Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I ran across this old country grocery the other day at the eastern intersection of Leesburg Road and Old Leesburg Road. I haven't been able to match the name and address in google to have any idea when it closed -- Just looking at it, it could be any time from 1970 to last week. (Although he "hours" sign on the door does look more modern than 1970). Anyway, it's the kind of place where you can imagine a barefoot kid walking in on a hot day for an RC Cola and a Moon Pie (and dropping peanuts into the soda..).

I noticed the other day that the eastern-most storefront in Tillman's Plaza was empty. I've written about this building before, as it was the last location of The Byte Shop, one of Columbia's first computer stores. The first picture above comes from that closing.

There is a Play It Again Sports on Bower Parkway, but I don't know if it moved from here.

UPDATE 19 July 2012 -- It's now 5 Star Rental Purchase (with a rather "Patrick" looking mascot):

I first wrote about this storefront in The Shops At O'Neil Court in the closing for the O'Neil Court location of Capitol Newsstand, and after that more or less forgot about it.

I noticed today that the follow-on operation to Capitol, Fitness Solutions has gone as well.

The first picture above is from that Capitol closing, taken pretty much exactly three years ago. I don't know why I didn't try for a closer shot other than there were probably people inside, but you can vaguely make out that some equipment is on display. At the time, I thought the place was a gym, but a little googling today reveals that it actually sold exercise equipment.

You can also notice that everything else in the first picture is now gone as well..

UPDATE 24 March 2012: As noted in the comments, the store moved to Bower Parkway and renamed to Carolina Specialty Fitness. I've updated the title to say "moved".

Hi-Lites Ladies'Clothing ("Name Brands At Outlet Prices") seems to mainly follow a small town strategy. Apart from this Cayce store, the chain's locator page lists the other Carolinas' locations as

Albemarle, Atlantic Beach, Clinton (NC), Laurinburg, Lincolnton, Monroe, Mount Olive, Newton, Sanford, Shelby, Whiteville, Bennettsville, Dillon and Lancaster

It's interesting that by putting their "Columbia" store in Cayce, they got a somewhat similar area, but inside a fairly major Metro. Of course, apparently it didn't work out for them.

Parkland Plaza had been on a bit of an upswing lately, with the Ace Hardware re-opening, and the Dollar Discount being replaced, but this closing and that of Dollar General (which I will probably get to soon) along with the continuing vacancy at the old Parkland Pharmacy/CVS site put the place back almost to square one.

(Hat tip to commenter tonkatoy)

UPDATE 4 April 2012 -- I went back when I could stop and got some better pictures:

Well, this closing has been discussed fairly extensively in the comments, but I first heard of it from Eva at the Free Times.

I like coffee and ice cream, but somehow never even knew that Peace, Love & Rocky Roast existed in the Vista even though I hit The Mellow Mushroom and Five Guys fairly often, and drive down Gervais on a semi-regular basis.

The store's facebook page and web site mention Vista rents as the main issue here. It doesn't seem to me that Vista properties are turning over quickly enough that driving out existing tenants is a good idea -- I notice that the complex with the antique bookstore has been on the market a good while as has this place (or at least it still looked vacant last time I thought to check).

Apparently PL&RR is looking to relocate to State Street in Cayce, but I'm not sure exactly where.

(Hat tips to Eva and the commenters)

Well, it appears that the old Big-T/CVS at the corner of Pickens & Taylor Streets is once again a pharmacy, as Hawthorne Pharmacy & Compounding Shoppe has moved down the block from its long-time home at 1500 Taylor and into the Big-T building.

Well, that's not quite true as the whole building isn't a pharmacy: It appears that during the refit and remodel, it was split up into two suites, and that one of them is an endoscopy clinic. Since Hawthorne has always been something of a specialty shop, it makes sense that they wouldn't need the space to sell all the extraneous non-medical stuff a CVS does. It will be interesting to see what happens to the old Hawthorne building. As of yet, there is no For Sale sign.

UPDATE 6 October 2017 -- Here is the old building about to be demolished:

and here is the hole where the building used to be:

UPDATE 8 May 2018 -- A new building is going up here:

I have written about this building on Two Notch near O'Neil Court before, as an old Esso station.

When I did that closing, I noted that the building was for sale despite being occupied by Go Used Tires. I don't know if they just got tired of living with that Sword of Damocles over their heads or if there is an actual prospective buyer for the property, but Go moved last month to another place I've done a closing on, the old Vintage Motors a mile or so up Two Notch and next to the old Lizard's Thicket / Perkins that's now Hero Korean / Japanese.

Commenter Jamie pointed out this closing some time ago. In the event, I didn't have a mental image of where the place was, and didn't get around to going over there in a timely fashion.

Later, in March of last year (2011) commenters 59 Ford Wheelman and tonkatoy noted that the place was being torn down.

That time, I did get over there and got a fair number of pictures (including the first set below), but still never got around to doing a closing on it.

Yesterday I was coming in on I-126 and finally noticed the place again. This time I saw the whole thing was razed to the ground, and that it was a big complex, taking the whole block bounded by Elmwood, Gadsden, Calhoun and Wayne. Furthermore, the lot has been sold, so presumably something will be happening here soon.

(Noland itself remains in business in other places.)

(Hat tip to commenter Jamie)

[Don't click through unless you want to see too many pictures..]

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There's an interesting little history of CompuZone at their web site. I did not know this, but the store started here in Columbia as The PC Store in 1992, though they eventually ended up with more stores in the Charleston area than here. As far as I know those other stores are still open.

I don't believe I ever shopped at this store though I certainly have bought my share of computer parts. I was living out of town for a good part of the time it was open, and when I got back to town, there was a Best Buy much closer to me. Their site does show some nice looking SATA drives -- eventually I will upgrade and have me some terabytes on this table..

The place has been thoroughly gutted in advance of the next operation, BatteriesPlus moving in. Their sign says they will have lightbulbs as well -- I wonder if they will import some 100W ones (though I stocked up on a enough to last me a good long time!)?

(Hat tip to commenter Badger)

United Car Sales was a small used car lot on Forest Drive just east of Four J's Plaza, next to Ambassador Animal Hospital. As reported by commenters Andrew & Matt, the place was torn down last month, and has since been confirmed as the second location for Cookout hamburger restaurant in Columbia. At first it seemed sort of an odd location choice to me, but then I remembered that Forest Drive is an Interstate exit now. Cookout advertises their Orangeburg location with I-26 billboards, and will presumably advertise this spot with billboards on I-77.

I'm not sure what The Toy Box was, but it's the other google hit for 5311 Forest Drive. I don't think it was an actual "toy" store however as I probably would have heard of that.

(Hat tips to commenters Matt & Andrew)

UPDATE 4 April 2012 -- Changed post title to add "moved" as the status for United based on commenter R H Lancaster's info. Cook Out construction continues:

UPDATE 16 April 2012 -- Here is United's new home on Garners Ferry Road at I-77 (as far as I can tell, they have been listed in the past as both "United Auto" and "United Car"):

UPDATE 30 June 2012 -- As these pictures from 20 May and 21 June 2012 show, they are progressing and scheduled to be open on 1 July 2012:

UPDATE 3 July 2012 -- Cookout is open!