Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Kelly's on Washington wasn't really on my radar, other than that I would wonder about it sometimes as I drove home from the Mellow Mushroom at night. The Free Times has the story on the closing.

Seeing the building in the daytime, I really like it. This SCDAH write-up gives some of the building's history:

Built in 1909, this commercial building became a significant part of the Washington Street business district. African-American businesses, professionals, and institutions in the North Carolina Mutual Building provided needed goods and services to Columbia’s African American population during the years of Jim Crow segregation in the South. In order to deal with segregation, Columbia’s African Americans formed many of their own institutions and businesses to serve their community. While these institutions and businesses were located in several areas of the city, the main concentration was in the Washington Street business district, the city’s black downtown during the period of Jim Crow segregation. The North Carolina Mutual and Provident Association built the North Carolina Mutual Building. African American businessmen in Durham, North Carolina founded this life insurance company that became the largest African American owned life insurance company in the United States. Built at a cost of around seven thousand dollars, the structure included two stores on the first floor and nine offices on the second floor. The company would use three of the offices and rent the others. Though it sold the building in 1920, North Carolina Mutual continued to maintain an office in it until the mid-1930s. The building is a rectangular brick commercial block with three stories. The first two floors are visually distinct from the third floor which is a later addition. Listed in the National Register January 20, 1995.

(Hat tip to commenter Justin)

This was the follow-on operation to BJ's Cafe, and looks to have been open only during the spring & summer of 2016.

As commenter badger speculated it is now to become Chickadees Diner location and according to their Facebook they hope to be open at the start of October.

(Hat tip to commenter Justin)

The current location of Bogart's in West Columbia has been purchased, and the building will be torn down to furnish more parking for the adjacent Zesto. According to West Metro News, the owner is looking for another location, but as of late August had not found one.

Update 8 November 2022 -- Changed "Moving?" in the post title to "Moved", add map icon. As commenter Aj mentions, Bogarts did, in fact, successfully move, and the new location is 2710 Emmanuel Church Road. Here are some pictures of the new location:

If you look way in the back left in the first shot above, you can vaguely see the Buddy's storefront. For some reason, when I went by this little Lexington plaza the other night, I was thinking Buddy's was in the slot next to Brueggers and did not take any pictures of the right storefront. (I certainly should have known better, as I did a closing for Mr. Hibachi which was the real former tenant next to Brueggers..)

Anyway, the reason I was there at all (aside from pizza at Uno) was this little article from The State, noting that Buddy's Saucy Dogs had closed down, and is to be replaced by an "artisan taco restaurant, One Taco, Two Taco".

I like hotdogs; I don't know why I very rarely get them from a restaurant. I guess I automatically think of cooking them over a fire on a stick, or over the burner on a fork..

UPDATE 10 October 2016 -- Signage for One Taco Two Taco is up. Interesting that they are going the full bar route. That puts them up with Cantina 76:

This small Southern breakfast and lunch restaurant opened in April of 2013 as an extension of the original West Columbia location. Given the location and the fact that I rarely make it up in time for breakfast when I'm on my own schedule, I never had an opportunity to stop by though I do hanker for grits every now and then.

According to the linked article, Compton's replaced another breakfast oriented place, so it will be interesting to see if that trend continues with the next tenant.

(Hat tip to commenter James R)

This little Chinese & Chicken outpost on North Main has been closed at least since March.

Wing Basket is obviously not the first tenant in this building, but the shape of it doesn't suggest anything concrete as to the original incarnation to me.

Dolo's was the follow-on operation to Varsity / D'Jasz / J S Rennee near the intersection of Sunset and North Main. As these not very good pictures show, the place is now well on the way to re-opening as Uncle Ned's.

(Hat tip to commenter Justin)

It's a little unclear exactly when Elie's closed. The offical announcement on their Facebook is 12 June 2016, but comments suggest the place had been closed for some time by then.

I wanted to like this place, in an interesting little converted house on Saint Andrews Road, and in the event stopped by twice some years ago. Both times they were out of what I ordered, and I never got around to seeing if third time was the charm.

The signs announce that a hair salon is coming.

Commenter Mr. BO pointed out this Bluff Road closing after recently wanting a pizza on that side of town, but it appears that Stromboli's was gone long before that.

I wish I had known about this place when I was working out on Bluff Road, so that maybe I wouldn't have had to drive all the way to Garners Ferry to find a halfway decent lunch.

(Hat tip to commenter Mr. BO)

I actually thought I had done this one, but I can't find any trace of it in the alphabetical list. Maybe we just talked about it in the comments somewhere.

At any rate M Cafe on Sumter Street across from the Y has been closed since July of last year. I was a bit surprised that it had been that long, and that all the furnishings and fixtures are still inside what I would think would be a pretty valuable piece of real estate.