Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

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.

It appears that China Dragon restaurant on the corner of Farrow Road and Beltline Boulevard is gone. When I took these pictures, it was after the return date stated on the vacation sign, but the phone had not been disconnected, so I held off posting. Now the phone is cut off and when I drove by this evening, there were a couple of cars there with people who seemed to be looking at the property (though there is no "For Sale" sign).

I never ate at China Dragon but the building has been there forever, and stuck in my mind as a kid because of the rocky exterior. Since we went down that way so seldom, I had a poor mental model in my mind of exactly where it was, and would always be surprised when I saw it again.

The building design is clearly the same as this much restauranted building on Decker Boulevard, so going by the comments there, it was probably originally a Popeye's Chicken.

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You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, you don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger, and you don't open a restaurant at 2630 Decker Boulevard.

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Zesto's is a Columbia area chain of almost-open-air walk-up restaurants. The older ones are generally odd in that while there may be a dining room, it does not connect to the order counter (which may or may not even be "inside"). The chain is greek influenced, and probably does most of their business in chicken, but for me the attraction has always been chocolate-dipped soft-serve vanilla cones. There's almost a little ceremony as the server fills the cone, then upends it and dips it into the vat of molten chocolate. Then, you take it, wrapped in a little napkin which soaks up the vanilla which is already running down the cone to your hand and, and bite into the just hardened shell -- perfection.

This lot on the corner of Harden & Blossom streets was for many years home to the Five Points Zesto. I believe the store was actually built as a Zesto and had a large ice-cream cone "statue" similar to the Triangle City store in Cayce. Although I typically went to the Forest Drive store across from Richland Mall for my chocolate-dip fix, I recall being quite sad when the Five Points store was demolished. What was even sadder is that the location would probably still be viable as a Zesto's, but the store which replaced it, a Record Bar offshoot called Tracks failed pretty quickly. Here's what commenter Hal had to say about Tracks:

I also worked at the Columbia Mall Record Bar. I worked from November of 85 untill the store closed in 91. Brian is correct in that there where two Record Bars in Columbia at the time. One at Dutch Square, which was store #9, and the one at Columbia Mall, which was store #94. The Tracks in 5 points open around 89 or 90, and was the mack-daddy of it’s day. It was the first two story store, which they later regreted because it had no handicap access to the second story, and it was a video rental store. It also got national news coverage when a drunk plowed his car straight trough the Blossom street wall. Hillarious.

At any rate, Tracks didn't last there too long. I forget if there was anything else before the current tenant, T-Mobile, which has been there at least five or more years.

The traffic cones, and the general drab & gray aspect of the picture are due to it being taken the day before the Five Points St. Patrick's Day fest -- what great weather they had this year!

UPDATE 4 June 2024: Update tags, add map icon, correct post title from Zesto's to Zesto.

OK, anyone remember this one? The ad is from the Southern Bell Columbia phonebook for 1963. Given the lead time for a yellow-pages ad, I was probably one when this was prepared, and two when it ran. The address seems to match up with the current Sakura Japanese Restaurant in the remains of the old Forest Lake Shopping Center, behind Coplon's and at the other end of the corridor from the original Forest Lake TV location.

Sakura is the only restaurant that I can ever really recall being there, but I learned from some comments here that at one time the location was Moolah's, run by (or licensed by?) a famous female wrestler. Did Biddie Banquet come before or after Moolah's? My mother used to shop at Colonial Grocery (now Coplon's) all the time so they both must have been gone by the late 60s or I would have noticed them.

I have to say that apart from my whole "I don't like chicken" thing, the bottom line

Shrimp -- Fish -- Chili

sounds particularly unappetizing, and what's the deal with the quotes on "The" Original"?

I do think the chicken art is very nice!

UPDATE 10 Feb 2011 -- Here's the Biddie Banquet location, now occupied by Sakura:

I'm not entirely sure I have the title for this post right. Googling "201 Harbison" Columbia brings up Popeye's as the most common hit, but also suggests the place may have been Harbison Exxon, or Taco Bell. In fact the place does look like it had gas islands. Was it an Exxon convenience store with an attached restaurant which flipped from Taco Bell to Popeye's perhaps?

I suppose if I paid more attention, I would remember, but I don't eat at either restaurant, and I would never stop for gas at that point on Harbison -- it was after 6 when I took these shots, and Harbison was still a real mess. I had gone out to take some pictures of Circuit City, and it was still really difficult to get where I wanted to go in the area across all the traffic.

UPDATE 17 March 2012: Updated the closing date to "March 2008" based on research in the comments. Also added a note that the attached gas station was a BP in the post title.

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

I'm not a big fan of chicken -- in fact, the smell of it puts me off a restaurant. I'm also not a big fan of breakfast. Well, that's not true exactly; it's more that I'm not a big fan of waking up early enough to have time for breakfast. I like bacon, eggs, grits and biscuits as well as anyone. So on those rare occasions when everything comes together and I'm on the move -- Bojangles makes a very good sausage biscuit!

Perhaps not enough other people think so though as this Bojangles location on Saint Andrews Road near the dollar cinemas has been gone for a while now. I'm not sure what the story on the property is. The for-sale (reduced!) sign suggests that it has been unsuccessfully on the market for a while, but I can't figure out why anyone would be doing work on the building in that case as seems to be happening.

UPDATE 7 October 2009: Looks like the building will be The Delhi Palace Indian restaurant. I'm not sure if that means The Delhi Palace will be moving from The Economy Inn on Broad River Road, or if this will be a second location.

UPDATE 10 November 2009: Add street address to post title.

UPDATE 23 February 2024: Adding map icon and updating tags.

I believe this restaurant, on Decker Boulevard in the plaza with Rite Aid and Food Lion, was originally a Burger King. As I mentioned in discussing the vanished USC Burger King, once upon a time, all Columbia area Burger Kings were closed in a franchisee/corporate dispute. I believe that this one closed then and never re-opened.

After Burger King imploded, a Zesto's set up shop. Zesto is a local, greek-influenced fast-food outfit that has a number of locations in town. I believe chicken is their big selling point, but for me it will always be the chocolate dipped soft-serve cones. During the ongoing general flight from the Decker Corridor, this Zesto joined many other Decker restaurants and moved out on Two Notch road. Evidently they did not move far enough out, and with their new fortunes tied to a dying strip-mall, they did not last too long (that building is now a matress store).

Anyway, a couple of years after Zesto left, the current occupant, a Vietnamese "Pho" restaurant set up shop in the building. I've eaten there once, and found the Pho very tasty (admittedly I have no standard of comparison there) though they do limit you to one refill on the ice tea. I could be wrong, but I believe this place may be the only solely Vietnamese restaurant in town.

UPDATE 1 June 2019: Add tags, map icon.

UPDATE 4 June 2024: Update tags.

Commenter Dennis sends this picture noting:

There was a Yogi Bear's at the corner of Two Notch & Decker. Where K-Mart's parking lot is.

This sign is actually in Hartsville, and the store there is about the last one in the US. The one in Columbia had a sign identical to this one.

I don't recall this place in Columbia; I know several things have come onto that K-Mart corner though. The one in Hartsville I have seen many times -- we drive by it on the way to visit our cousins there. I believe they still prefer the chicken there over other larger brands like KFC and Church's.

UPDATE 22 June 2010 -- I get a lot of hits looking for Yogi Bear's Honey Fried Chicken. Just for fun, here are two pictures (like Dennis's above) from what I believe is the last Yogi Bear's still in operation. It's located in Hartsville South Carolina at 514 South 5th Street:

UPDATE 11 August 2022: Added the new picture at the top of the post which was sent in by Jimmy Freeman who says: "[ ] as you can see...... it was located in Winn Dixie shopping center next to that bank. When Columbia Mall was built, Winn Dixie was moved". This is actually a bit differently located than I had remembered it. Big thanks to Jimmy!

I'm also adding a map icon based on the location of Baker's Sports Pub, which seems to be pretty close to where this was.