Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I wasn't sure when I took these pix that Locals on Harden Street next to Sharky's was actually closed, but driving by this evening (15 December) confirmed that the place is dark, and that the windows are now covered over.

I am way older than the college bar demo, and really never hit them when I was in it anyway, so I never went to Locals. It does look like the rooftop area would be a nice place to hang out and people watch over Five Points..

The web site is still up, though the latest photos seem to be from September 2010.

College Bar Scene says

Deserves a bigger crowd than it gets.

which may be some indication of what happened.

(Hat tip to commenter Jordan)

UPDATE 3 March 2012 -- Now open again as Pinch. Some of the flatbread pizzas on the menu look pretty good:

This little building at the foot of Senate Street by the Five Points Food Lion seems to have been a revolving restaurant/night-club site of late. When I first did a closing on it, it was for Ribby's & Gilligan's.

The next time I mentioned it was when the follow-on, The Cock Lounge closed. In that closing, I noted the opening of Your Mom's House.

Now it appears that Your Mom's House is gone, and the follow-on to *that* will be The Shack, a barbecue joint.

Cribb's Bakery was a longtime Five Points landmark and yet another Columbia institution I never got around to visiting. Looking at the ad from the 1997 Bellsouth phonebook, I think I could have gone for some of the bagels or pastries though pound cake I'm not so keen on. I figured I would always have time, but on Sunday 30 March 2003, the place caught fire.

According to The State's archives:

Cribb's Bakery, 1030 Harden Street, was damaged Sunday in a fire that apparently originated in the building's storage room.

Plumes of smoke billowed from the attic of the peach and blue building around 9 p.m., but there was no visible structural damage.

Battalion Chief Cleveland Geter said the fire was contained to the one room, and firefighters had it contained in 10 to 15 minutes.

Despite the story's optimistic take on the scope of the damage, the bakery never reopened, and in September of 2004 the current tenant, Time Warner Cable started work to move in, as The State reported on 9 December 2004:

Time Warner to move to Harden Street site

Time Warner of the Midlands planned to begin renovations this week to the old Cribbs Bakery on Harden Street, converting it into a roomier retail and office space.

I had assumed the old bakery building was torn down for the TWC office, but it would appear from this that it was not.

American Apparel was a clothes store on Harden Street, next to the old Hiller Hardware. I gather that it served the young, hip, crowd, which is, um, not me.

In fact, for years, I didn't even know where the store was, just that it had a series of mildly risque ads on the back page of the local alternative weekly, The Free Times. These were constant fodder for the paper's Rant & Rave feature, as here, for instance.

When I went by on Saturday 5 Feb, there was still music playing from the store's door speakers, and two guys hanging around like they were supposed to be loading stuff out of there but couldn't get inside.

Doing a little googling turns of the surprising (to me) fact that American Apparel (AMEX: APP) is the largest clothing manufacturer in the United States.. They also seem to have had a good bit of financial trouble in their retail arm lately, as detailed in this WSJ piece and this "Open Market" piece (which also has an image of an ad they could never have run in Columbia..)

The company's web site goes even farther with ads -- DEFINITELY NSFW!

(Hat tip to commenter Jennifer)

UPDATE 12 September 2011 -- The follow-on operation, Urban Thread & More is open, and apparently has been at least since 16 April 2011:

I hardly ever drive down this stretch of Harden Street, so sometime last summer, I saw this place for the first time. My reaction was "Huh. Had no idea that was here -- looks pretty nice."

I think if I had read these stories from WIS and The State about the store opening on 14 November 2008, I might have had another reaction, like "Hmm, better take some pictures now..".

That's because, frankly, they show all the signs of a well intentioned Bad Idea about to be put into practice. In particular:

The housing authority tried to recruit a grocery store to the area for nearly five years. It courted large grocery store chains that already had a presence in the Midlands but couldn’t find anyone interested, Walker said.

That should have been a pretty big hint right there that the commercial prospects weren't that good. There's also this:

Plus, the housing authority’s shopping plaza offers a smaller space than what most chains seek for new stores, Walker said.

“All of the big chains that we have gone to want 30,000 to 40,000 square feet,” he said. “Our whole shopping center isn’t that big.”

Little IGA-type stores can be successful in small towns and rural areas, but not, I think, a mile from a full-sized Food Lion..

The State article noting the passing of the store also mentions that the pharmacy listed on the roadside marquee is also already gone:

A drugstore in the shopping plaza closed earlier this year after the sole pharmacist moved to Louisville, Ky.,

There's also this gem

The store had been a source of pride for Columbia City Council and the Columbia Housing Authority, two public bodies that worked hard to recruit a grocery to the neighborhood near the heart of downtown Columbia.

But the store became another victim of the Great Recession and was not making a profit, said Gilbert Walker, executive director of the Columbia Housing Authority.

“The grocery store business is a tough business, especially when you don’t have a name brand,” Walker said.

Well then, perhaps it was a bad idea to open one?

I don't want to sound too testy here, so let me be clear -- I'm sorry for the people who lost their jobs, and for the nearby residents who lost a grocery store -- that doesn't mean it was a good idea.

F-Stop Camera Shop positions themselves as one of the last local photo stores. I'm afraid I haven't managed to visit yet, but from their site, it appears that they are following in the legacy of Jackson Camera with developing and printing supplies for the film photographer, and in fact go beyond that with rentable darkroom space.

They moved to 1224 B Huger Street (at Geddes Street) back in August. That leaves this stretch of Harden Street pretty well vacant, which is a shame, but the way it goes sometime..

(Hat tip to commenter ChiefDanGeorge)

UPDATE 8 February 2022 -- The State reports that 936 Harden is to become The Flying Biscuit Cafe.

Also adding map icon.

I've written about this idiosyncratic little building behind the Five Points Food Lion before, when it stopped being Gilligan's (after having been Ribby's and a number of other places).

Probably only in Columbia could you call a place The Cock Lounge -- so the next owners did. I'm not sure how long The Cock Lounge lasted. I did the Gilligan's post on 14 December 2008. At the time, the Gilligan's signage was still up, but I did see a guy working on the building's roof, so the conversion may have already been in progress.

I finally noticed TCL was open and got some pictures on 15 April 2010. It was definitely open through 24 July 2010.

By 22 November though, all The Cock Lounge signage was down (except for the lolipop sign) and the beach mural had been painted over with the name of the new operation: Your Mom's House.

(And yes, I have restrained myself from making several name related jokes..)

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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.

1101 Harden Street was the address for PT's Cabaret, The Punch Line and Greenstreets as well as a gaggle of other businesses over the years including tax preparers, nightclubs, eateries, and military recruiters.

The building sat on the corner of Harden and Senate Streets (a corner I believe many people would be surprised exists..) across from Time Warner Cable and next to Food Lion. The ongoing demolition is supposed to result in a Cook Out restaurant being built, and although it was a separate address, the old Bob Andrews Motors building was also knocked down as part of the project.

Lots of pictures from three different days follow..

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This little fast food joint has been a fixture on the Northwest corner of Harden & Taylor Streets for years, and with its location across from both Allen and Benedict, it comes by the name College Corner honestly.

A Subway opened on the Southwest corner fairly recently, which may have put some pressure on it, though the food mix is not the same. I'm not sure if the place is gone for good, or will be coming back after an uplift. Some work is going on for sure, and not all the fixtures have been removed.

UPDATE 21 Jan 2011 -- Open again:

UPDATE 2 December 2013 -- Closed again, for good. It's now Empire Grill:

The College Corner sign is still legible from Harden Street, but sort of painted over from Taylor Street