Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

At one time this corner storefrong in Capitol Centre was one of my favorite restaurants Cucos Mexican Cafe. I believe it's been more since then than the two businesses I currently have on the post title, C & V's Sports Cafe and Elements, but that's all that google is coming up with for me now.

Anyway, I noticed on my last drive through that it is empty again, and is due shortly to become a Bingo hall.

This little sandwich shop is attached to a convenience store / gas station on the West side of US-1 heading into Lexington. I had driven past it a number of times in the previous months, but had never really seen it. This time, when I stopped at the store, I noticed that it was there, and that it was closed. What reviews I see online are positive, and indicate it was open at least into June of 2013.

Old:

New:

Starbucks has now moved from its original Woodhill location by Panera Bread down to the corner formerly occupied by Qdoba.

The new location gives it a drive through window, but perhaps more importantly in my view, moves it away from Panera. It has never made much sense to me to have a coffee and pastry shop located... right next to a shop that sells better coffee and pastries in a more comfortable setting. Without the drive-through all they had going for them was staying open a little later.

UPDATE 30 November 2021: Updating tags and adding map icon.

Pie-Tanza was in the little shopping center on Polo Road at the light where Mallet Hill Road starts. The area has certainly changed from my high school days when there was nothing in that particular area except stables and the eponymous polo fields. Now there is a gas station convenience store, contract Post Office, liquor store and 24 hour gym, and the currently empty restaurant slot.

I'm afraid I wasn't as impressed with Pie-Tanza as some of the commenters in Have Your Say. Basically, I had three issues with the place.

First, they had a very nice garlic bread appitizer item, except they never actually had it -- there were three or so times I took the trouble to go out that way rather than one of my usual pizza "go-to" places just on the basis of that, and then would not be able to get it. You would expect that they could white-board a substitute basic garlic bread, but that never happened either.

Second, it was very expensive -- noticably more so than the competition, and I felt the pizza was pretty average, despite the supposed superiority of "wood fired" ovens. I remeber looking at the lunch menu too and thinking that the Italian Sausage sandwich looked good, but I could never be comfortable paying that much for one.

Third, there was no water pressure in the bathroom. It was like trying to wash your hands under a thin stream of drool.

Now, looking at the closing sign, I suspect the first two were due to this being the South Carolina location of a Virgina chain (which I did not not before reading that). The expense was the result of trying to import DC Metro prices into Columbia, and the availability of chain specialties was probably beyond the control of local management.

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There are a lot of "House Of Pizza" restaurants around, but I'm not sure if it's a chain of some sort, or just a common name choice. Usually though I see them with a (smaller) town name like "Pontiac House of Pizza", "Camden House of Pizza" etc and not an owner's name like this small storefront at the corner of Clemson and Hardscrabble Roads. This was always on my "to try" list, but as it was so far from where I normally am, I never got around to it in time.

I've blogged several places in this strip, The Crossings, including Food Lion and Blockbuster. They still have not managed to fill the anchor Food Lion space.

Art gallery, coffee house and dessert venue, Nonnah's has moved almost directly across the street from it's original Gervais Street location at 930, to 923 Gervais. Somehow I never became a regular at this place. I guess in part that's because I want it to be Kaminsky's and it's not. Every time I've stopped there, it has seemed very cake-oriented to me, and I want pie, cheesecake, tiramisu, mousse and creme brule..

Here is the new location:

Anyone know what this restaurant in Greenview Plaza on North Main at Wilkes Road was? The plaza marquee isn't any help, and I'm not getting any definitive google hits on the address + suite numbers. (There is another restaurant/club in the plaza, which doesn't help).

UPDATE 1 April 2014 -- Based on commenter badger's ID (and picture, see the comments..) I have changing the post title from "Restaurant" to "Bert's Grill & Diner".

Here's a vacant storefront in Magnolia Pointe at the corner of Clemson & Hardscrabble Roads. To me the most notable thing is that they were open for breakfast, which is unusual for a seafood restaurant.

I'm unable to find a phonebook listing for this place, but don't recall noticing it on my last drive-through, so I'm guessing it closed within the last few years.

When Wendy's first arrived in Columbia (at two notch in Dentsville), it was one of my favorite places. You could place your order, pay, and pick up a, good, customized, burger almost without slowing down. Of course, I was only about 12 then, so my tastes were bound to change, and anyway the stores seemed to get slower and slower as the years went on. So it is that I believe the most recent Wendy's burger I've had was about five years ago on a trip to Aiken.

Still, even though I wasn't stopping in, I've always been surprised to see the stores close, first on Two Notch, then at the beach, and now here on Beltline by Richland Mall. They did a very fast tear-down of this store to include signage, order boards and drive-through menus. Looks like the register is still booted though..

(Hat tips to commenter Chris & my sister)

UPDATE 26 March 2014 -- Some daylight pix:

T-Bones (no relation to Tbonz) was in Murrells Inlet on the US-17 bypass almost directly across the street from the old Rosa Linda's South.

I only ate at T-Bones once that I can recall, and that would have been not too many years after they opened in 1988. I had a burger, and it was pretty good.

I'm not sure why I never went back -- perhaps because there were closer options for burgers, and because I have a general list of favorites I try to hit when I'm at the beach. At any rate, though I didn't stop again, I often admired the best slogan on the beach as I was driving by, though I would have used a colon instead of a comma.

I noticed this weekend that the place was closed, and the realty sign suggested it was not an entirely voluntary state, which the article linked above confirms. Of course it would seem so far that closing it didn't actually help the bank that much..

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