Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

This LoopNet listing says that this building on the South side of Frink Street west of 12th was originally a grocery, and that is especially clear in side views. I don't know what chain it was, but the LoopNet statement that it was built in 1995 looks wrong to me -- I would put it in the 1960s.

Since then it has apparently been a lot of things: Two different churches, a construction company, a bingo parlor and a cellphone store. It is currently vacant, but as you can see, there is a building permit in the door, so presumably it will soon undergo yet another incarnation.

UPDATE 6 July 2011: Changed the post title from "Grocery" to "Piggly Wiggly" based on the comments. Also added "Ace Hardware" to the list of tenants.

UPATE 5 June 2014: Added Red & White to the post title based on the comments.

LoopNet says this store was once a Piggly Wiggly, but it's the Harris Teeter label-scar most visible on the side of the building next to CVS.

For some reason, I always get Harris Teeter and Winn Dixie confused, and I had it in my mind that HT had abandoned South Carolina when that was actually WD. However, it does appear that Harris Teeter has abandoned Columbia. Their store locator shows the closest location as being around Rock HIll.

Currently this whole plaza is mostly empty except for the CVS and some sort of bank back-office-looking building. That's a little surprising given that it serves Polo Road, which I tend to think of as an upscale area, and not really in line with the Food Lion which anchors the next plaza on Two Notch, on the other side of Polo.

UPDATE 27 February 2014 -- This is to be a Planet Fitness gym:

This Piggly Wiggly was in the High Point Centre shopping center at the north-east corner of Lake Murray Boulevard and Columbiana Drive. As far as I can tell, it closed in 2009, and seems to have pretty well put-paid to the whole plaza in so doing. I rarely get over to Lake Murray Boulevard (as you can see here, I still haven't managed to make it to this Pig in the daytime..) so I don't know the market too well, but this closing seems a bit odd to me.

This is one of the newer, larger, Pigs, so it's not one of the tiny old stores that they are trying to transition out of, and there's certainly no lack of traffic in the Harbison area. In fact, this store sounds as though it were a flagship of sorts, at least this story from 2005 paints it as the store chosen to do the public launch for PW's new "Pay By Touch" system.

This LoopNet listing has a daytime picture of the store with Pig branding (and confirms that it was built in 1994, which still seems pretty recent to me).

UPDATE 9 March 2011: Update closing date to 2 Feb 2008 based on comments.

UPDATE 22 June 2021 -- Now a Stars & Strikes bowling and fun center:

Also adding map icon and updating tags.

Judging from this LoopNet listing this property was sold in bankruptcy (or that's what I take "Onsite Auction- By Order of Secured Creditors" to mean) on 30 Aug 2010, so obviously the hardware store closed some time earlier than that -- certainly all the branding is gone in the LoopNet picture.

It's not a good time to be a non-big-box hardware store I'm afraid. This little plaza is really hurting as well. It looked like the only business still in operation was a restaurant, though judging from the curb sign Radius Church will be moving into the hardware space in the near future.

UPDATE 15 Jan 2011: Added Piggly Wiggly to the post title based on the comments.

I posted before about bygone Columbia grocery chain Edens. After I located one of the buildings on Rosewood, I have been looking for some of the others from time to time when I remember. I didn't have any luck with the two Main Street locations, but here is the Harden Street one.

Growing up, this was always Eckerd's to me, and it never really occurred to me that it had not been built as a pharmacy. Looking at it now though, I'm pretty sure this must be the original grocery building from the 1950s. In particular, I don't think anyone would site the doors on the street instead of the parking lot on any building newer than that. In fact, thinking about it, I'm surprised nobody ever changed that.

UPDATE 24 Nov 2010: Added Greenbax Stamps and Thrift Store to post title based on comments.

UPDATE 30 Nov 2010: Changed "Thrift Store" to "Community Thrift" based on Dennis's comment.

UPDATE 26 November 2019 -- This place is now Pet Supermarket:

UPDATE 10 August 2020: Update tags, change Eckerd's in post title to Eckerd Drugs.

Commenter Bill Chisolm has this to say about Eden's Foods:

Anybody old enough to remember the old Edens Food Stores in Columbia and around S.C. They sold out to Winn-Dixie around 1955. I worked for them as did my father.
Several of the old buildings are still standing, among these are the ones on Rosewood Drive, North Main Street, Devine St, Harden St. and I am sure there are others. They were the place to shop for groceries in Columbia during their hey day

Being born late in 1960, I had never heard of the place, but the city directory for 1953 does list eight locations for the store, with this building being one of them. I would say it has been remodeled several times, but it does seem about the right shape and size for an older grocery.

Apparently the company was run by a local family as the city directory also lists

J. Drake Edens President-Treasurer
Joe Edens, Executive Vice President-Assistant Treasurer
J. Drake Edens, Jr., Vice President

I wonder if there is any connection there with Edens & Avant property management?

Here's another closed Food Lion to go with the ones on Two Notch Road, Taylor Street and Airport Boulevard. This Loopnet picture shows the store in happier times.

The story on the WLTX site, calls the store underperforming and gives 19 Feb as an upper bound on the closing date.

I had never been in this Food Lion, but I suspect it was an older store, which would have been up against a newer Bi Lo in the same general area. The newer Food Lion stores are actually quite nice -- I stopped at the one off the Ballentine I-26 exit the other day when I was looking for The Whale's Tail and it was very upscale.

Even after the Seven Oaks Shopping Center closing, there is still a Food Lion on Saint Andrews Road. It's on past the former Clusters of Whitehall towards I-26, in front of the discount cinema.

(Hat tip to commenter Jamie)

UPDATE 12 September 2011 -- Now open as a Big Lots!:

Although I do not recall this store, I am reasonably sure from the architecture that it was at one time an A & P. The building doesn't have the classic steeple, but otherwise the look is quite similar to other old A&P buildings. If I am right, then this store would have been in the boonies when built, but the building of Spring Valley High in the 1970s proves that the population in the area was already growing.

Although Gold's Gym is a top-tier brand (or presents itself as one at any rate), it does often seem to follow the Lizard's Thicket "hermit crab" strategy of moving into existing buildings, something it did here, at the old Columbia Athletic Club, on Harbison and most recently at the old Sofa Express location at Sandhill. When Sandhill opens, they will have two locations quite close together. It would not surprise me to see this one close, though there is no indication of anything like that on their site.

UPDATE 7 April 2010: Originally (as you can tell from the text), I thought this was an A&P. I was wrong, it was a Piggly Wiggly, and I have changed the post title to reflect that.

This Food Lion in Airport Square at the intersection of Airport Boulevard and The Charleston Highway, was open as recently as 3 March 2009 when they posted a want ad for a sales manager.

I posted a number of closings in this general area lately, though not all of them actually happened lately. On the whole I think its fair to say the business climate is not good there. I'm not super familiar with the local stores, but I'm drawing a blank on a grocery store closer to here than the Bi-Lo in Parkland Plaza, which is a fair drive down Knox Abbott. I guess there's the Wal-Mart and Bi-Lo on US-1, but that's about the same distance.

UPDATE 4 Feb 2011 -- It's now a "Save A Lot" grocery store. I went in the one in Aiken once and didn't see any brands I had heard of..

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

UPDATE 7 Feb 2011: Updated the post title with a more precise closing date based on the comments.

UPDATE 13 January 2021: Update tags, add map icon.

This Big Lots store on US-1 in between I-26 and the flea market, was clearly once a grocery store, but I don't know what kind. The design has that certain late 1970s "We have lost our collective minds" look

I know that this was a Big Lots as early as May 2001 because I stopped there on my way to the airport to pick up a camera I didn't care what happened to. What I ended up with was worse than the average drugstore disposable of today, and I ended up with a bunch of mostly awful pictures.

I can't pinpoint the date any closer than that -- I used to ride out to the flea market fairly often in the early 1980s, but what always caught my eye in this strip was the Fat Boy burger place, and the grocery didn't really register.

UPDATE 26 October 2009: Consensus is that it was a Winn-Dixie, so I have updated the post title to that from "Grocery Store" (and updated the closing date from '1980s' to '1990s').

UPDATE 11 March 2011: Updated closing date based on information from commenter Andrew.