Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I noticed driving by the other day that the old Howard Johnson's on Zimalcrest Drive at Bush River has closed for remodeling. I believe it has most been under a number of flags since the Hojo days, but most recently, it was a Budget Inn.

This place is a bit unusual in that it has a strip club Thee Whiskey Tavern operating out of a suite of rooms. I have never heard of such an arrangement elsewhere (and don't know if the club is closed during the remodel). You will also remember that the attached restaurant Punjabi Dhaba suffered a fire in early 2014, and has since been torn down.

UPDATE 28 June 2016 -- Renovations continue:

UPDATE 30 August 2016 -- Well this place is open again, now as Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham which at least sounds a bit more upscale this time. I will have to check to see if Thee Whiskey Tavern is still co-located or not:

UPDATE 11 September 2016 -- Well Thee Whiskey Tavern is still there, something of an anomaly in a property that's trying to go a little bit more upmarket than Budget Inn:

The postings on the Facebook page for this Boozer Shopping Center consignment shop suggest it closed in early 2015.

This particular storefront was previously the Boozer location of Dem's House of Diamonds, now on Lake Murray Boulevard.

Great Ceasar's Ghost!, I was sure I had done a closing for comic store Heroes & Dragons when they moved from their Boozer Shopping Center location next to Manifest and down the hill to 501 Bush River Road, but apparently not as it's not in Alphabetical Closings and google has no record of it. Maybe I just remember taking some pictures of it. At any rate, that's what they did, and now they have come almost full circle, moving back to Boozer, albeit not to exactly the same spot (which is now Dollar General).

Where they are moving to is the old Nutrition Warehouse spot I mentioned a few days ago.

Well, I noticed driving down Colonial Life Boulevard the other day that Nutrition Warehouse has moved again.

I had mentioned some time ago that they had moved from one side of Boozer Shopping Center to the other, but now they have moved out of that strip entirely and across Bush River Road to the old Sounds Familiar location at 422 Bush River Road #4 (this lot actually fronts onto Colonial Life Boulevard, but that is not the official address):

I admit I'm not a big supplement customer, but I have shipped a number of items at the Forest Drive location, and their contract Post Office is quite efficient.

This Boozer Shopping Center storefront lists in the February 2015-2016 phonebook, so I'm guessing is closed sometime this spring. And, no, they weren't responsible for the Patient Rarking -- I think there's a medical operation in the same wing.

I'm not entirely sure what the focus of The Outlet Store in Boozer Shopping Center was. Given the embroidery and printing aspects, I guess they did custom clothes and perhaps uniforms, though I'm not sure exactly how outlet fit into it.

They listed in the February 2013-2014 phonebook, but not the February 2014-2015 one, so I'm guessing they closed in 2013.

This former motorcycle shop is just down from the old Shoney's on Bush River. I'm not quite sure when it closed because for some reason I can't find it in my phonebooks. There are two calendars behind the counter, but I neglected to zoom in on them..

UPDATE 19 April 2016 -- As mentioned by commenter Andrew on the Shoney's post, here is an excavator on the Shoney's lot before it was used to knock down this building:

Here is the Radio Shack in the Wal Mart complex at the old Bush River Mall site.

I see this storefront has already attracted another business: Laptops For Less. It's a little odd that the Radio Shack marquee is still up there. Usually a chain which is still in some form of existence wants their logo off of former locations. And there *are* still some open stores though the present continued existence of RS as an entity is pretty tenuous at the moment.

Hook 'n Needle was one of the last shops to move out of Intersection Center, leaving its original location for Boozer Shopping Center in 2011.

Commenter Andrew reports that the place closed in that location late in 2013 or early in 2014 and that the owner sadly passed away shortly thereafter.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

I've posted this building before, but for a store which was actually in Boozer Shopping Center. Now that the building has been completely remodeled and is open as Auto Zone, I'm taking the opportunity to make a post which more correctly describes its history.

You can look at the comments on this post (which I need to totally revamp and correct) for some of that history, and this article describes the sale of the property to Auto Zone and mentions the call center tenant (which was not Spherion, which commenter Adder tags as a temp contractor).