems to have a number of telephone sidelines, so -- to reuse a bad joke, you can still reach out and touch someone.

I was looking for the place where The Copper Door was on Rosewood Drive last weekend. As far as I can tell, if I have the right address, it no longer exists. However, I did notice while I was in the area this vacant storefront for Southern Pottery. As it turns out, they are not gone, but have moved to Devine Street. Their web site tells the story. I always liked the smell and feel of raw clay, and enjoyed my pottery class at Trenholm Park (though, frankly, I was never any good at it). It's nice to see someone is still teaching pottery and that we have actual "potters" amongst us muggles in Columbia.

When I posted on Hola Mexico a few days ago, commenter Ken noted that before being a restaurant, the place had been a minature golf establishment.

I don't remember that at all, but sure enough, behind the restaurant you can still see the concrete remnants of the greens. Judging from the playset over to the right which seems better maintained than the rest, I'm guessing that perhaps the course property is now used by the Christian school which shares the strip with the old Hola and the Jamacian restaurant. If so, it's kind of a shame the old greens are gone. It would be really cool to be able to say "My school's playground is a Putt-Putt course!" (And it would be extra super cool if it was one of the ones with the windmills and dinosaurs..)

(Hat tip to commenter Ken).