Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Carolina Cafe in Westland Square on Sunset Boulevard, which had been in this location since 2014, closed in early December so the owners could concentrate on their downtown business at 925 Sumter Street in Cornell Arms, according to ColaDaily.

The new owner already had plans for the spot, so the storefont did not sit empty for long, and is now open again as Sunshine Cafe & Catering, though the marquee sign has yet to be fully adjusted. ColaDaily noted the opening:

Sunshine Café, located at 2250 Sunset Blvd. in the Westland Shopping Center, will still offer beloved menu items like fresh-baked bagels and paninis, similar to the previous restaurant. However, owner Shutondia Culcleasure said Sunshine Cafe will be incorporating a “sweeter side” to the menu.

“We’ll have a variety of cheesecakes, red velvet, German chocolate, just a whole sweeter side to the bakery,” she said.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

I noticed when I was at Shoney's today, that the adjacent Interstate Battery Center had closed, and was being gutted. The signage is off the building, though for now the road sign remains.

You can't tell it from these shots, but if you look at google maps, you can see from the drive-through on the east side of the building that this was pretty clearly a bank at one time, though I don't know of what stripe.

UPDATE 4 March 2020: Added Standard Federal Savings & Loan to the post title based on the comments.

UPDATE 2 September 2020 -- This place is about to open as a Nick's Gyros & Seafood:

This Sandy's was in Lexington in the same plaza as McAlister's Deli. I never ate at this one -- If I'm going to drive out to this area to eat, it's probably Uno.

Here again is a story on the owner's retirement.

I believe I have now covered all of the Sandy's locations that were open until the end. As I recall, there was a location on Parklane once, maybe I'll try to find that building someday.

This store closed at the same time as the Parkland Plaza store, but I kept forgetting to get pictures of it until it caught my eye the other night. As of now, six months later, the building is still to be re-purposed. WLTX has the story of the chain's foreclosure.

When the Hardee's co-located with this S-Mart closed last year, I figured it was some sort of issue specific to that franchaise, or Hardee's in general, but with the closing of the S-Mart as well, it seems more like perhaps the restaurant lease was just up first and there are plans to re-purpose the whole property.

Looking at the work going on, it appears to be an extensive re-model, but not a demolition and re-build.

(Hat tip to commenter Ed)

UPDATE 4 February 2020 -- Now open as a 7-11/Exxon/Burger King:

UPDATE 2 October 2023: Updating tags.

While I was getting the Save A Lot pictures, I noticed that the pizza joint in the same strip has now been (partially?) reflagged as a King's Pizza.

Their (officially claimed) Yelp page gives the name as King's Planet Pizza and has a link to the main King's web site, which curiously does not list the place as a location (though it does still list Marshall Street, which I think has fallen through). Does anyone know if the Columbia Mall location has come to pass?

Commenter Badger noted the closing of this Save A Lot, which I had not noticed. If I remember correctly, this store was originally in Landmark square.

When the Harden Street Save A Lot closed recently, one of the articles about that noted that 10 other Save A Lot stores had closed in December of 2018. Perhaps this was one of them.

For the store not really having been here for that long, the label-scar is quite distinct.

(Hat tip to commenter Badger)

When commenter Brad mentioned

Circle K/BP at the corner of Old Cherokee and 378 in Lexington is permanently closed.

I had a hard time finding it because as far as I could tell from Google Maps, Old Cherokee Road didn't intersect with 378. I resolved to just keep my eyes open the next time I was out in Lexington, and did see the store as shown in the pictures above (not very good as I was going the wrong way and was too late to turn in).

Anyway, for whatever reason, unless you zoom way in, Google identifies this stretch of Old Cherokee only as State Rd S32-485, though it has no problem with correctly labeling stretches of the road to the west.

As for Circle K, they have been razing and updating a lot of their stores recently. We'll see if this one gets the same treatment.

(Hat tip to commenter Brad)

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While I was at Landmark Square the other day, I noticed an empty storefront near the anchor.

Somehow I missed the story a few years ago, but Shepherd's Corner Christian book store closed in May of 2017 when the owner moved back to West Virginia.

The store started in Cedar Terrace, and moved to this spot in 2002, for a total of just under 40 years of service.