Archive for the ‘Beltline Boulevard’ tag
Pasta Fresca, 3405 Forest Drive: 5 May 2012 (moved) 14 comments
Bath & Body Works, Richland Mall: 31 January 2012 14 comments
This State story from 29 January 2012 says that Bath & Body Works
[I]s in the process of closing as its lease expires.
Which makes me fairly comfortable listing the closing date as 31 January 2012.
I've never stepped into a Bath & Body Works, as I don't have a lot of requirements for a bath other than soap, but I always had an impression that it was kind of a scrappy chain since the only two I was aware of were this one in Richland Mall and one in Inlet Square Mall in Murrells Inlet. Neither mall could be called prime real estate, but the stores hung in there for years.
The Richland Mall store was at the edge of the food court (which is down to one restaurant) and just past the old S & S Cafeteria.
Luckily, there are alternatives:
Breeze Dry Cleaning, 400 Beltline Boulevard: 15 October 2011 2 comments
On my way to the Fairgrounds Monday to pick up some artwork, I noticed that this Midlands Tech area dry-cleaner had closed. The building is one of Columbia's surprisingly many stone facade structures. From the outlines of a bay doors on the back, and the gull-wing lights at the corner of the lot, I suspect the building may first have been a gas station.
UPDATE 28 June 2017 -- This building has now been razed:
Encore, 3407 Forest Drive Suite A: 2011 5 comments
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.
Mr. Swiss / 1 Stop Party Shop (aka Cromartie Liquor Store & Party Shop No 2), 3525 West Beltline Boulevard: 2011 11 comments
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:
Dick Smith Nissan, 4030 West Beltline Boulevard: March 2011 (moved) 4 comments
Dick Smith is the latest dealership to abandon Beltline Boulevard. This location is just past the PIggly Wiggly and almost across the street from the former Newsome Chevvy World.
The new location opened just a little while ago at 9940 Two Notch Road:
This, of course is the location of the former Brickyard Shopping Center, which was totally razed for the Dick Smith buildings.
UPDATE 23 December 2011 -- As reported in the comments, the former Dick Smith on Beltline has been demolished:
Sir George's Royal Buffet, 2120 Beltline Boulevard: 1970s 14 comments
Here's one I have absolutely no memory of, though I would have been driven past it constantly going to and from Richland Mall. The building now at 2120 Beltline (note how it was "Belt Line" in the 1976 ad..) is a medical office next door to Moe's, and is obviously not the original restaurant building.
I have no idea how the theme played out in this restaurant either. Again, as a kid, I would have expected to notice some place with a knights and castles come-on, but am still drawing a complete blank...
(You'll notice I was having a little issue with lens fogging on the first shot here).
D's Wings, 2005 Beltline Boulevard: 7 March 2011 (closed again) 18 comments
D's Wings on Beltline had a kitchen fire on Monday 7 March 2011. In the process of trying to put it out, the fire department apparently first cut a hole in the the roof of the adjacent Little Gym and doused that establishment, before getting the right site and putting out the flames (which were mostly confined to the kitchen hood anyway). The main dining area looks untouched, and fire insurance will cover everything, including advertising for the grand re-opening.
(Hat tip to my sister)
UPDATE 26 July 2011: Commenter Andrew sends these pictures noting that D's has been open again since 11 July 2011 (and in fact I took advantage of his info by having lunch there today -- it looks pretty much the same inside as it did before the fire):
UPDATE 17 July 2012 -- Some more pictures from the re-opening:
UPDATE 5 December 2012 -- Well, it looks like this D's is closed again. I went by around 6pm and found it locked. There's no note on the door (other than "Closed" which could be a normal daily sign), but it should have been open then, and the phone is "temporarily disconnected". This place has been closed before due to an ownership transfer, and then again due to the fire -- hopefully it will be back once more. I liked to go over there every now and then when I wanted comfort food and have a grilled cheese sandwich.
UPDATE 11 December 2012: Well, it appears that this store is relocating to the old D's location at Sparkleberry Crossing.
