Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

When Wendy's first arrived in Columbia (at two notch in Dentsville), it was one of my favorite places. You could place your order, pay, and pick up a, good, customized, burger almost without slowing down. Of course, I was only about 12 then, so my tastes were bound to change, and anyway the stores seemed to get slower and slower as the years went on. So it is that I believe the most recent Wendy's burger I've had was about five years ago on a trip to Aiken.

Still, even though I wasn't stopping in, I've always been surprised to see the stores close, first on Two Notch, then at the beach, and now here on Beltline by Richland Mall. They did a very fast tear-down of this store to include signage, order boards and drive-through menus. Looks like the register is still booted though..

(Hat tips to commenter Chris & my sister)

UPDATE 26 March 2014 -- Some daylight pix:

It's not clear to me how a play area could be "out of order". I suspect its more like the area didn't get enough traffic to make paying to keep it clean worthwhile.

(Hat tip to commenter Matt)

After a bit of a kerfuffle with Richland County, the Palmetto Table Tennis Club ended up opening a ping pong plaza at Richland Mall, just behind the old TGI Friday's and in-between the elevator column and the entrance of the old Blacklion.

It seemed a nice use for an empty space, and there were perhaps half a dozen or more ping pong tables there at one time. When I went through in early December however, the plaza was completely bereft of tables (though all the posters and signage were still there).

UPDATE 19 December 2013: Well, I don't know what was going on, but the tables are back!

Sadie's, in the old S & S slot in Richland Mall is closed again, this time for good (though the sandwich-board sign remains optimistic). They had closed once before a year or so ago for a change of ownership, but apparently that didn't help in the end.

(Hat tip to commenter Matt)

Well, of course I never thought to get a picture of them, but every year since the 1980s, the main elevator court at Richland Mall hosted a full orchestra of animitronic bears playing Christmas music. The signage proudly announced that the conductor bear who stood with his back to the audience benches (which were in front of Barns & Noble facing the elevator) was 'Leonard Bearstein'.

Because, you know: Richland Mall, there was never a crowd for the bears, but generally there would be a couple of kids and parents, perhaps heading to or from Gymboree sitting on (or running around) the benches.

I don't know if there was too much wear-and-tear on the bears, or it's just that nobody cares anymore, or the last guy who knew how to put them together retired, but this year, the bandstand is not in evidence, Leonard Bearstein is not tapping his baton, and the holiday decor is Christmas trees only.

Beltline Auto Brokers certainly wasn't the first operation in this sort of sprawling building on Beltline just past the old Kim's Beauty, but it is the most recent.

Interestingly, I am not able to locate a listing in the phonebooks I have at home to say when it closed. Also interestingly, surprisingly few businesses have "Beltline" in their name.

I noticed a sign on the door of Palmetto Carpet Co. near the intersection of Beltline and Devine the other day, and stopped to check it out. Unfortunately I did it rather poorly as I somehow failed to get a closeup of the door sign itself, and my memory fails on some of the details.

The gist was that Palmetto has joined forces with another flooring company and has moved to a consolidated location, the where of which escapes me...

UPDATE 9 December 2013 -- Here's the sign I mentioned. The new address is 4884-G Sunset Boulevard:

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According to their phone ad, PAL Travel has been around since 1976. Since this year's phonebook came out (February 2012), they have elected to consolidate with the AAA Folks at 4526 Forest Drive. You may recall that address as it was very nearly totally destroyed by fire a while back, the results of which you can see at the link.

It's been open again for a while now and all is well:

Here's another Columbia area Burger King getting a facelift.

This King used to be a regular Sunday lunch destination for our family. I particularly recall going there during the odd "Buy a burger, get a Neiman" promotion BK had during the 1970s. The location on the corner of Two Notch and Toronto gave the store a "sneak up" route which consisted of turning onto Dubard from Beltline and then onto Toronto, a route we kids always insisted our parents follow. Or I did, at least. Later we "moved up" to Quincy's for Sunday dinner, and I have hardly set foot in a Burger King in years.

UPDATE 15 January 2013 -- As of the evening of 14 January, this place was open again: