Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

From The State:

Developer Alan Kahn blames the economy. Three of the Northeast Richland center’s large retailers filed for bankruptcy protection recently and some of its 118 tenants have been slow to pay rent, he said.

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Those three are Sofa Express, Ashley Furniture Homestore and Bi-Lo (which I never did a post on because it continued to operate during bankruptcy).

Well, as a man walking up to the closed doors said, "Another one bites the dust." In fact, as I went to take these pictures, a number of customers dropped by to find the place closed. I heard one woman talking to a friend on her cellphone saying in effect, "They had the best salmon, but every time I came here, the portions were smaller". That may have been her imagination -- I've always heard that the actual cost of food ingredients is a very minor component of your restaurant bill.

At any rate, The Village Bistro apparently closed quite recently: The interior still looks ready to go, and their web site is still live for now. I never made it there, but it appears they had a pretty good menu. Most of the entrees are off my beaten track, but I could see lunching on the greek salad or Angus burger.

I'm not sure what this says about Sandhill. They also recently lost Shane's Rib Shack but that chain apparently has bigger problems. I walked around that part of the Village a bit, and Wild Wing appeared to be doing a good business, but of course Brixx is still closed for repairs, and it was past lunch time, so Which Wich they wasn't really available for comparison either.

UPDATE 10 March 2010 -- It seems the next step for a building already outfitted for a restaurant (if it doesn't become a Lizard's Thicket) is to become an Asian buffet or a Mexican restaurant. In this case we get La Fogata Mexican:

Well, this is unpleasant news:

Columbia Fire Department firefighters were dispatched at 11:09 p.m. to 486 Town Center Place, the location of Brixx Wood Fire Pizza, where a fire had spread up a flue from a pizza oven, Assistant Chief Aubrey Jenkins said.

Brixx is one of my regular after 10pm Tuesday night pizza hangouts (Pizzeria Uno on US-378 is the other), and it's pretty much a roll of the dice that put me at Uno on the 14th rather than enjoying the fun here. Luckily, nobody was hurt. I'm a bit surprised that the news story states that the fire was post closing -- Usually they don't close until midnight or 1am.

I think Brixx is a bit of a frustrating place in that they have a good concept and very attentive staff, but the food execution could be better. They have lots of different combos and some more unusual ingredients, but often when I get a custom pizza, the extra stuff on top is not hot, and the crust and sauce are acceptable, but not great. (Landolfi's at Pawleys Island is the best brick-oven pizza in SC, arguably the best pizza in SC period). Anyway, the sign on the door says closed until further notice, but I hope they come back soon and better than ever.

While I was in there once, one of the wait staff mentioned that the people living upstairs had been complaining about the noise at night -- I suppose that's the good old days now!

These pictures are not very good because at first there was a group of men standing under the front awning with clipboards making some sort of assesment of the situation and I didn't want to just walk up and stick my camera under their noses, snapping away. After that, it started to rain, and I had to stand under an awning at Which Wich. There were some sort of hoses running to the upstairs apartments, but given my angle you can't see them.

UPDATE 20 July 2009: OK, some more pictures, a bit closer:

UPDATE 21 December 2011:

Well, Brixx is closed again, this time for good. I had not been there too much lately because my situation had changed, and I could get to some closer places that closed earlier. However, I did make it there several times after they re-opened, with the last time being on Sunday 11 December 2011. It still wasn't my favorite pizza in town, but a perfectly acceptable one, and my toppings were all nice and hot the times I got back there recently. The waitresses were always good about keeping the tea refills coming too.

I don't know what this says about the Village at Sandhill except that it can't be good news for them as they have taken several hits in 2011 including Talbots, Corked, AAA and La Fogata.

