Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I'm not exactly sure when this restaurant on Decker just South of Faraway Drive closed since it never really caught my attention until I noticed the ongoing work there. It appears that it will be re-opened as a bar, or at least as a place with an ABC permit. With the applicant's name being Seductive LLC, it might even be a strip club though presumably that would put paid to all the front window space.

Decker Park Road connects Decker Boulevard with the unpaved Kneece Road (which itself connects Brookfield Road and O'Neil Court).

There's not a whole lot on Decker Park: side access to the Food Lion plaza, a U-Haul self-storage operation, a small recording studio, and a hair salon.

For many years however, this was the home of the German Gasthaus restaurant. Aside from maybe Mr. Dunderbanks in the mall, this was the only German restaurant in Columbia that I knew of. I'm afraid my only trip to Germany didn't lead me to seek out German food at home (we were working something like 19/7 and all I recall is limp bacon, almost as if it had been boiled, at the hotel buffet), and I never made it here. I believe the place burned down in the mid 2000s, and was never re-opened .

Well, this closing lets me exercise the Cent (¢) sign we discussed just yesterday!

You can't fault this place for locking themselves into anything -- as long as they had one item in the store that was less than a dollar, they were within their operating parameters. Apparently it didn't help. Decker Center is one of a number of little strip malls down the west side of Decker Boulevard, many nowdays run by immigrants -- Decker, in fact, is designated as Columbia's "International Corridor".

According to this PDF 99 Cents had a 2010 business license, but I'm going to say it didn't make it too far into 2010, because I've been noticing the empty storefront for a while now.

Does anyone remember if this is the strip mall that had Columbia's first CD store?

This smallish building on a Two Notch side Columbia Mall outparcel was obviously once a bank. I really like the design, especially the endpiece which sits closest to Two Notch, and which looks like a grooved VHS cassette stood up against the rest of the building. It's just a nice little grace note that gives the building a certain retro aesthetic (it was supposedly built in 1967 which would predate the mall itself by around ten years).

WIllis Chiro Med was in the building for a number of years, something I would vaguely notice driving by. I'm not exactly sure when they closed, but given that they are listed in the current 2011 phonebook, it must have been well into 2010.

The State:

Richland County plans to buy a strip mall on Decker Boulevard and relocate yet-to-be-determined offices there as a way to address a cramped courthouse and administrative offices.

This, of course, is the former home of Kroger Sav-On, Land of Oz, Little China Buffet, Richway/Gold Circle/Target, Flipside and many other things over the years.

Here's another Columbia Mall closing. This is the first time I've been in the mall since Tumbleweeds and it actually felt a little livelier this time though I still see about the same number of shuttered shops. I guess this one, apparently a custom gift and embroidery shop, will be one more.

(Hat tip to commenter Dustin)

Well, that didn't last too long, unfortunately. Gabby's replaced the former Cici's Pizza sometime in the summer of 2010, and according to the legal papers now posted on the door must have closed before 5 Jan 2011.

I never made it to Gabby's but I was hoping that with its launch, the city was at up-one after CiCi's moved to North Main. In the event however, it seems that the net effect is that the city used tax dollars to lure Cici's to a subsidized location and left privately owned Fashion Place in the lurch (and undercut the city's own Decker Corridor efforts).

I've written about this building before since it was once "that building that looks like a car radio" and make the "Sounds Real Good!" commercial.

I'm not sure if Cash-N-Dash was the immediate next tenant in the building after Continental Sound, but I think they were. Sadly, they un-radioized the building though you can still see signs of the old design (the stars were the knobs, and the windows were the radio tuner readouts, I think).

I'm not exactly sure when this place closed shop, but I'm pretty sure they dashed sometime this summer.

I'm not sure exactly when this store, in Dentsville across from Columbia mall, and near the Two Notch / Decker intersection closed, but it is still listed in this years phonebook.

The motto, "Furniture, flooring and more" seems rather ambitious for what is a pretty small storefront. They must have had a warehouse somewhere to support everything shown here in this archived version of their website from 2008. This area of Two Notch is still struggling. I'd like to see something go in there, but I have to say that since there's no light, it's not well situated for traffic heading towards town.

UPDATE 28 Sep 2010: Added "Color Tile" to the post title based on the comments.

UPDATE 22 March 2011 -- It's now a "Cheapo" grocery:

I only went into Superpetz a few times. I'm pretty sure I got pigs ears for my sister's dogs there once, and think I was in there one other time, though I can't remember what for. The place was kind of a Wal Mart for pet paraphernalia, with the non-WalMart touch that you could actually take your pets inside with you.

According to the chain's web site, this was the only Columbia store, which makes me suspect issues with the chain as a whole rather than the standard "things don't do well on Decker" issue. This closing is a further blow to the Fashion Place plaza which housed Superpetz, although it did recently make good the Cici's Pizza vacancy with the opening of Gabby's Pizza in that spot.

(Hat tip to commenter Matt)

UPDATE 8 Oct 2010: Added Phar-Mor to the post title based on the comments.

UPDATE 10 September 2011 -- It appears that Goodwill will be moving across the plaza from its current location in back to this location: