Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Soul food purveyors Kiki's Chicken & Waffles have left their old, cramped, digs in Fortune Square, and have moved into the old Sticky Fingers location at Columbia Mall.

Judging from the parking lot Sunday 6 March, they will have no trouble filling the larger building..

Well, this is the end of an era. Edna's on River Drive predates me into this world by something over a year, so has been a Columbia institution longer than I've been alive. Of course, it has been an institution in a part of the town we used to think of as far away, so if we ever ate here growing up, it was long enough ago, and infrequently enough that I can't remember it. I'll have to try to remedy that before 31 March.

This kind of walk-up, no inside dining restaurant used to be common. In fact that's the way I recall Bell's and the original Garners Ferry McDonald's. Nowdays it is much less common, though you can still see remnants of the style, now worked around, in Zesto and Dairy Bar. I love the common-sense practicality of the cement blocks shorter customers can stand on to bring them up to window level.

Edna's also had an affiliated located at 2200 Two Notch Road, in a building that is still there, and a third location off Forest Drive, which was razed some years ago.

Here is a nice appreciation of Marie Rose Tyner, who ran the restaurant for many years and passed in the summer of 2015.

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Commenter Brian mentioned that BJ's Cafe near Richland Memorial appeared to be closed.

I drove by, and found that was in fact the case, but that there were a number of workers inside the building, so something is happening there, either a remodel for the same operation, or an upfit for a new one.

The BJ's web site gives no additional information.

(Hat tip to commenter Brian)

UPDATE 26 May 2016 -- Now open as Sunset Grill & Pizza:

I'm not sure when this little takeout storefront co-located with the garage on Fairlane closed, but it's in the February 2015-2016 phonebook, and I think I would have noticed it previously if it had been closed longer than a few months, so I'm tagging it as winter 2015. Reviews are rather mixed, but they'd been there for a good while, so they must have been doing something right.

UPDATE 25 May 2016 -- Now Saffron, an Indian/Chinese/Mexican takeout storefront:

This Shoney's on Garners Ferry Road is closed for remodeling. I used to eat there now and again when I worked out on Bluff Road. It was a typical Shoney's with a decent salad bar and burgers. I'm not sure exactly what the remodel will entail. Newer Shoney's stores are bigger and boxier, but it doesn't look yet like they plan to tear down the existing building.

(Hat tip to commenter Kenneth)

UPDATE 2 May 2016 -- As reported in the comments, this place is open again:

UPDATE 10 September 2020: As reported by commenter Thomas, this place is closed again:

The chain has been in trouble for years now, and we have lost a number of locations in the Columbia area. Apprently the stress of COVID-19 combined with marginal sales anyway were enough to close this branch down, at least until people head back to restaurants in greater numbers.

UPDATE 19 August 2025: This restaurant has had its ups & downs, being closed several times on a temporary basis over the years, but now the last Shoney's in the Midlands is finally closed for good. The State has the story here. The adjacent Captain D's, which once shared corporate ownership with Shoney's and often co-located, remains open.

There was a time, when I was living in Fayetteville, that I went to Ryans's serveral times a week for lunch. They had a good salad bar with the unusual topping option of roasted peanuts instead of sunflower seeds. They also had hoops of cheddar on the salad bar, and with those and the hot yeast rolls, you could make a decent impromptu semi-melted cheese sandwich to go with the salad.

As it happened, my work colleagues and I eventually discovered that the nearby pool-hall (go figure..) actually had a better lunch buffet and we kind of fell out of going to Ryan's, but I had generally good memories of the place until I had the occasion to drop by the Georgetown location a few years ago and be generally unimpressed, a condition which continued through my one visit to this Two Notch Road location in the Wal-Mart outparcel. I get the feeling from the company's recent travails that perhaps I was not alone in my unimpressed state, and the chain recently announced the closure of 74 restaurants of which this was apparently one:

(Hat tips to commenters James R & Sidney)

UPDATE 29 October 2018 -- Now open as Magnolia Buffet:

By this point, the fact that Jillian's in the Vista has closed their doors has been pretty extensively discussed in Have Your Say. I believe I had been there twice: Once for a class reunion, and once for a Swimming Pool Qs show. We were supposed to have a family event there about two years ago, but it turned out to be too crowded, and we ended up at Mellow Mushroom. About all I can recall from the times I was there was that it was too loud and busy to ever be a regular spot for me.

The State lays the closing at the feet of the Great Flood of 2015, saying that the 10 day closing and coverage denial by business interruption insurance sealed the deal. Commenters here tend to favor an accumulating straw theory in which the one which broke the camel's back would have come soon one way or the other.

(Hat tip to commenter April)

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Pizza Pizza! -- Little Caesar in Irmo has moved slightly down Saint Andrews Road from this spot at 6903 to the old Blockbuster at 7249:

Interestingly, when I was googling the address, I turned up a LoopNet listing with a much better picture than I was able to take against the sun -- but with the building clearly marqueed as Custom Pizza Co.

(Hat tip to commenter Homer)

I've written about this little walkup in the Lil' Cricket outparcel at the corner of Two Notch & Covenant before here.

Since then, it has gone through two more incarnations, one as Wright's Eatery (first two pix) and most recently as K-Wayzz Corner Grill (last two pix). I don't really have an opinion about K-Wayzz, but I enjoy the use of Eatery for Wright's. It brings to mind old Fleischer Popeye cartoons, and the whole diner era.

Pretty plainly a service station at one time, this building at the intersection of River Drive, Sunset Drive and Clement Road had most recently been a title loan operation before Buck's Cafe moved in.

I presume that the cafe was associated with Buck's Market catty-cornered across the intersection, but I don't know that for a fact. I believe Buck's opened here in 2014, closed for remodeling around the end of that year and then re-opened in 2015. Somewhere I have some pictures of the restaurant in operation, but as usual, cannot put my hands on them right now.

The follow-on operation to Buck's is the aptly named 3 Point Cafe & Grill which judging from the sign is a "home cooking" type of restaurant.

UPDATE 21 September 2021: Adding map icon.