(Hat tip to commenter Sidney)

I was out at Sandhill today -- the first time I had been there during the daytime for quite a while. I took the opportunity after having coffee and a snack at Panera to walk a circuit of the place (except for the Bi-Lo wing) and see how things were going (and get a bit of much needed exercise). There are quite a few empty storefronts, but most (that I haven't already done closings for) seem to have been never occupied rather than closed. Shane's Rib Shack is the exception. I'd say its closing is pretty recent because all the branding, fixtures and decor are still in place. Of course, given that the Beltline location closed recently, I suppose I'm not really surprised this one has gone as well.

UPDATE 8 Sept 2010 -- well it's now an Al Amir bringing that local chain back to the Northeast & Clemson Road:

OK, I'm not entirely sure what happened here (housing market crash related perhaps?), but it has the earmarks of being a big mess both for customers and the new owners, who have apparently put themselves in the unenviable position of running a store under the same name while having to explain to customers how they have no connection with the previous owners nor any responsibility to make customers whole vis-a-vis their dealings with same. I give them points for apparently making a good faith effort in that regard though. And where does this other company TRS fit into the picture?

I believe this is the third store on the highly visible left-front side of Sandhills to have something bad happen to it after The Atlanta Bread Company and Sofa Express.

UPDATE:

On the night of Saturday 25 Oct 2008 on my way back from Red Robin, I saw a new sign on Ashley. It was an official notice from the Sherrif or a Magistrate to the effect that Ashley either had to pay their rent or show cause why they shouldn't be evicted. I didn't have my camera with me, and on Sunday the 26th, it was gone

UPDATE 12 April 2010: Added full street address to post title.

UPDATE 21 May 2010 -- Apparently this place will become a Gold's Gym. I had previously reported that the Gold's would be going into the neighboring former Sofa Express location, but that seems to be a temporary presale operation only, with the actual gym going here:

UPDATE 14 July 2010: The Gold's Gym setup is done, and the temporary gym/presale in the old Sofa Express building is closed, with the new gym now running in this building.

UPDATE 25 April 2018 -- Ashley has returned to Sandhill, in the former H. H. Gregg location at 230 Forum Drive:

I like The Italian Pie, though I have only eaten at their Forest Drive location. My only problem with that place is their initial violation of Ted's Rules for Restaurants #1": Honor Your Posted Hours.

For a while they were open until 10:30pm Thurs-Sat and I got there at 9:30 to hear the dreaded: "Well, we weren't very busy, so we closed the kitchen". After that, they took down their posted closing hours, and I can generally only get there for lunch now.

I don't know much about the Sandhill location. Since Forest Drive is so much closer, I never made it out there for a meal. I did read in The State a while back that they were reducing their open hours, is Signs Your Favorite Restaurant is About to Close #1. Apparently after that, they reduced their open hours down to zero.

Judging from the salt shakers still on the tables, the end probably came fairly quickly. It looks like a French-ish (I add the "ish" because of the "Pepe Le Pew" spellings on their sign) place is to open there soon. Perhaps they can open before the new Panera Bread, which seems to have been in the offing for a lot longer than necessary now. Maybe they're looking for salt shakers...

Here's the thing. If you're going to call yourself The Grilled Cheese Company, you ought to have really great grilled cheese sandwiches.

I was feeling pretty low last year with a bad cold (which wasn't getting any better as in the end it turned out to be a sinus infection and to need antibiotics..), and I wanted some comfort food. A good grilled cheese sandwich sounded like it would really fill the bill, so I went out to Sandhill.

I guess what I was subconsciously expecting was some sort of deluxe affair with two or three kinds of cheese grilled between Texas toast. What I got was apparently a Kraft Processed American Cheese Food single between two slices of Sunbeam, and it was a considerable disappointment in a day that was already not going well.

Read whatever you'd like into my judgement given my general maliase and grumpiness that day, but I see the place is now gone, so I'm thinking that even if everyone else liked what they got, they also realized they could do the exact same thing at home with the ingredients they already had.

Antibiotics on the other hand, are great.

UPDATE 15 May 2010: Added full street address, tags.

UPDATE 25 February 2014 -- It's now a kids' gym, My Gym:

UPDATE 10 March 2021: Adding map icon.

Well, this one is still open, but it's going soon!

I've always thought of The Sharper Image as sort of a store for people who have too much money (which doesn't mean I haven't lusted after some of their tecno-porn myself!). Given however, that their entire stock is 'nonessentials', I suppose it's not surprising that they would be hurting in an economic downturn.

I'm starting to wonder a bit about Sandhills itself. This is the third Sandhills closing I've blogged, and the place isn't that old. There also seem to be a lot of never-occupied storefronts out there. Now they still well be ramping up, and the place doesn't seem to lack for shoppers, but it makes me wonder..

UPDATE 16 May 2010: Added full stree address,tags.

The Movies at Polo opened and closed while I was living in Aiken. I can't recall specifically that I ever saw a show there, though I was in town more weekends than not. I think this place is another example of Pat Berman's underfannied theory of the Columbia movie market. There are simply not enough fannies-on-seats week-in-and-week out in Columbia to support the number of theaters we used to have. Of course in this case, it probably didn't help either that a new theater was in the offing at the nearby Village at Sandhills, though I'm pretty sure The Movies at Polo gave up the ghost before that multiplex opened.

Unlike the Capiton Centre Theatre we can't see with any specificity which movies actually closed this operation, but there has been no lack of bombs in recent years. I like to think it was Son of the Mask.

At any rate, we can see that, as usual, it wasn't a shortage of parking that did the place in:

For restaurant buildings, the last stage is the "Asian Buffet" stage. For other retail space, the last stage is the "Self Storage" stage:

As an aside, The Movies at Polo was actually a rather misleading name, as the place is not that close to Polo Road. The Movies Near Sesqui would have been better.

UPDATE 11 September 2011 -- As mentioned in the comments, there has long been a sign indicating that a funeral home is coming to the property. In fact, the sign has been there long enough that it seems unlikely now. I guess there might be enough room in the old parking lot for such an establishment and its own associated parking, but it would seem rather crowded. The self-storage place mentioned above has been open in the old theater building, and several adjacent new buildings for a good while now.

Also, as indicated in the comments, commenter Andrew has pinned the closing date for this place as July 2005, so I have updated the post title to indicate that. Also added the full street address.

UPDATE 27 February 2014 -- Well, I'm not entirely sure what happened here. I always wondered how Shive's could possibly build a funeral home on this site given that Monster had the old theater building, leaving only the old parking lot open -- and funeral homes need lots of parking for visitation and organizing the funeral processions. At any rate, the sign proclaiming this as the new Shive's site sat there for years with no action, and it has finally been replaced with one saying that the new funeral home will be built on Trenholm Road Extension instead (but Monster's sign still welcomes Shive's..)

UPDATE 21 April 2014 -- Just for the record, Shive's has broken ground on Trenholm Road Extension & Dawson Road now:

UPDATE 7 June 2016 -- Either vandals, the wind or the property owner have done a number on the old sign:

UPDATE 22 March 2017 -- I see the parking lot has finally been sold:

I think this is the first post I've written about a place where the doors are still open, but the writing is definitely on the wall for Sofa Express: Literally. And the writing says things like "Chapter 11 Bankruptcy" and "Store Closing Forever".

I'm not sure if this says anything about The Village At Sandhills, but this is the second place out there that I've seen close. On the other hand, the time you are most likely to get a new sofa is when you buy a new house, so it's more likely related to the housing market than Sandhills itself.

UPDATE 10 March 2010 -- Well, after being a "Haloween" store on a temporary basis, it looks like the long-term future for this space will be as another Gold's Gym:

(also added full street address to post title).

UPDATE 21 May 2010 -- Looks like this location is being used by Gold's for presale only. The actual gym will be in the neighboring former Ashley Furniture Homestore location

UPDATE 14 July 2010: Well, the presale (and temporary gym) is closed. The new Gold's in the former Ashley building is completely set up and running now, and this building is again empty.

UPDATE 25 April 2018 -- This location is now Value City Furniture: