Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Well, the talk in the comments about Winn Dixie gives me an opening to post these pictures from North Charleston.

I forget exactly why I was in Charleston last this May, but I was struck by this run-down plaza on Rivers Avenue as I headed down into the peninsula. As you can see it was a rather gray day so the pictures aren't great, and I didn't stop to do a walkabout, but it just struck me as rather sad.

Notice that as in the Decker store the chain didn't even manage to get its branding off the building.

The end of Kimbrell's on Main Street was hardly a surprise. Their sign says they had been there 49 years (or almost my entire lifetime), but the character of Main Street has changed so much over the years that even blocks where there are signs of life (Kimbrell's was on the same block as the new Mast General Store) don't make sense for heavy retail like furniture. A modern furniture store needs lots of display space, as well as an easy way to get trucks in and out, and Main Street doesn't really have either.

There are a number of other Kimbrell's locations around town, and the signs indicate that operations from the Main Street store have been consolidated in Piggly Wiggly location on Marshall Street.

I hope that whatever happens to the old Main Street store, someone saves the old and classic Kimbrell's sign, though I realize that would be confusing in some cases, it seems to have worked well for the Kress building.

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I'm not actually sure what Encore did or sold. One online directory lists it in the following, not very helpful, categories:

Categories: Home & Garden | Furniture | Used Furniture | Retail Shopping | Clothing | Vintage & Used Clothing

At any rate, it was in the same Forest Drive and Beltline location which used to house Jackson Camera, Ritz Camera and Brequoj, and is now gone.

Sewing & crochet shop Hook 'n Needle was a long-time retail stalwart at Intersection Center. In fact, I'm pretty sure they were the last shop there to either go under or move. Happily, the latter applies here, and at some point this year, Hook 'n Needle moved to the North-West corner of Boozer Shopping Center.

The first three pictures of the old location are from 29 August 2008, the fourth is from 4 September 2010 and the last three are from 24 September 2011.

The church rebuilding Intersection Center continues to make good progress, and hopefully I'll have some pictures of the repurposed Service Merchandise and the new fountain up soon.

UPDATE 22 January 2020: Add map icon, update tags.

This storefront, on the same block as the new Mast was until recently one of Columbia's improbable number of wig stores. I'm not as surprised that it closed as I am at how long it lasted in what has been a pretty poor location for retail since at least the mid 1970s. In fact, though I wish everybody well, I am sceptical of a long term "Mast effect" on this area, especially given that a number of the closings on this block are fairly recent.

This interesting little building sits on the left side of Beltline, just past Farrow if you are headed towards Forest Acres, right where those two streets with the stoplights that aren't synchronized to *anything* are.

Obviusly it wasn't orginally a liquor store, but I'm not sure what it would have been. The exaggerated 'A' frame shape suggests some type of branding, and is somewhat reminiscent of this building on Airport Boulevard, at least in the back part, but I don't know what that one was originally either.

At any rate, I noticed on a recent Saturday evening, when you would expect a liquor store to be hopping, that the lights were off and the place was deserted. It's in this year's phonebook (February 2011), but the phone has been disconnected.

UPDATE 17 October 2011: Commenter jhill supplies the name for this building's incarnation as a fast food and ice-cream restaurant, Mr. Swiss.

UPDATE 12 Marck 2012 -- Open again as OneLove Food Mart:

Tall Finery was a clothing store, presumably for tall women, in Boozer Shopping center, on the same side of the plaza a The Book Dispensary, Dems House of Diamonds and Ron Graham Allergy & Air Quality. Come to think of it, that side (the north one) has been hit pretty hard in recent years.

If all went as planned, the space should be a contract Post Office by now, which makes sense as I can't think of a Fed-Ex or UPS Store in the general area.

I wrote about this place a good while ago in a closing for The Gamecock Theater, and actually in that closing, from 2008, I noted that it also was closed. It may not exactly be that simple though.

Anyway, Resale Revue, in its first incarnation, was an antique-mall type of place. I only went in once, and it seemed it skewed more towards flea-market type antiques (old records, toasters etc) than antique furniture -- which was fine by me. I think I may have gotten a dial telephone there, but I have a number of them (two still hooked up..) and can't really recall.

That incarnation was gone by 2008, but I noticed this year that the place was hosting events for the Indie Grits Festival using the old theater space as a venue. Given that the a Colliers Keenan sign was in place in 2008 and is still in place, I'm guessing that the owners rent the space out for events from time to time as they are able, and the name carries over as nobody is going to change the sign for that.

Update 2 September 2020: Take "Parkland Plaza" out of the post title and add it as a tag. Add map icon, update tags in general.

This porn emporium on Broad River Road next to the old Data Resources site and across the street from Ole Town Antiques recently gave up the ghost and is already boarded up. I like the odd fact that the advertising silhouettes are about as tame as anything involving a man and a woman together can be. There are racier beer billboards. Of course maybe that did them in!

More likely are two other factors. First, they were just down the street from This is It! at 2831 Broad River Road, and that seems to be a chain of sorts. And second, I heard somewhere that Al Gore invented something that lets you see people in their birthday suits for free...

(Hat tip to a commenter I can not locate now..)

UPDATE 8 October 2011: Added "TJ's" to the post title after finding it in google. It was a strip club.

UPDATE 11 November 2011: Added "The Ballistic Center to the post title. It was a shooting range. I've got a nice ad to scan in at some point.

UPDATE 23 November 2011 -- Here's the ad I mentiond above:

The Ballistic Center first listed in the January 1984 phonebook at "1022 Columbia College Drive". I forgot to make a note of when they first listed at this address, but the last listing was in the February 1991 phonebook.

UPDATE 17 April 2019 -- Now Michael's Cafe & Bistro:

Dems House of Diamonds goes back to 1969, and I recall hearing the radio commercials constantly on WIS probably as early as the early 1970s. Of course there is no spelling on the radio, so I always got a kick out of them because, well, Diamonds are sparkly, not dim!. And then there was that whole mental image of a house made out of diamonds.. I guess it helps to be 11 to find all that funny.

I'm kind of surprised to notice that the store was right next to the old Book Dispensary as I went to that store constantly, and have no memory of Dems being there. I guess my eyes kind of slid right over anything jewelry related.

In 2004, Dems moved to 1068 Lake Murray Boulevard, where they are still open as Dems Fine Jewelers.

UPDATE 30 September 2011 -- Commenter Andrew sends this picture of the new Dems location on Lake Murray Boulevard: