Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I took these pix a few weeks ago; Google says this store is now closed.

I don't know a lot about Stein Mart, but apparently it has been struggling along with many other clothing retailers:

A beleaguered Jacksonville retail has brought on a high-level executive to handle its merchandising and marketing, among other responsibilities.

Stein Mart Inc. has hired MaryAnne Morin as president, putting her in charge of merchandising, planning, marketing and advertising and e-commerce.
....
....

The holiday season was particularly dismal for the retailer, which saw comparable store sales slide nearly 5 percent year over year.

This is a pretty good sized storefront, it will be interesting to see what goes in next, and when. As I recall, it sat vacant for a long time after closing as Goody's and then again after being Giant Book Sale.

(Hat tip to commenter Blaner)

17 August 2020: Update tags, add map icon.

I think there was, or is, a Williams Sonoma on King Street in Charleston, and every now and then when I was in town and walking the shops district, I would drop in to see all the neat stuff that would never fit into my non-cooking lifestyle. I think I may have browsed this store too once, though my visits to Columbiana Mall are passing rare.

According to The State this was not a surprise closing, at least to mall management. They also mention that the Market Commons store in Myrtle Beach was closing as well. I'm unsure if that says more about Williams Sonoma or Market Commons which has struggled in recent years. Normally if a company is in trouble there will be some press about it, but all I see is a Motley Fool article citing a stock price fall.

According to the linked State article about the storefront

there’s a plan in place for what we hope to be a huge surprise in 2018

On the one hand, that sounds upbeat, on the other hand, 1 year+ is a long time for a slot to stay empty.

It was the 70s I guess when I first heard of The Limited, as they had a very catchy radio commercial whose refrain was

Look to The Limited!

That aside, I thought the name a little odd. I guess they were going for an "upscale" Limited as in "Limited Edition", but to me the name always brought up associations like "No, we don't have that, we're limited". Not that it really impinged on me either way as it was all women's clothes and I don't believe I ever set foot in any location.

This shop, at Columbiana closed in early January as part of the chain's axing of all its stores. Forbes has the story:

And another bites the dust.

Women's apparel chain The Limited on Sunday [8 January 2017] began closing all 250 of its stores across the United States and is slashing 4,000 jobs, the latest casualty of shopping's move online and the growth of fast fashion chains.

Interestingly, the article does not specifically say the chain is actually in bankruptcy of any chapter..

Golfsmith was the follow-on operation in this storefront to OfficeMax/Office Depot, moving in sometime in 2013.

As this article explains, the firm filed for Chapter 11 in mid September. What went wrong, well, from the same source

But really what went wrong, and what happens next?

To the first point, it’s clear from a read of the Golfsmith bankruptcy filing and those familiar with the company both internally and externally that Golfsmith expanded to its current 109 stores in the U.S. too aggressively, in the wrong way (as far as store formats go) and most likely without proper capital to support such expansion.

....
....

All of which was exacerbated by the fact that--as part of the Chapter 11 filing reads--“the enthusiasm underpinning the ‘Tiger Woods Phenomenon’ significantly waned.”

Apparently Dick's Sporting Goods has acquired at least some of the Golfsmith assets, but I'm not clear from this story whether that is nationally or just in Pennsylvania.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

UPDATE 13 September 2017 -- Now a popup Halloween store, Spirit Halloween:

I had done a closing for the Columbia Mall Hancock Fabrics but had not got around to dropping by the Harbison Court location until this last weekend. In the event, I wasn't able to get a good shot of the place for various reasons, but this store too is part of the chain's ongoing liquidation since their February 2016 bankruptcy and will close soon.

By the bye, the link above also links to this piece which is a pretty exact description of my childhood memories of fabric stores.

I believe this is the last Midland's Ryan's I didn't have a post for. Like the others, it closed as part of the chain's current troubles, regardless of whether this particular store was doing OK or not. In point of fact, I think this store did out last the others by a few weeks.

Commenter Heath posted some photos from 7 May and I finally got around there last weekend to get some of my own (though the light was mostly wrong). It's a shame to say that this store, unlike the others I've seen, has already been fairly extensively tagged just in the short time it's been closed.

UPDATE 22 May 2016: Added Fire Mountain to the post title based on the comments.

UPDATE 6 February 2019 -- As reported in the comments, this place is gearing up to be The Juicy Crab:

UPDATE 15 June 2020 -- The Juicy Crab is now open here:

The first time I encountered Macaroni Grill was in Overland Park Kansas (a suburb of Kansas City). I used to get sent there often for contract work we were doing for US Sprint, which had a headquarters just a few blocks from the restaurant. It was a lively place, always crowded and with vigorous service: The servers would write their name in bold strokes on your table, and there were usually a few who would burst into Opera arias several times during a meal. The food was good too; they had an excellent Margherita pizza along with standard Italian dishes, and the bread was top-notch: large flavorful loaves served with cracked pepper and olive oil from bottles on the tables.

(The only negative about this particular place is that it has the distinction of being the only restaurant I've ever gone where the hostess implied that a bribe would get us seated..)

Anyway, after I stopped being sent to Kansas, I was glad to find that a Macaroni had opened in Columbia and I went a number of times, but it was never quite the same. There were definitely no singing servers, the Margherita pizza was off the menu and the bread loaves seemed smaller, and not as flavorful. I took a several year break after concluding that I had gotten mild food posioning after one visit, and the next time I went back, the place was almost empty, the menu was odd, the olive oil bottles were gone and I had the feeling that I was imposing on the staff by ordering food. When they brought the bill while I was still eating, and without offering me dessert (it was well before offical closing) I decided I was in no hurry to come back, and in fact did not.

Still, those were some good times back in the day..

(Hat tip to commenter Steve)

UPDATE 17 May 2017 -- I see that the Overland Park location I mention above has closed.

UPDATE 30 August 2017 -- The upfit to BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse is done, and they will be open on 4 September 2017:

I got off kind of on the wrong foot with Rita's as I read their slogan Ice Custard Happiness before walking over from Barnes & Noble and was expecting some rich frozen custard treat. In the event, I ended up with something like an Icee. Looking at their menu, I now see that I should have explicitly mentioned the word "custard" in my order rather than just specifying a flavor. Oh well.

You can see a small portion of the shop in operation in the first picture in the Sesame Inn closing. In the meantime, you can still get your fix across town at the Sandhill location.

(Hat tip to commenter Bob)

I have already done a closing for Huller's Black Forest in their final home on Saint Andrews Road. Before they moved there however, they occupied this Columbiana Drive building, up a flight of stairs from the Nathan's / Bruster's parking lot.

I thought I might as well do this one now, as the building has just reopened as The Tilted Kilt, a breastaurant a bit more upscale than Hooters and thankfully featuring no actual Scottish cuisine, most of which seems to have been created as a dare of some sort.

UPDATE 19 September 2022: Adding map icon.

Well, it's old news now, but Sears at Columbiana Centre is closing, and today was the first time I was able to get out that way to get some shots. I'm going ahead with a pretty-well-in-advance closing to give us a landing page to talk about it, and because it's pretty big news. Hopfully I will get inside shots for an update at some point. Certainly the pre-printed closeout signs in these exterior shots are pretty familiar to us all by now (blurry or not..).

It appears that Belk will be taking over some, though not all of this space.

Frankly, given how hollowed-out the Columbia Mall store is at this point, I expected it to go first.

UPDATE 11 February 2014 -- Here are some interior pix from 9 February:

UPDATE 29 Februayr 2020: Add tags, address, map icon.