UPDATE 3 June 2013 -- Well, whatever this is to become (and as of yet, the D's signage is still up), it is now hiring:
UPDATE 9 July 2013: Sulley's Bar & Grill is now open in this slot:
Subway, 2313 North Beltline Boulevard Suite: February 2011 (Closed Again, Permanently) 1 comment
This little building sits more or less on the Northeast corner of Beltline Boulevard and Forest Drive, across from the Walgreen's. As commenter Dennis pointed out when he noted this closing, it is sort of turned backwards in that the side of the building which faces Beltline has very little signage. Given that all the parking is in the back, locating the "front" signage back there may have made sense to the designer, but it's bad for business as folks driving by on Beltline have very little way to tell what businesses are located here. In fact, I did not realize there was a Subway here for quite a while.
Any time a business, especially a restaurant, puts up a note that they are closed "temporarily", it is a very bad sign. Of course there are times when it's necessary, such as for a serious illness (which I certainly hope has not happened here), but in general once a bad situation is exacerbated by adding "no money coming in" to whatever problem existed, these temporary closings tend to become final. In fact, this happened in this very building in the case of Bruster's Real Ice Cream.
(Hat tip to commenter Dennis)
UPDATE 16 April 2011 -- Well, it did re-open. Good for them!
UPDATE 8 March 2012 -- The sign on the side facing Beltline has been replaced, but I'm hard pressed to find any differences between the new one and the old one..
UPDATE 2 March 2020 -- This has closed temporarily on several occasions since I first listed it. It is now closed for good:
UPDATE 17 June 2022: UPdating tags.
S&S Cafeteria, Richland Mall: 30 Jan 2011 53 comments
As I've mentioned somewhere or another on this site, the last time I ate in a cafeteria was sometime in the mid 1990s when I found myself at a "Picadilly" at Regency Mall in Augusta -- I was distinctly underwhelmed. Before that, it was probably the S&S on Gervais when my Aunt was visiting town.
Growing up, however we ate fairly frequently at Richland Mall's original cafeteria, The Redwood Cafeteria and sometimes its follow-up Morrison's.
My general opinion of cafeterias was not high. As a kid it seemed to me that they could even mess up rice & gravy -- cafeteria rice was not like "real" rice at all. Instead of sticking together properly, every grain was separate and discrete. (I suppose it was parboiled or "converted" as Uncle Ben called it ["Q: What's white and runs up your legs? A: Uncle Ben's perverted rice!"]). Furthermore, they didn't have hamburgers. My parents insisted that "hamburger steak" was the same thing, but I knew it wasn't. Still going through the line was interesting, and the little butter-pats on paper never failed to fascinate.
Upon hearing that the Richland Mall S&S was to close on Sunday (30 Jan 11), I decided I would eat lunch there one day to check it out and maybe get some pictures. Arriving at my usual lunch time of 3:00, I was a bit confused. The doors were open and people were at the tables (and, yes, they were mostly older folks, just as the stereotype goes -- that's OK, I plan to be one someday, and probably sooner than I expect). The way I expected to get to the serving line however seemed to be blocked. I saw a possible second serving line, but nobody seemed to be tending it.
An enquiry finally established that they had taken down the serving line sometime before I got there, and would not fire it up again until 4:30, and that the second line was for take-out only -- which is a shame because it looked pretty good, with black-eyed peas, and other nice vegetables, rather more Southern than I remember the old cafeterias being.
So anyway, I did not get to eat at S&S before it closed (unless I get there tomorrow or Sunday, which I consider highly unlikely), but I did get some pictures later in the week, and captured several of their billboards (the one across Forest Drive from the mall is already taken by a new advertiser now).
This will be the first time Richland Mall has had no cafeteria in it, and can't bode well for the future of the mall, but then what has lately?
UPDATE 30 Jan 2011: Added the first two pictures, take just after the doors closed.
UPDATE 7 September 2012: Added picture of the Two Notch Road billboard above.